In view of the difficulty in Venezuela to apostille higher education degrees, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, the Border Management and the Embassy of the Interim Government of Venezuela adopted a temporary, transitory, expeditious and exceptional mechanism of apostille service for Venezuelans for the validation of higher education degrees obtained in Venezuela.
One of the main problems reported by Venezuelan migrants upon arriving in Colombia is that they are unable to access formal studies and jobs precisely because they cannot comply with the apostille requirements for documents from their country of origin.
This process aims to enable them to overcome these barriers that prevent their effective integration and perform in their respective professional areas in Colombian territory. #1
Thus, Venezuelan citizens residing in Colombia and Colombian returnees who have pursued higher education studies in Venezuela may apply for a consular certification at the Venezuelan Embassy, which replaces the apostille.
This certificate certifies the validity, legitimacy and authenticity of documents issued by institutions of higher education legally recognized in Venezuela. This certification may be requested by accessing the website of the Embassy of Venezuela in Colombia:
How to perform the apostille service for Venezuelan citizens from the web?
On this page, through the procedures and services tab, you can find the option of legalization of grades, and there you can upload the documents in PDF, i.e., your university degree, certified grades or rotating internships.
After uploading the documents, the person will receive an email with a certification that will have a security QR, with a code of the process, the name of the person, the title of the race and a text with certification that the embassy will give.
After this, the person can go to the web page of the Colombian Chancellery and in the first part of the page the option “apostille from home” is displayed.
There you can click and then the option to legalize university degrees through diplomatic channels will appear. When you click, you will have to enter an e-mail address and then attach the document that the Embassy of the Interim Government authorized, in order to be able to legalize it.
Subsequently, on the Chancellery’s web page, individuals will have the option to pay 21,000 Colombian pesos for each apostilled document.
After paying this fee, within 48 hours the Foreign Ministry will send you a document with the legalization, which will have the time of the process, the code and the verification that it is a consular certification, as well as a QR code of authenticity.
In addition, if a Venezuelan has expired apostilled documents, he/she can upload the document to this platform and the Embassy will verify it.
What is the cost of the apostille service for Venezuelans?
This process is free of charge (in addition to the fees mentioned above), does not require intermediaries and it is not necessary to have a document evidencing a regular migration status.
But please note that it is not possible to do this process with a bachelor’s degree, it is only possible with a higher education degree.
The Venezuelan Embassy emphasized that this process for the moment will only cover migrants with undergraduate, postgraduate, technical and doctorate degrees.
“For high school graduates it is not yet available, due to the large number of schools in Venezuela and that is why it is still very complex to guarantee the veracity of these. However, depending on this beginning with university degrees, it will be possible to open some doors and every effort is being made to open soon the same for the issue of birth certificates,” said Ambassador #2.
Keep in mind that…
As mentioned at the beginning, this is a transitory mechanism, so it is not intended to be permanent, being so, this process will only be possible until July 2022.
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