Online Apostille in Australia: How It Works

In Australia, only DFAT issues apostilles, and it issues them on the document you lodge, in person at an Australian Passport Office or by registered post. What you can do online is the paperwork around it: download the request form, book an appointment, and later verify the apostille. No website issues an Australian apostille from an upload.

Key takeaways

• An apostille is a DFAT certificate confirming a signature and seal. It never certifies the contents.
• DFAT's current options are an appointment at an Australian Passport Office or registered post. Someone can attend on your behalf.
• Online, you can download DFAT's form, book the appointment, and verify an apostille DFAT issued after 14 December 2015.
• A private "online apostille" service can only lodge with DFAT for you. It cannot issue the certificate.
• A video-notarised document needs three separate yeses: the notary's state, DFAT and the receiving authority.
• Many registry certificates go to DFAT directly, with no notary step at all.

Why can't an apostille simply be issued online?

An apostille is a certificate under the Hague Apostille Convention. It confirms that the signature and seal on an Australian public document are genuine. In Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the only body that issues one. No notary, law firm, translation agency or website can.

DFAT's officers check the signature and seal on your document against DFAT's records. Those records include specimen signatures of Australian notaries and of officials at registries and other issuing bodies. DFAT then issues the apostille directly on the document. To do that, it needs the document itself: the original public document, or a copy an Australian notary has notarised.

A scan is not the document. DFAT does accept a limited range of genuinely electronic public documents, assessed when they are lodged. It may ask you to forward the original email or log in to the issuing portal. A scan or photograph of a paper certificate is never an electronic document for this purpose.

What can you actually do online?

Quite a lot of the preparation, as DFAT's pages described it when we last checked:

• Check eligibility. DFAT publishes which documents it can legalise, and which need a notary first.
• Download the request form. DFAT will not accept an incomplete request.
• Book an appointment at an Australian Passport Office, through DFAT's online booking.
• Verify an apostille. DFAT runs an online portal for apostilles it issued after 14 December 2015.
• Check the destination on the HCCH status table, to see whether it needs an apostille at all.

What stays offline is the document. It reaches DFAT at the counter or by registered post, and it comes back to you the same way.

How does DFAT lodgement work today?

When we checked DFAT's page on 29 September 2026, it offered two ways to lodge in Australia. Read the current notarial services in Australia page before relying on this, because DFAT changes its arrangements.

In person, by appointment. You book online and attend any Australian Passport Office with the documents and the completed form. Someone else can attend on your behalf. DFAT has said that if you arrive without something you need, it cannot process the request and you must book again.

By post. You send the form and the original documents by registered post, with a self-addressed registered post envelope for their return. DFAT asks you to keep both tracking numbers, and says it is not responsible for documents lost in the mail. It does not accept incomplete requests by mail; it returns them with a letter.

DFAT also says it cannot tell you whether a document needs legalising at all. Only the overseas authority that asked for it can. Ask that authority first, in writing.

What does a private "online apostille" service do?

At best, it handles the steps around DFAT for you. It may arrange a notary, fill in DFAT's form, lodge the document and post it back. That can be useful, especially for someone overseas or far from a passport office. It is still DFAT that issues the apostille, and it still needs the physical document.

Be cautious of a service that implies more. Warning signs include:

• an "apostille" issued from an uploaded scan, with no original ever sent;
• a certificate from a private company that calls itself an apostille;
• a promise about how quickly DFAT will act, which no one outside DFAT controls;
• no mention of DFAT anywhere in the process.

Anything called an Australian apostille that did not come from DFAT is not one. A receiving authority overseas will treat it as unauthenticated.

Can the notary step be done by video?

Sometimes, and this is the part generic pages skip. Private documents and copies usually need a notary before DFAT will look at them. That notarial act is the only link in the chain where video can play any part. Whether it can depends on the rules in the state or territory where the notary practises. Those rules differ and have changed since 2020, so check them.

Then DFAT must be able to authenticate the notarisation in the form it takes. If the act was performed by video and signed or sealed electronically, ask DFAT about that specific case. Finally, the receiving authority decides whether it accepts a remotely executed act at all. Australian law does not decide that for it.

Many foreign registries, courts and ministries are more conservative than Australian law. Some expect a wet-ink signature and a physical seal on anything they receive. If you cannot get a clear written yes from the destination, a conventional appointment with the original is the safer route. See how online notarisation works for the notarial side.

Does your document need a notary at all?

Often not. DFAT can legalise many Australian public documents directly, as originals. Its list includes registry birth, death and marriage certificates, court documents including divorce certificates, national police checks, citizenship certificates, and government commercial documents such as ASIC extracts. Check DFAT's list for your document.

If your document qualifies, the notary step disappears, and so does the only step where video could have helped. What remains is lodgement and postage. Two exceptions trip people up. Laminated or altered certificates are refused. University documents must be verified by the university first. Our page on which documents can be apostilled covers the detail.

Document	Notary first?	Online part
Registry birth or marriage certificate	Usually not	Form, booking, verification
National police check	Usually not	Form, booking, verification
University degree or transcript	University verification first	Often the university's own portal
Power of attorney or declaration	Yes	Possibly the notary step, if all three agree
Copy of a passport or licence	Yes, a notarised copy	Form and booking only

What about electronic apostilles?

Some Convention countries issue apostilles in electronic form. The Hague Conference runs a programme supporting electronic apostilles and online registers for checking them. DFAT's pages, when we last checked, described issuing the certificate directly on the document supplied, with an online register for verifying it.

Whether DFAT offers an electronic apostille for your document type, and whether your destination accepts one, are questions to confirm on the day. Do not assume either because another country offers it.

Is the destination a Convention country?

Apostilles work only between parties to the Convention. Check the destination on the HCCH status table before you start; membership changes. A country that is not a party needs a DFAT authentication certificate, then legalisation at its embassy or consulate in Australia. Nothing in that route is online end to end either. See the Hague Apostille Convention explained.

How do you tell a real apostille from a lookalike?

Check four things:

1. It came from DFAT. A certificate from a private company is not an apostille, however official it looks.
2. It is on the document it certifies, relating to a specific signature and seal.
3. It has the standard apostille wording, a unique number and a date.
4. It verifies on DFAT's portal, if it was issued after 14 December 2015.

What if you live far from a passport office?

Post is the practical answer for most people outside the capital cities. Send the originals by registered post with a registered return envelope, and keep both tracking numbers. If the document needs a notary first, see the notary, then post the notarised document to DFAT yourself.

Before posting, photocopy everything you send, including the completed form. If DFAT returns the request as incomplete, the copy shows you exactly what was missing. It also gives you a record of the originals if something is lost. Postage is the one link in the chain where nobody else can fix a mistake for you.

Here is an illustration, not a real case

A woman in Darwin needs an apostille on her NSW birth certificate for a residence permit in Spain. A website offers an "online apostille" from a photo. Instead she reads DFAT's list, which includes registry birth certificates, so she needs no notary. She downloads DFAT's form and posts the original by registered post with a return envelope. It comes back with the apostille on it. The Spanish office later checks the apostille number on DFAT's portal.

In short

The apostille itself is never online. DFAT issues it on the document, lodged at a passport office or by registered post. The form, the booking, the eligibility check and the verification are online. A video notary may help with the step before DFAT, if the notary's state, DFAT and the receiving authority all agree. Our apostille and authentication page explains the full chain.

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Unsure whether your document needs a notary before DFAT? Send us a description of the document and where it is going, and we will explain each step before you book.