I’m running a wholly foreign-owned enterprise in Vietnam and have recently recruited some foreign employees. As I know, these employees must have some of their papers consularly legalized in Vietnam in order to complete their dossiers to apply for working permits. How can they do that?
According to the Vietnamese law, consular legalization is necessary and compulsory for documents issued by foreign agencies to be lawfully used in Vietnam. However, when carrying out consular legalization procedures, you must ensure that:
- Papers and documents subject to consular legalization are clearly presented and have no modification or erasure.
If such papers and documents have modifications or erasures, there must be corrections made under regulations of the countries where they have been issued;
- A paper or document comprising two or more pages must bear a seal appended on adjoining pages;
- If you request consular legalization by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Consular Department or Departments of External Relations, your foreign papers and documents must be first certified by overseas diplomatic missions, consulates or other authorized agencies of your country in Vietnam;
- If you request consular legalization by overseas Vietnamese diplomatic missions, your foreign papers and documents must first be certified by:
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| A foreign individual carries out consular legalization procedures in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province__Photo: Manh Duong/VNA |
* The Ministry of Foreign Affairs or another competent agency of the host country in case such papers and documents have been issued by that country. For a federative country, the Consular Department will provide specific guidance on agency(ies) with certification competence of such country, depending on local conditions and law, to overseas Vietnamese representation offices.
* Overseas diplomatic mission, consulate or another authorized agency of a third country in the host country in case such papers and documents have been issued by the third country.
Consular legalization procedures
In Vietnam, you may submit a dossier for consular legalization of your papers to the following competent agencies:
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Consular Department, at 40 Tran Phu street, Ba Dinh district, Hanoi.
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Ho Chi Minh City Department of External Relations, at 6 Alexandre De Rhodes street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.
You may also dial 0989313339 for fast-track services.
- Local external relations offices authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to receive consular certification and legalization dossiers.
You can submit your dossier and receive the result on weekdays and Saturday mornings, except public holidays.
The dossier must comprise:
- One declaration for consular certification or legalization, made according to form No. LS/HPH-2012/TK.
- An original personal identification paper (identity card, passport or passport substitute paper) in case of direct submission; or one copy of such paper in case of submission by post. This paper is not required to be certified.
- Papers and documents requested to be consularly certified, which have been certified by a foreign diplomatic mission, consulate or another agency authorized to perform the consular function.
- One copy of each paper and document requested to be consularly legalized.
- One Vietnamese or English translation of each paper or document requested to be consularly legalized, in case such papers and documents are not made in such language. Translations are not required to be certified but you are responsible for the accuracy of the translations.
- One copy of the translations of papers and documents.
- An envelope bearing the recipient’s address in case the dossier is submitted by post and results are requested to be notified by post.
* When necessary to check the authenticity of papers and documents requested to be consularly certified, dossier-receiving officers may ask you to additionally produce the originals of related papers and documents, and submit one copy of each of such papers and documents.
You will have to pay VND 30,000 for each paper consularly legalized in Vietnam.- (VLLF)
