Document legalization or attestation is required when Indonesian official documents, issued by the Indonesian government, are to be used abroad for official purposes. Usually legalizations or attestations are requested from foreign governments when Indonesian nationals are applying for work or stay permits in these countries.

Indonesian documents need to be legalized / attested by the Indonesian government and in certain case a notarization from a notary public is also required. By legalizing a document, the Indonesian government confirms the legal status of the documents.

he procedure of document legalization or attestation depends on two main factors:

• The type of document which needs to be legalized;
• Whether the original, copy and/or translation will need to be legalized; and
• The requirements from the Embassy or Consulate;

The minimum steps which need to be taken are as follows:

• Legalization at the Ministry of Law and Human Rights;
• Legalization at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
• Legalization at the related Embassy

Oftentimes additional actions are required, such as translation of the original document into English or any other foreign language, notarization of the document, and legalization of the document at related government institutions. For example a marriage book must, in addition to above steps, be legalized at the local religious office and the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Q: Is it possible to only legalize the copy of the original document?

This should be checked with the foreign authority requesting the legalization. Some authorities will allow legalization on a copy of the original, while others require the legalization to be performed on the original.

Q: Is personal attendance required during the legalization process?

No, personal attendance is not required. Our firm can handle the full legalization in Indonesia by using a power of attorney, where the client authorizes our firm to perform the legalization on the client’s behalf.

Q: My document is laminated, can it be legalized?

No, we cannot legalize a document which is laminated. The reason is that the stickers and stamps will not hold properly on the plastic lamination, so governments will refuse to legalize a laminated document.

In case a document is laminated you may try to remove the back of the lamination. If the back is removed we can place the legalization stickers or stamps on the back of the document.