In Tunisia the apostille lies with notaries: since 1 March 2019 only notaries on a list fixed by the Minister of Justice place the certificate. This page is for the Tunisian notary, registrar or university receiving a Turkish document and for the Turkish office receiving a Tunisian one: the move to notaries, the two fee tiers that depend on where the document was drawn up, the three objections and the one Belgium withdrew, the paper certificate without a register, and the open question of Arabic versus French.
From 2018 to 2019: how Tunisian apostilles moved to notaries
Tunisia deposited its instrument of accession on 10 July 2017, and the HCCH status table shows 30 March 2018. According to the HCCH authority page, updated on 21 October 2025, notaries have been the only authority placing apostilles in Tunisia since 1 March 2019, and the Minister of Justice fixes the list of notaries entitled to do so. Which authority placed certificates during the year between the table date and the notarial regime was not verified in this site’s survey. A Tunisian document now arrives in Türkiye with a certificate on a notary’s letterhead, and a Turkish office cannot turn it away on the ground that a notary is not an apostille authority: under article 6 the authority Tunisia notified is the notary.
Inside or outside the notary’s district: Tunisia’s two fee tiers
The HCCH page splits the Tunisian fee into two tiers: a lower one when the document was drawn up or issued inside the territorial jurisdiction of the notary, a higher one when it comes from outside. The amounts are on the HCCH page and are not repeated here. The practical lesson is that taking a document to a notary in the district where it was issued costs less; a notary elsewhere places the certificate too, at the higher tier. That matters to someone having a document apostilled in Tunisia; a Turkish office receiving a Tunisian certificate has no interest in which tier was paid.
Belgium’s withdrawal of 11 June 2025 and the three remaining objectors
Germany, Austria and Greece objected to Tunisia’s accession, so the apostille does not run between Tunisia and those three states. Belgium had objected as well; according to the HCCH record that objection was withdrawn with effect from 11 June 2025, and since that date the apostille runs between Belgium and Tunisia. Türkiye did not object, and the full status report contains no exception between Türkiye and Tunisia. The objections reach a file handled from Türkiye only when a third country is involved: a person in Türkiye who has to send a German document to Tunisia cannot rely on a German apostille there, while a Belgian document has travelled with a Belgian apostille since 11 June 2025.
A Tunisian notary’s certificate read in Türkiye without a register
The e-APP chart of 13 August 2026 has no Tunisia row: neither an electronic certificate nor an online register has been reported. This site gives no Tunisian verification address, since none has been notified to the HCCH. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not legalise a Tunisian document that already carries an apostille; the form of the Turkish translation is set by the receiving office, and no source surveyed here requires the Tunisian certificate to be part of it; the receiving office settles that.
Turkish documents for Tunis: the governor’s apostille and the e-Apostil question
A Turkish document for Tunisia is apostilled by a Turkish authority. Administrative documents and every notarial act go to the valilik or kaymakamlık, the provincial or district governor’s office; for a notarial act any such office in the country may act since November 2024, wherever the notary sits; the original of a court judgment goes to the adli yargı adalet komisyonu başkanlığı, the judicial commission at a high criminal court seat. Criminal record extracts, court decisions and civil registry extracts belong to the six document types handled by e-Apostil, the official Turkish electronic apostille system; since no Tunisian electronic certificate has been notified, how a Tunisian notary or institution receives a Turkish electronic one was not verified and is asked beforehand. The apostilled document is not taken to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and does not pass through the Tunisian mission. Tunisia is named in the HCCH list of Members; it has not acceded to ETS 063, CIEC 16 or CIEC 17, and no multilingual form exemption exists for civil records.
Arabic or French: settling the language before the Tunisian file starts
Whether Tunisian institutions want Arabic or French was not verified in this site’s survey, and the answer is obtained before the chain starts: a translation made in Türkiye is notarised and that notarial act is apostilled, so a change of language afterwards means a new notarial act and a new certificate. The certificate attests the notary’s signature, not the accuracy of the text. A Tunisian document is translated into Turkish after the certificate is placed. The unknowns on this page are the authority of the transition year between 2018 and 2019, the form in which a Turkish e-Apostil is accepted in Tunisia, the translation language, and any supporting papers a Tunisian notary asks for before placing a certificate. A translation office renders the text; it places no certificate and does not forecast the Tunisian institution’s decision.