Services › Document Authentication - Category A
Before certain New Zealand documents can be used overseas, document authentication may be necessary. It is required where overseas officials are not able to determine on sight the authenticity of New Zealand documents.
The Category A process is as follows:
The Authentication Unit authenticates the signature and seal of the approved Government agency or Notary Public on your documents. This takes up to five working days. Please advise the Authentication Unit if urgent processing or a translation is required. Once we have authenticated your documents we will pass them on to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the next step in the authentication process. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade verifies the signature and seal of the Department of Internal Affairs. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will return the documents to you for you to forward to the foreign country’s diplomatic mission for further verification.
To arrange verification by the foreign country’s diplomatic mission, contact the foreign diplomatic mission to enquire about their processing requirements, including fees and return of the documents. Foreign Embassy contact details are available from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.
- Click here for application form (.pdf) 55k*
*This document is in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. You need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. You can download a free version from the Adobe site.
FEES:
$65 NZD (incl. GST) for one authentication certificate (we can attach any number of documents to one certificate)
$31 NZD for each additional authentication certificate submitted at the same time.
1 authentication certificate = $65
2 authentication certificates = $96
3 authentication certificates = $127
4 authentication certificates = $158
5 authentication certificates = $189
All fees are paid to the Department of Internal Affairs.
The fee includes payment for both Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
HOW TO PAY:
You can pay by:
- One cheque or money order made out to The Department of Internal Affairs; or
- VISA, Mastercard or American Express details (card number, expiry date and name of cardholder); or
- Invoice - available for New Zealand based corporate customers; or
- Cash or EFTPOS - if you visit our office.
RETURN POSTAGE:
We will send your documents to you by standard post unless you provide a prepaid self-addressed courier bag or buy a return courier bag from us.
Courier bags for delivery within NZ cost $5.
Please contact us to find out international courier fees.
Send us your documents for authentication:
By courier:
Authentication Unit, Level 13, Prime Property Tower, 86-90 Lambton Quay, Wellington 6011
Or by post:
Authentication Unit, Department of Internal Affairs, PO Box 805, Wellington 6140
Other contact details:
email: authentication@egs.govt.nz
Phone: (04) 470-2928 Freephone: 0800 872 675 Fax: (04) 470-2921
Authentication Officers: Carlee Reid, Shannan Wong, Rita Foaese
Make sure you have enclosed:
The document/s to authenticate. If you have more than one document to authenticate, you may need to check with the end-user whether the documents can be processed as a set or authenticated separately. Documents in a set will be joined together. Documents with different seals from different issuing authorities can be authenticated as one set.
Please indicate clearly which documents belong together, and the order of each set, when you submit more than one set of documents.
You should paper clip or staple each set together.
Your documents need to meet certain requirements before you send them to us:
1. A birth, marriage**, death or change of name certificate issued in New Zealand:
Send the original document to us if it has the round seal of the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages (or the Registrar-General). Some older documents do not have either seal and so new certificates need to be ordered from Births, Deaths and Marriages. You can call them on 0800 22 52 52 (from overseas +64 4 474 8150) or download their application forms at www.bdm.govt.nz
**We cannot authenticate the marriage document that you signed on your wedding day (the Copy of Particulars of Marriage). We can only authenticate an official marriage certificate ordered after the wedding.
2. A document bearing the seal and/or signature of an approved GOVERNMENT agency such as a Court, a Police station, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA), the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), etc:
Please send the original to us.
Passports/Driver Licences
We cannot authenticate an original Passport or Driver Licence. You must provide a copy that has been certified by the issuing office or notarised by a Notary Public.
Criminal Conviction Letters from the Ministry of Justice:
When ordering these please ask the Ministry of Justice to print the Criminal Conviction Letter on their blue logo paper with an ink signature. We cannot authenticate black and white letters. Please follow the instructions on their website (these apply for all countries):
Companies Office documents:
Certificates of Incorporation and Company Extracts are available electronically from the Companies Office website. You need to request these via email so that they contain a validation code. You can then email (or post) them to us and we can validate and authenticate them.
To order these documents please go to:
3. Documents that are not issued by the government:
Documents such as contracts, references, powers of attorney, academic documents***, Chamber of Commerce certificates and any other document not issued by the government needs to be notarised by a Notary Public in New Zealand before you send them to our office. The Notary Public will sign the document and affix his/her seal to it. You can find a list of Notaries Public for your area in the Yellow Pages of your telephone book. The Notary Public will charge a fee.
You then need to send us only the notarised document, not the original.
We cannot authenticate documents certified by a solicitor or a Justice of the Peace.
***All documents issued by a school or university will need to be notarised before you send them to us. We cannot authenticate original documents issued by schools or universities. We can only authenticate original documents issued by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and the Ministry of Education.
Links to further information
- The Translation Service - the Department of Internal Affairs translation service.
