Get Foreign Office Attestion from Home in Pakistan

Islamabad – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in Islamabad, along with its liaison offices in Karachi and Lahore, has launched an innovative service to facilitate applicants seeking apostille attestation. This initiative, in collaboration with several courier companies, aims to streamline the document attestation process, bringing significant ease and efficiency to Pakistani citizens.

Facilitating Apostille Attestation through Courier Collaboration

Under the new arrangement, designated courier companies, including TCS, M&P, Gerry’s, Leopard, and ECS, will collect documents from applicants across Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. These documents will then be attested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Notably, these courier companies are authorized to accept all types of documents for apostille attestation, with the exception of Power of Attorney documents.

Simplifying International Document Authentication

This development is a direct result of Pakistan’s accession to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille Convention) of 1961, earlier in 2023. The Foreign Office explained that this convention simplifies the authentication process for public documents to a single formality: the issuance of an authentication certificate known as an “Apostille” by the designated authority of the country where the document was issued.

“The convention shortens the public document authentication process to a single formality which is the issuance of an authentication certificate called ‘Apostille’ by the designated authority of the country where the document was issued,” the Foreign Office statement said. “Thus, foreign public documents authenticated by Apostille can be directly presented to the authorities concerned without any other attestation requirement.”