Apostille and Legalization Between Georgia and Lithuania - Notaries, Archives and the Driver File

Apostille replaces legalization between Georgia and Lithuania

Lithuania has been a Hague Apostille member since 1997 and Georgia since 2007, so a public document from either country is recognized in the other once apostilled by the issuing country's competent authority. The Lithuanian Embassy in Tbilisi does not legalize Georgian documents and does not need to; nor does the Georgian embassy in Vilnius legalize Lithuanian ones. What the embassies handle is visas, residence permit intake, citizenship applications, and the registration of their citizens' marriages and births abroad, which is separate from the apostille and presupposes apostilled originals.

Whether the translation must also be apostilled is rarely asked in Lithuania, because Lithuanian offices look at how the translation was certified - by a notary or by a bureau - rather than at a foreign apostille on it. We apostille the notarized translation only where an office specifically asks. Georgian offices require a Georgian notarized translation and an apostille on the Lithuanian original.

Where Lithuanian documents get their apostille: any notaras

Since 2019 Lithuanian apostilles have been issued by notarai rather than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and any notary in Lithuania can apostille any Lithuanian public document regardless of where it was issued, verifying the signature or seal against the register of officials, usually on the spot. Gimimo and santuokos liudijimai and išrašai from the civil registry, the pažyma dėl teistumo from the Informatikos ir ryšių departamentas, diplomai, Registrų centras išrašai, court decisions and notarial įgaliojimai are apostilled at the notary's office; documents signed with a qualified e-signature can be apostilled electronically. Lithuanian citizens already in Georgia can obtain apostilles through a relative, a lawyer with an įgaliojimas, or remotely for digital documents. We confirm the route for each document.

Apostille on Georgian documents for Lithuania

Georgian documents going to Lithuania are apostilled here, and this part we handle entirely. Civil status certificates and Public Service Hall extracts are apostilled through the Public Service Development Agency; notarial acts and court documents through the Ministry of Justice route; diplomas and school certificates through the education verification route, which is the slowest at up to five business days; and archive extracts for citizenship by descent through the Public Service Development Agency after the archive issues them. You bring the original to Agmashenebeli 117 once, or a relative brings it, or we obtain it from the archive; we submit, track and collect the apostille, then translate the bundle into Lithuanian or English, notarize it and, where the receiving office requires Lithuanian notarial certification, forward the text to our partner in Vilnius. Driver files for MIGRIS are uploaded digitally the moment they are ready; paper reaches Lithuania within two to three days.

Documents most often apostilled between Georgia and Lithuania

• National visa D and residence permits for drivers and workers: Georgian conviction certificate, driving license and qualifications where the employer asks for legalized copies, marriage and birth certificates for family members.
• Family reunification and marriage in Lithuania: Georgian birth certificate, marital status certificate, divorce decisions.
• SKVC recognition and university enrollment: Georgian diplomas, supplements, school leaving certificates with national exam results, particularly for LSMU medical admissions.
• Citizenship by descent: Georgian and Soviet-era birth, marriage and death certificates and archive extracts proving descent from Lithuanian citizens who lived in the Caucasus.
• For Georgian residence permits: Lithuanian pažyma dėl teistumo, gimimo and santuokos liudijimai, diplomai.
• For company registration in Georgia: Lithuanian Registrų centras išrašai, įstatai and įgaliojimai.
• Succession: Georgian death certificates and inheritance certificates for Lithuanian notarai, Lithuanian paveldėjimo teisės liudijimai for Georgian notaries.

Lithuanian citizenship by descent: the archive route

Lithuania restores citizenship to descendants of people who were Lithuanian citizens before 1940 and left the country, and to persons of Lithuanian descent, and Georgians whose ancestors were Lithuanian exiles, officials, engineers or soldiers in the Caucasus - a community that left traces in Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi from the nineteenth century - apply through the Lithuanian Embassy in Tbilisi and the Migration Department. The file requires an unbroken chain of documents from the ancestor to the applicant: Georgian and Soviet-era birth, marriage and death certificates, archive extracts from the Georgian civil registry and National Archives, Catholic parish records in Latin or Polish for the older generations, and Lithuanian archival documents proving the ancestor's citizenship, obtained from the Lithuanian Central State Archives. We translate the Georgian chain into Lithuanian with a single translator so names and relationships stay consistent, reconcile the Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Georgian forms of the family name in a translator's note, notarize and apostille the translations, and coordinate with genealogists and the Lithuanian archives for the Lithuanian side.

Timing, validity and common errors

Apostilles on Georgian civil status documents usually take one to three business days; notarial acts and court documents about the same; education documents up to five; archive extracts add one to three weeks. Add 1-2 hours for the translation and a few days for re-certification in Vilnius where required. Lithuanian notary apostilles are typically same-day. Lithuanian civil registry offices want civil status documents recently issued, and the pažyma dėl teistumo and the Georgian conviction certificate are accepted for a limited period, so timing matters, especially for driver files where the employer's MIGRIS application has its own deadline. The errors we correct most often are an untranslated apostille certificate, a Georgian name in a Lithuanian document read as a different person because of the Lithuanian ending, a translation sent to a civil registry office without notarial certification, a marital status certificate obtained too early, a Georgian document in a maiden name that differs from the passport, Lithuanian nasal vowels and ė transliterated inconsistently into Georgian, and a bundle unstapled for scanning. Send photos of both sides of every page and we run this check before submitting.

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