Certification of Russian Documents for the Philippines

Previously, both personal and commercial documents from Russia had to be subject to full consular certification procedure for the Philippines.

Full consular certification for the Philippines used to take place in the following five steps:

Step 1: arrange to obtain notarized copies of the original documents. Exception: documents processed by a notary (powers of attorney, agreements, etc.).

Step 2: have a translation performed from Russian into English and the translation notarized.

Step 3: submit the documents to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.

Step 4: after the Ministry of Justice, submit the documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Step 5: as the last step – submit the documents to the consular department of the Embassy of the Philippines in Moscow.

On September 12, 2018, the Philippines signed the Hague Convention which annulled the requirement for certification of foreign official documents. For this country, the Convention went into effect on May 14, 2019 and now in the Philippines documents are accepted with Apostilles stamped on them.

Since the country joined the Convention relatively recently, it's well-advised to ask the requesting institution in the Philippines whether consular certification will be required or whether having an apostille stamped on your document is enough.