Legalisation
The following information applies both to legalising a degree certificate (and official documents) issued outside Spain and to legalising a Spanish certificate for use outside Spain.
Legalisation is the process of validating the authenticity of official documents issued abroad (academic transcripts, degree certificates, etc.).
If you need to submit official documents issued abroad for an administrative procedure at the UAB, these documents may or may not need to be legalised, depending on the issuing country (case A, B or C below):
A) Official documents issued in European Union countries: No legalisation at all is required for documents issued in member states of the European Union or signatories of the European Economic Area Agreement. The same applies to documents issued by Switzerland, under a bilateral agreement with the European Union.
B) Documents issued in countries subscribed to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961: the only requirement is an apostille from the competent authorities in the country.
C) Documents issued in other countries. These must be legalised diplomatically, through the following procedure:
- The education ministry in the country of origin. No stamp is needed from this institution in the case of degree certificates and academic transcripts from Brazilian universities.
- All foreign documents legalised by the foreign ministry of the country of origin, as from 10 June 2013 (irrespective of the document's date of issue), must bear a transparent security label over the final signature.
- From the above date, foreign documents duly legalised by Spanish embassies or consulates in other countries, provided that the bear the transparent security label, will be fully valid in Spain without any further legalisation by the Legalisation Section of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
Certain countries have their own peculiarities regarding legalisation:
- In Japan academic documents are legalised diplomatically, as they are not public documents and cannot be apostilled.
- In Brazil the signatures on degrees certificates are legalised by Brazilian notaries.
- In Iran legalisation is done through the Iranian foreign ministry and the Spanish embassy in Tehran.
For more information on legalisation visit the website of the Spanish Ministry.
Official translation
When you have to submit official documents issued abroad to the UAB, take into account the language these are written in:
- Documents issued in Catalan, Spanish or English do not need an official translation.
- Documents issued in French, Italian or Portuguese: the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona will accept a translation by the Language Service of the UAB of documents written in French, Italian or Portuguese, or a sworn translation.
- Documents issued in other languages must be accompanied by a translation into Catalan or Spanish carried out by a sworn translator who is duly authorised and appointed by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
Legalisation of Spanish academic documents for use abroad
As stipulated in the Order of 16 April 1990, on legalisation of Spanish academic documents for use in another country, these documents must be officially legalised.
1. Official PhD Degree
The official doctoral certificate must be signed by the person concerned in order to make it legal. The legalisation procedure begins with the recognition of the signatures that appear on the documents. In general, if the documents to be legalised (provisional degree certificates or degree scrolls) are signed only by the persons named on the document rather than by delegation, authorisation, or resolution, the student can apply directly for recognition of the signatures to the Barcelona or Madrid offices of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport or the Spanish Ministry of Justice (part 2 of the process).
The following cases should also be taken into consideration.
- Electronic Provisional Degree Certificate. When you get your Provisional Degree Certificate, if you need to have it legalised, you need to email it to legalizaciones.cat@correo.gob.es, febore the date of you appointment, so that i can be verified.
- Regarding degree scrolls, if these are signed by authorisation on behalf of the Head of the Area of Academic Affairs, the student must always begin the procedure by approaching the Doctoral School of the UAB.
- If the academic manager has signed on the reverse of the degree scroll but his name does not appear, the student must always begin the procedure by approaching the Doctoral School of the UAB, They academic management service must verify the signature and add the name of the person who has signed, and the student may then approach the Ministry of Education directly.
Information to legalise official degree
2. University-specific qualifications. Legalisation by a notary
The following cases should also be taken into consideration.
- For all documents issued by the Doctoral School, the student may approach a notary directly.