Is a personal visit to the Czech Republic required to obtain an apostille?

This question asks if the individuals named in the documents must personally travel to the Czech Republic for the apostille procedure.

An apostille can be obtained without your personal presence in the Czech Republic. However, the original document must be physically delivered to the Czech Republic and processed locally.

Any document issued by Czech state authorities or notaries can be apostilled by a third party in physical possession of it. The requirement is that this person must personally visit the necessary authorities in the Czech Republic, submit the document and application in person, and later pick up the completed apostilled document.

In theory, you can use postal services to interact with all Czech state authorities that issue apostilles, meaning you can send them documents from outside the Czech Republic. In reality, however, this is difficult and extremely slow due to delivery times. Additionally, there is a risk that the government office you send the document to might misunderstand your request. You could also send it to the wrong institution, as several different organizations in the Czech Republic issue apostilles.

Furthermore, many Czech documents need to be processed by several authorities for an apostille. A significant question is how these organizations coordinate for apostille placement in a remote scenario (would you need to send the document to each authority yourself?). In summary, it is far more efficient to have a local representative who is physically present with the document to manage the entire process on the ground.

We assist with obtaining apostilles for any documents issued in the Czech Republic. We organize the entire process for your document locally, in the shortest possible time.