Since November 7, the apostille procedure has been introduced between Kazakhstan and China. This is a special stamp affixed to official documents and proves their legality in the territory of countries that recognize the apostille.

Previously, consular legalization was used for the recognition of documents between Kazakhstan and China, which required confirmation of the legality of the document from both sides, for example, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan and consular offices of China in Astana or Almaty. This was often time-consuming and resource-intensive. However, in March of this year China joined the Apostille Convention of 1961. Its parties can mutually waive consular legalization of official documents executed in the territory of one contracting party for recognition in the territory of the other contracting party, which is what our countries have done. As noted above, this recognition comes into force in the first decade of November.

On the territory of Kazakhstan, the service can be ordered online at the State Corporation "Government for Citizens". It will take about 5 working days, and will cost half of the monthly calculation index (MCI). In China, the authorized body for apostille is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, foreign affairs departments in the people's governments of the PRC regions, as well as certain agencies in Beijing. Their details can be found here. After submitting the document, the whole procedure will take 4 working days, in case of urgency the term of issuance will be halved. The cost of the service will be from 50 to 100 yuan. If you need to speed up the process, you will pay an additional 50 yuan for each document.

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