An apostille is a certificate issued by a designated government authority. It confirms that a public document's signature, seal, and issuing official are legitimate so a foreign country accepts the document without requiring embassy involvement.

The word comes from French. It means "notation." The certificate format was established by the Hague Convention of October 5, 1961.

An apostille confirms the origin of a document. It does not confirm the content.

When Global Affairs Canada issues an apostille on a birth certificate, it is stating: this signature is genuine, this seal belongs to this authority, this official had the capacity to issue this document. It is not saying the information inside the certificate is accurate. The receiving institution still assesses the content on its own.

This distinction matters practically. A fraudulent birth certificate with a genuine apostille is still fraudulent. The apostille only covers the authenticity of the signature.

In Canada, the apostille takes the form of an allonge, a separate certificate page securely attached to the front of the document. Depending on the issuing authority, attachment is done by riveting, hole-punching, or a similar fastening method. It is not a stamp on the document itself.

The allonge is printed in both English and French. This is the Convention standard. You do not need to translate the apostille certificate even if your destination country uses a different language. The underlying document may still need translation but the apostille itself does not.

Under Article 1 of the Convention, public documents include:

• Documents from courts and tribunals (judgments, certificates, court orders)
• Administrative documents (vital statistics, corporate records, government licences)
• Notarial acts
• Official certificates placed on privately signed documents (such as a notary's certification of a signature)

A purely private document an unsigned contract, a personal letter does not qualify on its own. It must first be notarized, at which point the notary's signature becomes the element the authority can verify.

One firm boundary

Only Canadian documents can be apostilled in Canada. A foreign document must go back to the country that issued it for apostille through that country's own authority.