Apostille - public documents for use abroad

Both Ireland and Germany signed the “Hague Convention of 05.10.1961 on the Exemption of Foreign Documents from Legalization”. In order to use documents of the other country in legal transactions, it may be necessary to obtain a so-called Hague Apostille. An exception exists for civil status documents, see below. By issuing the Hague Apostille, the issuing state confirms the authenticity of the corresponding public document. This confirmation does not include a check of the correctness of the content.

Please note that the Embassy cannot apostille documents of any kind.

If German documents are to be presented to an Irish authority/court, the Hague Apostille is issued in Germany by the following authorities:

For documents of Federal authorities and Federal courts by:

Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (BfAA)

(*Exception: The Federal Patent and Trademark Office itself issues the apostille for its documents)

For documents issued by authorities and courts of the German Federal States:

Since the jurisdiction differs in the German Federal States, it is recommended to contact the authority, which issued the document to get information on who can issue the “Hague Apostille”.

For Irish documents:

If Irish documents are to be presented to a German authority / court, the Hague Apostille is issued in Ireland by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.

Further information about the procedure can be obtained directly from this Office.

For civil status documents (birth, marriage and death certificates), the EU Apostille Regulation applies:

As of Feb. 16, 2019, the regulation (EU) 2016/1191 (EU Apostille Regulation) exempts certain public documents issued in an EU member state (including birth, marriage and death certificates, certificate of life, marital status, residence) from legalization or apostille when presented in another member state. The issuing authority may attach a multilingual form to the document, which may make translation unnecessary. In Ireland, this form is called Multilingual Standard Form (MSF).