The e-Apostil application is filled in and the service fee is paid; then the application is refused and the fee stays charged. The holder blames the system or the bank; the system had said so from the start. This page explains the reason for the refusal that the official system itself warns about, what that warning means and what has to change in the second application. e-Apostil is the official system run by the Turkish ministries of Justice and Interior through PTT, the national postal operator; the application is made from the document holder’s own account on e-Devlet, the Turkish e-government portal, and this site is not that system.
“Your application has been refused”: what the holder sees
The refusal appears on the official system’s own screen; how the reason is communicated could not be read in this site’s survey, because the application screens require a login. The holder then learns two things: the document has not arrived and the fee has been taken. The delivery date promised to the institution abroad may pass in the meantime. The sign then turns into a question addressed to the official system’s contact channels; this site is not one of those channels, and the system’s contact details are on its own pages.
The fields were filled in wrongly
The warning on the system’s application screen is explicit: the applicant should make sure the fields above are filled in correctly; if they are entered wrongly, the application will be refused and the PTT service fee will be charged. The system’s text calls the amount a service fee; that it is charged even on refusal shows that the fee is attached to the intermediary service, not to the result. Which fields the application screen contains could not be read in this site’s survey, because the screens require a login; the system’s published texts name two points. The first is the additional identity number field: the applicant is not to enter their own number there but the number of the person whose details are requested; in which situation that field is used could not be verified on this site. The second is the destination: according to the FAQ, the system issues no e-Apostil for countries outside the Convention. The FAQ also shows why the document type matters: judicial documents are sent to the Ministry of Justice, administrative documents to the Ministry of Interior.
Why the service fee is charged even on refusal
No fee is charged for a paper apostille at the valilik or kaymakamlık (provincial or district governor’s office); the HCCH page on Türkiye records this as “no charge”. On the electronic route PTT provides an intermediary service, and its fee is charged per document. According to the e-Apostil FAQ the fee is independent of the number of pages, differs by document type and is paid separately for each document when several are requested. The amounts are published on the official system’s page and change over time; this site gives no figure. That the fee is charged on refusal is a rule written in the system’s own text; this site’s survey found no official statement on an exception to that rule or on a refund procedure.
Three checks before the second application
Whether a refused application can be corrected, or has to be made again with a new fee, was not found in the system’s published texts in this site’s survey. Before any new application three things are checked: which of the six types in the official list the document falls under, whose name the document is in and from which institution it comes, and whether the destination country is a contracting state. The civil registry extract carries one more limit: according to the system’s text, the e-Apostil application for this document is open to Turkish citizens only, and foreign nationals are directed to the paper route. If the document is outside the six types, a residence certificate for instance, the system does not yet accept it and the paper route is followed. According to the FAQ the processing time depends on the document type and the workload of the competent institution; no figure is given, so an application made close to the delivery date leaves no time for a second refusal. Login details are personal and this site never asks for them at any stage; the holder makes the application from their own account.
Translation after the second application
The e-Apostil document is delivered electronically and signed with PTT’s qualified electronic certificate. What the translation is made from, a printout or the file, and whether it includes the certificate, is not stated in the sources read for this site and is asked of the receiving institution; the translation is not started before the application has succeeded, because a refused application produces no document to translate. If the institution wants a certified translation, it is made by a yeminli tercüman (a sworn translator whose oath is recorded at a Turkish notary) and certified by a notary, who is first asked how it handles an electronic document; if the institution also wants an apostille on the translation, that second certificate is placed on the notarial certification and obtained on paper from any provincial or district governor’s office. The HCCH has announced that a validly issued electronic apostille cannot be refused simply because it is electronic; the institution’s preferred form of delivery is still asked about in advance.