The Turkish text of the Convention, published in the Official Gazette in 1984, calls the certificate a tasdik şerhi, a certification annotation; everyday Turkish and the pages of governors’ offices say apostil. Both words point to the same object: the square certificate that a competent authority places on a public document, or attaches to it, under the Convention of 5 October 1961. This page draws the boundary of the term. Where the certificate is obtained in Türkiye and which document needs one are handled on other pages of this site.
Two names, one certificate
What a receiving office abroad sees on the document is the French heading, identical in every contracting state. The Turkish name matters only when the holder reads an official Turkish page: the valilik and the kaymakamlık, the offices of the provincial and district governors, write apostil tasdik şerhi or simply apostil, and the Convention’s own title in Turkish speaks of abolishing the requirement of tasdik, legalisation. The holder and the receiving office are looking at one and the same certificate.
Article 5: three things the certificate attests
Article 5 limits the effect of the certificate to a single sentence. A duly completed certificate attests the authenticity of the signature, the capacity in which the signatory acted and, where appropriate, the identity of the seal or stamp on the document. The content of the document is not on that list. The Turkish Ministry of Interior repeats the limit in its circular on the Convention: the certificate does not extend to the text of the document it is placed on. The grades on a diploma, the date of birth in a civil register extract or a sentence in a translation are outside what the certificate says.
Article 4: a French heading and ten numbered fields
The form is fixed by Article 4 and by the annex to the Convention. The certificate is placed on the document itself or on an allonge, follows the model in the annex and takes the shape of a square with sides of at least nine centimetres. Its body may be written in the official language of the issuing authority and the standard terms may be repeated in a second language; the heading, however, is always the French “Apostille (Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961)”. The model has ten numbered fields: country; name of the signatory; capacity of the signatory; the authority whose seal or stamp the document bears; place; date; certifying authority; certificate number; seal or stamp; signature. A foreign office recognises a Turkish certificate by these ten fields and needs no Turkish explanation.
Three limits worth knowing before a document travels
The Convention gives the certificate no expiry date; a period of validity, where one exists, belongs to the document itself, and the certificate does not revive a document whose own period has run out. The certificate does not make the document effective abroad; it removes legalisation, and whether the document produces effects in the receiving state is a matter of that state’s law. The certificate is not reserved to the document holder: Article 5 allows any bearer of the document to request it, and a demand for a power of attorney at some Turkish counters is administrative practice rather than a Convention rule.
Which signature the certificate covers on a translated file
When a translation is involved, the certificate can sit in two places: on the signature of the official who issued the original, or on the signature of the Turkish notary who certified the translation. In the second case the three elements of Article 5 concern the notary alone; the accuracy of the translation is outside all three. The receiving authority decides which signature it wants certified, and that decision should be known before the translation is ordered.