India, since 2005, is a member of the Hague Convention of October 5, 1961 that abolished the requirement of legalization of foreign public documents. Apostille is acceptable in 105 member-countries of the Convention

Apostille is done for personal documents like birth/death/marriage certificates, Affidavits, Power of Attorney, etc. and educational documents like degree, diploma, matriculation and secondary level certificates etc. Any document Apostilled in one member country is acceptable in all the other 104 member-countries, signatory to the referred convention of 1961 thus greatly simplifying the process of attestation by making it needless to get the documents attested in each or for each of the countries separately.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is not accepting documents directly from the applicant/individual, all documents for the purpose of Attestation/Apostille by MEA are to be submitted and collected from outsourced agencies.