Belgium begins issuing e-Apostilles

On 1st March 2018, the Belgian Competent Authorities have started to issue e-Apostilles. There will be a transitionary period until 1st May 2018, in which both paper and e-Apostilles will be issued. After this period, only e-Apostilles will only be issued, for both electronic and paper public documents.

Once issued, the apostillised documents are sent to the requesting party by email (or to the authority that issued the underlying public document, as the case may be).

At the same time, Belgium has upgraded its e-Register to a Category 3 e-Register (the highest category), which is available from the following link: <http://legalweb.diplomatie.be/>.

Together, these important developments complete the comprehensive implementation of the e-APP by the Belgium authorities.

Belgium thus becomes the 11th State to implement both components of the e-APP. The Permanent Bureau would like to congratulate Belgium on this fantastic initiative. To date, there are over 200 Competent Authorities in 32 Contracting Parties operating one or both of components of the e-APP, demonstrating the ever-increasing support for the program.

For more information, see the Categories of e-Registers, the List of Operational e-Registers, and the Implementation Chart of the e-APP.