Apostille or legalisation

1. Official Pakistani documents

In 2024, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs started the certification of official Pakistani documents by means of apostille.

As a consequence, the Belgian Embassy no longer legalises official Pakistani documents (police character certificates, degrees, transcripts, marriage/divorce/birth registration certificates, Nikah Namas, etc.). 

Please contact the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs or consult its website for any questions regarding the apostille procedure. After getting an apostille from the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, legalisation by the Belgian Embassy in Islamabad is no longer necessary or possible.

Apostille as part of visa applications. For all official Pakistani documents that are part of a visa application for long stay, an apostille from the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to be obtained first (however, for diplomas, degrees and transcripts, please see below).

Diplomas, degrees and transcripts submitted in the framework of a student visa application are always to be attested by the Ministry of Education, more specifically by the Higher Education Commission or the Inter Boards Coordination Commission. While these documents should in general not be attested by an apostille from the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the rules and procedures of the Belgian higher education institution concerning admission/enrollment must always be observed and might nevertheless require documents with apostille. It is up to the student visa applicant to enquire about these rules and procedures, as it is up to the higher education institution concerned to accept or not the documents put forward.

Only in rare/specific cases (legalisation of personal signatures, of commercial documents, etc.) legalisation by the Embassy remains possible if certain conditions are fulfilled. For more information, please contact islamabad@diplobel.fed.be.

2. Certified translations of official Pakistani documents

All documents duly attested (with an apostille) by the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to be used by the Belgian Embassy or Belgian authorities must be translated by a certified translator to the language of the Belgian administration concerned (being one of the national languages of Belgium: French, Dutch or German). A certified translator is designated by the Court of First Instance in Belgium. Certified translators can be found here.

There is an exception for visa applications: documents drawn up in English do not need to be translated if submitted in the framework of visa applications. In other words, official documents submitted as part of a visa application must be in English, French, Dutch or German. If your document is established in Urdu or any other foreign language, you must have it translated by a certified translator in Belgium.

3. Official Afghan documents

The Embassy does not legalise any Afghan documents. Afghan documents submitted as part of a visa application will be accepted in the state in which they are presented to the Embassy.