A translation office or a document holder finds the destination country’s name in the list of members of the Hague Conference, concludes that an apostille will do and has the document apostilled at the kaymakamlık (district governor’s office). The document is returned at the destination country’s mission or at the institution there, because that country is a member of the Conference but has not joined the Apostille Convention. This page separates the two lists and explains how the right one is read.
A consular chain instead of an apostille
For a country outside the Convention the chain is consular legalisation: in the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s order the governor’s office comes first, then the Legalisation Unit, and last the destination country’s mission; an apostille does not replace that chain. In the other direction, a document from such a country reaches Türkiye by one of the two legalisation routes the Ministry describes. In both cases the source is the assumption that membership and being a contracting party are the same thing.
Two lists that do not overlap
The Hague Conference on Private International Law is an organisation; according to its own page it has ninety-five members: ninety-four states and one regional economic integration organisation. The Apostille Convention is only one of the conventions drawn up by that organisation, and every convention has its own list of contracting parties. According to the HCCH status table the Apostille Convention has one hundred and thirty contracting parties, a number that includes accessions not yet in force. The two lists do not coincide: there are Conference members that have not joined the Apostille Convention, and there are states outside the Conference that have. Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Qatar, Sri Lanka and Zambia belong to the first group: their names appear in the list of members and have no row in the status table of the Convention. For a Turkish document going to any of them, the chain is consular legalisation, not the apostille.
The mix-up on official pages too
The confusion is repeated not only on private websites but on some official pages as well; one district governor’s office writes that the apostille rules apply between states that are “members or parties” to the Hague Conference, placing the two concepts side by side. The country list of the official e-Apostil system is not used as a source either: it holds one hundred and twenty-five entries and does not match the HCCH table exactly; Burkina Faso is in the list but not in the status table, while Bangladesh, Bolivia, Rwanda, the Cook Islands and Eswatini are in the status table but not in the list. The list annexed to the Turkish Ministry of Justice circular counts one hundred and twenty-six states and does not include Algeria, Vietnam and Thailand, which joined after the list was drawn up.
Entry into force and objections after the list
Reading the right list leaves two further questions. The first is the date of entry into force: the Convention entered into force for Algeria on 9 July 2026 and for Vietnam on 11 September 2026; for Thailand it takes effect on 28 February 2027, and until that date a document going to Thailand needs consular legalisation. The second is objection: under article 12 of the Convention, an accession takes effect only between the acceding state and those contracting states that have not raised an objection within six months. Between an objecting state and the acceding state the Convention does not operate. For Türkiye the question is easy: the HCCH records show no objection raised by Türkiye and none directed at Türkiye, so the Convention is in force between Türkiye and every contracting party. If the document originates in a third country rather than in Türkiye, that country’s objection records are read separately.
Translation waits for the right chain
The destination country’s name is looked up in the HCCH status table; the country pages of this site show the position from this site’s country data and update it with a date label. If the country is not in the table, or its entry into force has not yet arrived, no apostille is obtained; the chain is built as translation, notarial certification, provincial legalisation, the Foreign Ministry’s Legalisation Unit and the destination country’s mission. If an apostille has already been obtained, the work starts again with a new copy, since the Ministry does not legalise an apostilled document. Translation sits in different places in the two chains: in the apostille chain its place depends on whether the receiving institution wants the apostille on the notarial certification of the translation or on the original; in the legalisation chain it is the first link, and every stamp is placed on the notarial certification of the translation. No translation is started before the chain is known. This page makes no statement on Cyprus: its position could not be verified in this site’s survey.