They must be official, originals or compared copies, and they must be duly legalized and translated, if necessary.

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

All the documents added to the procedure must be official, issued by the competent authorities, in accordance with legal regulations in the country of origin.

LEGALISATION OF DOCUMENTS ISSUED IN THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

a) General information (summarized):

1. No legalisation required for the documents issued by the authorities of member states of the European Union or signatories to the European Economic Area agreement or countries with bilateral agreements with the European Union.
2. For the documents issued in countries that have ratified The Hague Convention of 5th October 1961 the legalization or “apostille” issued by the competent authorities in the country of origin is sufficient.

IMPORTANT NOTE: On 12 February 2008, Spain has withdrawn the objection in accordance with article 12, paragraph 2, of the Convention. Therefore, the Convention has entered into force between Spain and India on 12 February 2008.
You can find this information at the web page of the Convention.

3. For those documents issued in countries that ratified the Andres Bello agreement, they must be submitted with diplomatic legalisation in the following places:

- Ministry for Education of the country of origin for all academic documents and appropriate Ministry for birth and nationality documents.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country where were issued the above mentioned documents.
- Spanish diplomatic or consular representative of the above mentioned country.

For the countries that have ratified The Hague Convention, the established procedure by this Convention could be used (which an easier procedure).

4. For those documents issued by the rest of countries, they must be submitted with diplomatic legalization in the following places:

- Ministry for Education of the country of origin for all academic documents and appropriate Ministry for birth and nationality documents.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country where were issued the above mentioned documents.
- Spanish diplomatic or consular representative of the above mentioned country.

5. The documents issued by the diplomatic or consular representative of other countries in Spain must be legalized in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

b) Detailed information:

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TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENTS ISSUED IN THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

a) General information (summarized):

The article 36.1 of Law 30/1992 issued the 26th of November regulating the Judicial Regime of Public Administrations and the Common Administrative Procedures indicates that the language of all procedures handled by the General State Administration will be the Spanish or the co-official language in the Autonoms Community.

As a result of that, the regulations of these procedures require an official Spanish translation accompanying all those documents issued abroad. If documents are issued in English, translation is not essential.

This official translation could be made in:

1. By a sworn translator, duly authorised or registered in Spain.
2. By any Spanish diplomatic or consular representative of the above mentioned country
3. By the diplomatic or consular representation in Spain of the country of citizenship, or of the country that issued the document, when applicable.

When the original document is written in a different alphabet than the occidental one, it is recommended, whenever possible, that the translation shows the name of the title in its original language, but transcribed into the occidental alphabet, and not a translation of the name.

b) Detailed information:

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AUTHENTICATED COPIES

The interested person will also submit originals and photocopies of all documents to the Registration Office where the application is submitted.

Once they have been verified the original will be returned to the person concerned. The copies will be authenticated by an accreditation stamp and will be added to the request. If the photocopies are already certified and legalized before a notary or a Spanish diplomatic or consular representative in the country where the documents were issued, the originals need not be submitted with them.

Once the procedure has finished, any document submitted will not be returned to the person interested, only in exceptional case of original documents and where their return is possible and appropriate.

VALIDATIONS OF DOCUMENTS

In the event of any doubt about the authenticity, validity or content of the documents submitted, the competent body will undertake all necessary procedures to verify the validity of the documents, including direct contact with the issuing authority to clarify the resulting doubts.