Legalising Italian Documents for Qatar

Most documents start by needing to be notarised and certified. During this stage, a notary public will check the document is legitimate and sign & stamp it accordingly.

For any document that is written in Italian, it will need to be translated into English. The original document is bound together with the translation, and it is this bundle that is attested. For qualifications, birth, marriage or death certificates that are already in English, this step is not required. Asseveration of the translation will also take place which is the process to swear that the translation is legal and accurate.

Check out our translations page to learn more about the different types of translations, and what they're used for.

Before documents can be presented to the Qatar Embassy in Rome, most need to have been legalised by the Italian government, and stamped that the previous step has been completed correctly. In Italy this is applied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, known locally as the Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale. In some cases, instead of an Apostille, documents will alternatively be processed with the signature of a national or regional court official, or be certified by the Chamber of Commerce.

The final step in Italy is to have the document stamped, known as legalised or attested, by the Qatar Embassy in Rome. During this stage an official Qatar-government sticker and seal is applied to the document. This confirms to the authorities in Qatar that the document has completed all the required steps in Italy.

Once the document has reached Qatar, it requires a further attestation stamp by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Doha which validates that your document has been processed correctly in Italy. Some employers make arrangements to handle this for you, so you should check whether this needs completing by you or not.

In certain circumstances, your document may also require translation into Arabic. Again, your employer may handle this for you so best to check. If required, the whole document and its relevant stamps are translated from English into Arabic by a recognised certified translator. Once the translation has been done, then everything has been completed to make it fully useable within Qatar.