Attestation

The UAE Embassy in London has transitioned to a digital attestation service for UK documents intended for use in the United Arab Emirates. This change, effective from late February 2025, replaces traditional ink stamps and stickers with a digitally attested PDF document.

Key Points of the New Digital Attestation Process:

UK Apostille Requirement:

Before submitting to the UAE Embassy, ensure your document has a UK apostille from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

We send your document, bearing the UK apostille, to the UAE Embassy.

We are currently experiencing long delays with documents that are being submitted to the Chinese Embassy for attestation and legalisation. The latest information we have from the embassy is that documents will take at least 8 weeks to be legalised.

Unfortunately, this is something affecting all legalisation services and is not unique to us. There is no fast track, no way of expediting urgent orders.

Why is there a delay?

Due to the recent Coronavirus outbreak in China we are expecting clients receiving and sending documents in the area to experience delays with the arrival of shipments. As some areas have been placed into quarantine and with travel restrictions widely in place this is affecting all forms of transport from air cargo to road transport and sea freight.

As of the 8th of November 2019, the process for legalising UK documents for use in China will be changing. Applications will now be submitted to the Chinese embassy via a Chinese Visa Application Service Centre in either London, Manchester or Edinburgh.

The visa centres have been introduced to reduce the administrative burden on the embassy by handling submitted applications. The embassy will still ultimately be issuing the attestation stamps to documents and will still be in charge of decision-making with respect to the eligibility of documents for legalisation.

The Apostille convention will enter into force in the Philippines from 14th May 2019. This means the Philippines are the 117th party to agree to the convention which shows the increasing endorsement for the apostille legalisation process.

It is likely to take a number of months before the authorities in the Philippines will stop requesting embassy attestation as they adjust and alter their regulations. To accommodate this adjustment period the embassy should still provide attestation of documents before the service is stopped completely.

There are various terms used to refer to the process of legalising a document from one country in order to be recognised in another country. You may have been asked for your document to be notarised, authenticated, legalised, attested or issued with the apostille.

This can be confusing as different authorities use different terms that, more often than not, refer to the same process. We are frequently asked what the difference is between legalisation and the apostille.

We are pleased to assist with legalising documents for use in the United Arab Emirates. The process of legalising documents for the UAE is also known as attestation and requires a number of steps to be completed.

Finding the correct process to legalise a document from one country for use in another can seem like a daunting process. Fortunately, the Hague Apostille convention has simplified this process considerably for many countries. The Apostille is all that is required when presenting a document in a country that is a member of the Hague Apostille convention.