Introduction of the Apostille system in Turkey

Turkey previously launched the electronic Apostille system (“System”) with Law No. 7101 on the Amendments in the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law and Certain Laws (“Amendment”) published in the Official Gazette (No. 30361) dated 15 March, 2018. The Amendment entered into force on 1 January 2019 and authorized the National Post, Telegraph and Telephone Administration of Turkey (“PTT”) to mediate transactions for the electronic delivery of the documents with electronically issued Apostilles (“e-Apostilles”).

E-Apostilles are exclusively issued for electronic documents by the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Internal Affairs. As is the case for paper Apostilles, such certifications are also valid in the contracting states of The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents dated 5 October 1961.

The System, on the other hand, has enabled electronic requests for the issuance of e-Apostilles and ensured the integrity and accuracy of the documents via secure electronic signatures and time stamps. Furthermore, a verification service has been provided on the same platform, available for the international institutions and organizations to which the e-Apostilles are presented. The System has also been integrated into e-Devlet, the online portal run by the State.

For now, the service is only provided for judicial records, court decisions, copies of the family identity registers, person registers and family registers. However, according to the previous announcement of PTT, the e-Apostille service is also expected to be provided for other types of documents, such as copies of birth and marriage certificates.