Does a foreign-issued document need Indian embassy attestation?

One thing I'd be careful about is assuming that every foreign-issued document follows exactly the same procedure.

For example, there can be a difference between:

• a foreign public document;
• a notarized document;
• an educational certificate;
• a commercial document; and
• a document that has already been apostilled.

If your Canadian marriage certificate has already received a valid Canadian apostille, the general Hague Convention principle is that another legalization by the Indian Mission should not normally be necessary merely because you're using it in India.

However, the organization or government department receiving the document may have additional procedural requirements unrelated to legalization. They could ask for a certified translation, a particular type of copy, or other supporting documents.

I'd also avoid relying on an old forum answer because apostille procedures and document requirements can change.

The Indian Consular Services portal is mainly for consular services provided by Indian Missions/Posts abroad. Whether a particular Mission offers a particular attestation service depends on the service and jurisdiction.

For your situation, I'd keep the Canadian apostille certificate attached to the original document and show both to the Indian authority if requested.

I’m in the UK and had this confusion with a UK-issued document.

From what I found, the important question is whether the country that issued the document is part of the Hague Apostille Convention and whether the document has been properly apostilled by the competent authority there.

I was initially told by someone to get an Indian Embassy stamp as well, but I couldn't find a general rule saying that every foreign document must be both apostilled and attested by the Indian Mission.

The MEA information was actually useful here. The guidance says that the Hague Apostille Convention removes the requirement for further legalization of an apostilled foreign public document for use in another member country. India is a member of the Convention.

So if you're dealing with a properly apostilled Canadian public document, I wouldn't automatically pay for another Indian Consulate attestation without checking first.

There can still be document-specific requirements. For example, a university certificate may have different authentication requirements from a birth or marriage certificate.

Also, some people use “attestation” as a general term for several different processes. That can make these discussions unnecessarily confusing.

I'd get the Indian department to confirm the exact wording they require before doing anything further.

I had a similar situation with a Canadian birth certificate when I was dealing with documentation in India.

The main thing I learned was not to automatically assume that an Indian Consulate attestation is required just because the document is going to be used in India.

My certificate was issued in Canada, so I dealt with the Canadian authentication/apostille process rather than trying to get the Indian Consulate to authenticate the underlying Canadian document.

I originally thought the process would be:

Canadian certificate → Canadian authentication → Indian Consulate attestation → India.

But after checking the requirements, I understood that an apostilled document from a Hague Convention country is generally intended to be accepted in another Hague Convention country without an additional legalization step.

That said, I would still check the exact requirement of the Indian department receiving your document. In my case, the receiving office had its own document checklist and I wanted confirmation before sending the original.

Also, make sure you're dealing with the original or the type of certified copy accepted for apostille. A photocopy and an original certificate are not necessarily treated the same way.

So I would first ask the Indian authority whether they specifically require an apostille and whether they have any additional document-specific requirements.