A bank, a company or a public office abroad sometimes asks a Turkish national for a certified copy of their identity card or passport. The identity document itself is never taken to an apostille counter; the chain is built on a copy certified by a Turkish notary, and the apostille is added to that copy. For the office that receives the file, this explains why the apostille on a Turkish identity copy always names a notary rather than the authority that issued the card.
The rule of the district offices
The apostille pages of the Nilüfer, Çekmeköy and Sapanca district governor’s offices carry the same rule: if an identity document is to be apostilled, it has to be notarised. A plain photocopy is not apostilled for any type of document. The Onikişubat District Governor’s Office writes that only a copy bearing the certified-true-copy (aslı gibidir) endorsement of the issuing institution or of a notary can be considered.
What the apostille certifies here
The apostille on a notarised copy does not certify the identity document itself; it certifies the signature, capacity and seal of the notary under the copy. The foreign institution learns from it that the copy was certified in due form by a Turkish notary. Whether the data on the card are current, or whether the applicant is really the person on the card, falls under the receiving institution’s own identity checks; the apostille does not answer that question.
Which authority
A notarised copy is a notarial act. Under article 199 of the Turkish Notaries Law its apostille is issued by the vali or kaymakam, the governor of any province or district, and since 2024 the office need not be in the same district as the notary who certified the copy. Unlike the originals of judicial documents, this act never goes to the adalet komisyonu, the judicial commission at a high criminal court seat. The valilik and kaymakamlık, the provincial and district governor’s offices, charge no fee for a paper apostille.
If the copy is wanted in another language
If the foreign institution wants the copy in its own language, the copy is translated by a sworn translator (yeminli tercüman, a translator whose oath is recorded at a notary) and the translation is certified by a notary; the apostille is then placed on the notary’s certification of the translation. How the name and surname are to be rendered, and whether they are compared with the passport, is a matter for the receiving institution; this site’s survey found no official Turkish rule on the point.
How old the copy may be
The Convention sets no expiry for the apostille itself, and an apostille does not bring back to life a document whose own validity has ended. How recent the certified copy has to be, and whether a copy of an expired identity document is taken at all, is decided by the institution that asks for it; the question is put to that institution before the copy is prepared.
The ID copy chain in brief
In short, the chain for an identity document is brief: a certified true copy at a notary, then an apostille at any governor’s or district governor’s office, with a sworn translation, its notarial certification and a second apostille added only when the receiving institution wants the copy in its own language.