UA-Residency is a private law practice, not a government body, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Government of Ukraine. Apostilles are affixed by the competent Ukrainian authorities. We prepare and submit the application and represent you before them. See our Terms and Conditions.
Apostille in Ukraine
If a document issued in Ukraine has to be used abroad, it almost always needs an apostille first. We identify the right competent authority, prepare the file, pay the state charge on your behalf and deliver the apostilled document to you, in Ukraine or anywhere else. From $150 per document.
ORDER AN APOSTILLEWhat an apostille is
An apostille is a standard certificate attached to a public document by the state that issued it, confirming that the signature, the capacity of the signatory and the seal on that document are genuine. It was created by the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, and it replaces the older, slower chain of consular legalisation. Ukraine has been a party to the Convention since 2003, so a Ukrainian document carrying an apostille is accepted in every other member state without any further certification.
What an apostille does not do is confirm that the content of the document is correct, or translate it. It certifies the origin of the paper, nothing more.
When you need one
- Applying for residence, citizenship or a visa in another country on the basis of a Ukrainian certificate.
- Registering a marriage, a divorce or a birth abroad.
- Having a Ukrainian diploma or academic transcript recognised by a foreign university or employer.
- Registering or running a company abroad using Ukrainian corporate documents or a power of attorney.
- Producing Ukrainian documents in a foreign court, bank, tax authority or pension fund.
When you do not
Ukraine has bilateral treaties on legal assistance, and is party to the Minsk Convention, under which documents are accepted without any apostille at all. That group includes Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Georgia, Moldova, Mongolia and Vietnam, among others. In those countries an apostille is usually unnecessary, and paying for one is money wasted. It is also worth checking first whether the receiving body will settle for a notarised copy. We tell you this before taking an instruction, not after.
Which Ukrainian authority apostilles which document
Ukraine does not have a single apostille office. Six competent authorities are designated, and sending a document to the wrong one is the most common reason an application comes back unprocessed.
| Competent authority | Documents it apostilles |
|---|---|
| Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and its territorial bodies | Court documents, documents of the state archival institutions, of the execution and probation bodies, civil status records such as birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates, and notarial documents including powers of attorney and notarised copies |
| Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine | Diplomas, certificates, transcripts and other documents issued by educational institutions and by bodies in the field of education and science |
| Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine | Documents issued by the Ministry and its territorial service centres, including criminal record certificates and driving documents |
| State Migration Service of Ukraine | Documents on migration, immigration and emigration, citizenship and refugee matters |
| State Tax Service of Ukraine | Documents issued by the tax authorities, including tax residency certificates |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine | All other official documents not covered above |
The rules that apply in 2026
The procedure was rewritten by Order of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine No. 3177/5 of 20 November 2025, which replaced the 2015 rules and entered into force on 1 February 2026. Three things in it matter to you.
- An Electronic Apostille Register. Apostilles are now affixed using the software of a central register that holds specimen signatures, seal impressions and public key certificates of the authorised officials. The practical effect is fewer formal refusals, and verification abroad that can be done against the register.
- Three working days. The apostille is affixed, or refused, within three working days counted from the day after the application is registered. That is the legal deadline, not a promise about queues, and it does not include the time needed to obtain the underlying document first.
- A state charge that is now indexed. From 1 January 2026 it is UAH 670 for an individual and UAH 1,160 for a legal entity, set as 0.2 and 0.35 of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons. If an application is refused, the charge is not refunded.
Electronic apostilles are currently available from the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were still issuing on paper at the time of writing, so the format you receive depends on which authority your document falls under.
Price
Apostille, per document
from $150
A single price covering our legal work, the state charge we pay on your behalf, and submission to the correct competent authority.
Commonly added
quoted
Obtaining a duplicate of a lost certificate from the registry or the archive, certified translation, notarial certification, and courier delivery. Each is quoted in writing before we start.
The price rises where the document does not yet exist and has to be recovered from a state archive first, where several documents are apostilled at once, or where the destination country requires an apostille on the translation as well as on the original. Tell us the country and the purpose and we will price the whole chain, not just the first step.
What we do
- We check whether you need an apostille at all, against the destination country and what the receiving body has actually asked for.
- We identify the competent authority for your document and check that the document itself is in a form that authority can apostille. Older certificates, laminated documents and certain Soviet-era forms have to be replaced with a modern duplicate first, and we obtain that where needed.
- We prepare and file the application, and pay the state charge on your behalf.
- We arrange translation and notarisation where the destination country requires the document in its own language, in the correct order, because doing it in the wrong order is what forces people to start again.
- We deliver the result to you: collection in Kyiv, Nova Poshta or Ukrposhta inside Ukraine, or DHL abroad. Courier charges are at the carrier’s cost.
Documents can be handled under a power of attorney, so you do not need to be in Ukraine, and in many cases you do not need to travel here at all.
Questions we are asked
How long does it really take?
The apostille itself is a three working day statutory deadline. The realistic total depends on what comes before it: if you already hold the original document in the right form, plan for about one week including delivery. If a duplicate has to be obtained from a registry office or a state archive first, that stage alone can take several weeks, and archives are slower again.
Can you apostille a document I do not have?
Often, yes. As a licensed Ukrainian attorney we can make lawyer’s requests to registry offices and state archives, which public bodies are obliged to answer, and obtain a duplicate in your name. This is the part of the work most people cannot do from abroad.
Does the translation need an apostille too?
It depends on the destination country. Some accept an apostille on the original plus a translation made locally. Others require the Ukrainian notarised translation to be apostilled as well, which is a second apostille on a second document. Tell us the country and we will confirm which chain applies before anything is paid for.
Is an apostille the same as a notarised translation?
No. An apostille makes a Ukrainian document usable abroad. A notarised translation makes a foreign document usable in Ukraine. They solve opposite problems and are often needed in the same matter.
Does an apostille expire?
The apostille itself has no expiry date. The document underneath it may: many countries will not accept a criminal record certificate or a civil status extract older than three or six months, so the timing of the whole chain matters more than people expect.
My document is for a country that is not in the Hague Convention. What then?
Then an apostille is not enough and the document goes through consular legalisation instead: certification by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine followed by the consulate of the destination country. It is slower and costs more. We handle it, and we will tell you at the outset which of the two routes your country requires.
Tell us the document and the destination country
CONTACT UA-RESIDENCYUA-Residency is the practice of Taras Guk, a licensed Ukrainian attorney in Kyiv. Apostilles are affixed by the competent Ukrainian authorities listed above, not by us, and we cannot guarantee that any particular application will be granted. You may apply to those authorities yourself and pay only the state charge. State charges, statutory deadlines and the list of competent authorities are set by Ukrainian law and may change without notice. Prices on this page are starting prices and the binding figure for your matter is the one we confirm in writing.