Documents move between Egypt and Türkiye in both directions: diplomas, marriage records and powers of attorney, commercial and academic documents for instance. In neither direction is there an apostille, since Egypt has no row in the HCCH status table, and Egypt’s membership of the Hague Conference does not alter that. This page begins with the Egyptian document entering Türkiye and then turns to the Turkish document leaving for Egypt, the reverse of the order used on the other country pages.
An Egyptian document entering Türkiye
The Legalisation Unit of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes two ways for a foreign document. In the first the document, while still in Egypt, is legalised at the Turkish mission there and arrives already legalised. In the second it arrives without legalisation, is legalised at the Egyptian mission in Türkiye, and that legalisation is then certified by the Ministry if the mission is in Ankara or by the provincial governor’s office in any other province. The Turkish institution processes the document with its legalisation chain complete and with a Turkish translation certified by a notary. No apostille is expected, or found, on an Egyptian university diploma or an Egyptian marriage record.
A Turkish document leaving for Egypt
In the reverse direction the chain is built by Turkish authorities. The document is translated into the language the Egyptian institution asks for and the translation is certified by a Turkish notary; whether any language other than Arabic is accepted was not verified on this site. The valilik (provincial governor’s office) or the kaymakamlık (district governor’s office) of the place of issue certifies the notary’s signature; the Legalisation Unit certifies that certification; finally the Egyptian mission in Türkiye adds its own. This place rule comes from the undated information sheet of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; whether the 2024 amendment of article 199 of the Notaries Law also covers this certification was not verified in this site’s survey. The procedure and fee of the mission were not surveyed. A document apostilled by mistake is not processed by the Ministry.
Membership of the Hague Conference misread
Egypt is one of the 95 Members of the HCCH, and that membership can be misread as a place in the apostille system. Membership of the Conference means belonging to an organisation; the Apostille Convention keeps its own status table, and Egypt does not appear in it. Nor does Egypt appear in the list of contracting states annexed to Circular 68/1 of the Turkish Ministry of Justice; whether district governor’s offices rely on that list before placing an apostille was not verified in this site’s survey. A document holder should notice in which list the name of Egypt was seen: the list of Members does not decide the route, the status table does.
No exemption treaty between Türkiye and Egypt
Some states share with Türkiye treaties that remove legalisation outside the apostille: the 1968 European Convention on consular documents, CIEC 16 for multilingual civil status extracts, CIEC 17 for certain civil status documents. Egypt has not acceded to any of the three. An Egyptian birth record therefore has no multilingual form exemption, consular documents have no separate exemption, and every document is legalised by one of the two ways above.
Unverified points on the Egypt file
This site did not verify the legalisation procedure and fee of the Egyptian mission, the language preference of Egyptian institutions, or whether Egyptian authorities accept a translation made in Türkiye.
Translation last on the way in, first on the way out
The order of translation differs by direction. For a document coming from Egypt the translation comes last: the document first completes its legalisation chain, and the Turkish translation certified by a notary is added in Türkiye at the end; whether it also renders the Egyptian legalisation stamps is for the Turkish institution to say. For a document going to Egypt the translation comes first: it is translated, and the certifications of the notary, the governor’s office and the Ministry are stacked on top of it.