SERVICE OF LEGALIZATION OF DOCUMENTS
The Embassy of Italy in Colombo, while recalling that Sri Lanka has not yet adopted the Hague Convention of 1961, which replaces legalization with the Apostille, informs that, due to the situation of civil status registries and the frequency of document forgeries in Sri Lanka, as well as the very high number of requests for legalization, the service of legalization of documents issued by the Sri Lankan Authorities will only be carried out in observance of the procedure outlined below, in accordance with the provisions of art. 63, paragraph 2 of Legislative Decree 71/2011 and art. 33 of Presidential Decree 445/2000.
All documentation for legalization must be submitted to the VFS Italian Legalisation Application Centre, 5th Floor, No. 675, Dr. Danister De Silva Mawatha, Colombo 09, Sri Lanka.
To download the forms needed to start the Translation and Verification procedure, please visit the following site: https://visa.vfsglobal.com/lka/en/ita/Legalisation
Documents to be legalized must be submitted in original, AFTER BEING LEGALIZED BY SRI LANKAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS and will then be forwarded to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for verification of authenticity.
When submitting the documents, the interested parties will sign the forms for the request of the verification and can require as well the translation service by IOM. Furthermore they have to sign the application for legalization by the Embassy. At this time, both the services fees and the consular fees due for the legalization and certification of conformity of the translation to the originals of the foreign documents must be paid.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DOCUMENTS WILL ONLY BE FORWARDED TO THE EMBASSY ONLY AFTER THE TRANSLATION AND VERIFICATION PROCEDURES HAVE BEEN COMPLETED. VFS GLOBAL WILL UPDATE THE APPLICANTS REGARDING THE STATUS OF THEIR APPLICATION.
Once the legalization and authentication of the translation has been completed, the Embassy will return the completed document to VFS, which will send it to the user by courier.
Users are invited to refrain from visiting the Embassy (no walk-ins) and from sending e-mails for requests for information, updates on the status of applications or reminders, since the entire procedure involves times and procedures that cannot be changed for any reason and do NOT depend on the activities of the Italian Embassy in Colombo but on external partners, as well as on the Sri Lankan authorities themselves. The Embassy recommends avoiding unnecessary recourse to service agencies or intermediaries and to report – to the email address consolare.ambcolombo@esteri.it – any improper request for sums of money from third parties.
PLEASE NOTE: in cases where legalization is required prior to the submission of a visa application, please ensure that you request and obtain an appointment for the submission of the visa application (see the ‘visa’ page) within the six-month deadline of the ‘nulla osta’, even if the legalization process has not yet been completed due to the extended timeframe of the IOM verification. In this case, when submitting the visa application to VFS, it is necessary to submit a receipt proving that the legalization process has been started. In this way, the Embassy will be able to interrupt the period of validity of the nulla osta and prevent it from expiring.