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Legalisation and Authentication

When a Danish document has to be used abroad, it often has to be legalised in Denmark first. Documents have to be legalised in The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark before The Danish Embassy can attest it.

What is Legalisation?

Legalisation is a confirmation that the signature on a document is genuine. The actual legalisation process consists of a stamp (Apostille) and a signature. Legalisation does not have anything to do with the contents of a document.

The legalisation procedure for Danish documents:

1. Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2. Ireland's embassy in Copenhagen (Address: Østbanegade 21, 2100 København K. Phone: 0045 35 47 32 00)

3. Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ireland

If your documents have been attested by The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark and Ireland's Embassy in Copenhagen, you can bring your documents directly to The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ireland.

The Legalisation procedure

Since 01.01.2007, most documents only need to undergo one single legalisation process at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is thus no longer necessary, for example, to have a civil marriage certificate legalised at the Ministry of the Interior or a diploma legalised at the Ministry of Education prior to legalisation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Certain documents require more legalisation processes. There are, however, exceptions to the new, simplified legalisation procedure, see information about private documents (e.g. powers of attorney), export documents, and countries outside the Apostille Convention.

Documents attested by The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ireland

The Embassy can attest all documents attested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ireland.  

Original signature

The document must bear an original signature of the authority that has issued it in order for it to be legalised. If the signature can be accepted, the document is legalised by means of a stamp and a signature.

Maximum 3 months

In some cases documents may be a maximum of 3 months old at the time of legalisation. This applies, for example, to birth and baptism certificates, church marriage certificates, printouts from the national register, and extracts from police records. However, marriage certificates from civil weddings may well be older than 3 months at the time of the legalisation.

For further information please visit the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs' website on legalisation.