Documents and apostille
Apostille instead of legalisation
Canada acceded to the Hague Apostille Convention on 12 May 2023; it has been in force since 11 January 2024. The HCCH status table shows no German objection (HCCH). A public document from Canada now needs one apostille, not a chain of legalisations. Check with the receiving German authority which documents it wants, and whether it also wants a certified translation.
Who issues it
| Where the document was issued | Apostille authority |
|---|---|
| Federal documents | Global Affairs Canada (GAC) |
| Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, Yukon | GAC (also for documents notarised there) |
| Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan | The provincial competent authority (Quebec: Ministère de la Justice du Québec) |
- Notarised copies: in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan the province where the notary acted decides. In British Columbia and Quebec only documents originally issued there are handled by the province.
- Source: Global Affairs Canada: document authentication.
- RCMP police certificates are federal documents; under the GAC rule for federal documents, Global Affairs Canada issues the apostille.
Typical documents
- Birth and marriage certificates (provincial vital statistics; for ancestry cases, long-form copies): German ancestry, Family.
- Degrees and transcripts: see Study; recognition via anerkennung-in-deutschland.de and anabin.
- Translations: into German by a sworn translator. Which translations the Berlin authority accepts: ask it.
German missions in Canada
Toronto offers the full consular range (MB, NB, NL, NS, ON, PE, QC, NU); Vancouver most services (BC, AB, SK, YT, NT). Ottawa and Montreal offer no consular services (overview). Long-term visas, including from the Vancouver district and by post, are handled only by Toronto.
A question this page does not answer? Contact us. Free orientation only, no legal advice for individual cases.