As of the 18th of January 2024, documents presented for legalisation using courier services will cease to be accepted.
Starting with the latter date documents will be accepted only directly at the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (further - Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Therefore, documents which will have been presented via courier services or otherwise from the latter date (regardless the respective document send-out date), will neither be considered nor legalised accordingly. For such shipment retrieval applicants are therefore asked to collect their respective documents either in person at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or using courier of applicant’s order.
Documents for legalisation when presented via courier will be admitted at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs only in cases of their presentation via diplomatic representations and consular posts of the Republic of Lithuania as well when submitted by courts, prosecutor’s offices and pre-trial investigation bodies, as established by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania at the 30th October 2006 resolution No 1079 in regard of "The establishment of the guidance concerning the procedure of document legalisation and approval certificate (Apostille)", in points 10 and 11 thereof.
The process of issuance of Apostille has commenced in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan with effect from 17 May 2024. Additional legalisation of documents issued by Pakistan is not required at the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania.
For document presentation you have to book an appointment time registering for the document legalisation service.
Please be informed that additional confirmation of your reservation is required.
Applicants’ admission times:
- For document presentation: Monday to Friday 9am–12pm
- For document collection: Monday to Friday 2pm–3pm
Documents for legalisation are to be submitted directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Documents may be presented either in person or via your representative (proof of representation is not required).
When submitting documents for legalisation, following elements are to be included:
- the document (original or a notarised copy [in case of documents originating from Lithuania]) to be legalised;
- during a single visit, when representing another person, no more than 3 documents can be submitted for legalization. When submitting documents in person, no more than 5 documents belonging to the individual can be submitted for legalization. To prevent artificial reservation of visit times, automated registrations, and other system abuses, software measures are applied to limit the maximum number of possible registrations;
- valid passport or other identity document of the person submitting the document for legalisation;
- a free-form request (an application letter including following information: country in which the legalised document is to be submitted and applicant’s contact details (e-mail address and telephone No);
- consular fee for legalisation of one document - 20 EUR. Payment is payable using applicant’s banking card.
Upon legalisation of documents the applicant is notified using contact data from respective request / free form application letter as laid-out above.
Legalisation of documents allows official documents originating from one country to be recognized when presented in another country.
Legalisation of document is a verification of the signature, the position of the signatory and the stamp in the document in cases of bearing the stamp applied on the document. Legalisation of document is carried out by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic representations or consular posts of the Republic of Lithuania.
IMPORTANT! Lithuania‘s MFA and Lithuania‘s Consular Offices require additional attestation for documents provided from certain countries. In such cases, before providing these documents to the Lithuanian MFA or Consular Offices they need to be additionally attested in the diplomatic missions, which are accredited to Lithuania:
- Algeria, Qatar, Iran – at the respective countries‘ diplomatic missions in Poland
- United Arab Emirates – at the diplomatic mission of UAE in Latvia
- Egypt, Nepal, Côte d‘Ivoire – at the respective countries‘ diplomatic missions in Denmark
- Sri Lanka – at the diplomatic mission of Sri Lanka in Sweden
- Kuwait - at the diplomatic mission of Kuwait in the Federal Republic of Germany
(For contact information follow the link Find us abroad | Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania (urm.lt))
Following official documents are legalisable:
- Issued by government or municipal institutions or officials, also by prosecutor, court official or person implementing court decisions
- Administrative documents
- Notarial acts
- Official confirmations of documents signed by natural persons
- Notarial transcripts of official documents
Documents have to be orderly and readable. If the document consists of few pages, they have to be affixed or sewn together.
Each document is approved separately (e. g. diploma and its appendix are two (2) separate documents).
Due to the extremely high number of people waiting to register for a visit, we kindly ask you to cancel the visit if you are unable to attend. If you do not show up for a visit and do not cancel it 24 hours before the start of the visit, you will not be allowed to register for another visit for 30 calendar days.
IMPORTANT! Documents issued before 11 of March of 1990 with symbols of Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic are not legalisable. The latter documents must be presented in their renewed contemporary issue.
Legalisation of documents is not required when the documents are drawn up and / or issued by diplomatic representations or consular posts of foreign states resident in the Republic of Lithuania.
In case you did not get an answer to your question, please fill out the e-inquiry form.
