e-Sanad is a digital initiative by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government of India, designed to make document attestation and apostille seamless and paperless. It eliminates the need for physical document submission, ensuring contactless, faceless, and cashless verification.
Key Highlights:
- Provides online attestation and apostille for personal, educational, and commercial documents.
- Integrates with National Academic Depository (NAD) for secure verification.
- Supports DigiLocker and other digital repositories.
- Enables quick authentication of documents for international use.
With e-Sanad, document verification becomes efficient, transparent, and globally accessible, benefiting individuals and businesses needing official authentication.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
- What is e-Sanad?
e-Sanad is a project aimed at online submission/verification of documents with an ultimate object to extend contact less, cashless, faceless and paperless document attestation service for apostille and normal attestation to applicants in India (to be extended to applicants abroad in a phased manner). It is designed and developed by NIC.
- Which are the documents authenticated/apostilled?
Any type of document viz personal, educational or commercial can be authenticated/apostilled using e-Sanad. The document should be available in the digital repository for getting attestation/apostille through e-Sanad.
- How many offices are presently extending this service?
e-Sanad is currently operational in five passport offices and in Attestation Section, CPV Division, Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. With further decentralization of attestation related work to other locations, it is going to be extended to entire country very soon.
- How is the project being implemented?
The project is being implemented by NIC in coordination with CBSE, States/UTs and the Ministry of External Affairs in a phased manner. Initially only those Document Issuing Authorities(DIAs), that have digital depository of their documents(such as CBSE), are taken on board . This service would be extended to other DIAs in phased manner as and when they are capable to providing digital depository of documents issued by them.
- What is an Apostille and when do I need one?
An Apostille is a certificate that authenticates the origin of a public document (e.g., a birth, marriage or death certificate, a judgment, an extract of a register or a notarial attestation). The Model Apostille Certificate is reproduced at the beginning of this brochure. Apostilles can only be issued for documents issued in one country party to the Apostille Convention and that are to be used in another country which is also a party to the Convention.
You will need an Apostille if all of the following apply:- The country where the document was issued is party to the Apostille Convention; and
- The country in which the document is to be used is party to the Apostille Convention; and
- The law of the country where the document wasissued considers it to be a public document; and
- The country in which the document is to be used requires an Apostille in order to recognise it as a foreign public document.
An Apostille may never be used for the recognition of a document in the country here that document was issued – Apostilles are strictly for the use of public documents abroad!
An Apostille may not be required if the laws, regulations, or practice in force in the country where the public document is to be used have abolished or simplified the requirement of an Apostille, or have exempted the document from any legalisation requirement. Such simplification or exemption may also result from a treaty or other agreement that is in force between the country where the public document is to be used and the country that issued it (e.g., some other Hague Conventions exempt documents from legalisation or any analogous formality, including an Apostille).
If you have any doubts, you should ask the intended recipient of your document whether an Apostille is necessary in your particular case.
- To which documents does the Apostille Convention apply?
The Convention only applies to public documents. Whether or not a document is a public document is determined by the law of the country in which the document was issued. Countries typically apply the Convention to a wide variety of documents. Most Apostilles are issued for documents of an administrative nature, including birth, marriage and death certificates; documents emanating from an authority or an official connected with a court, tribunal or commission; extracts from commercial registers and other registers; patents; notarial acts and notarial attestations (acknowledgments) of signatures; school, university and other academic diplomas issued by public institutions. The Apostille Convention does not apply to documents executed by diplomatic or consular agents. The Convention also excludes from its scope certain administrative documents related to commercial or customs operations.
- How much does an Apostille cost?
MEA: A fee of Rs. 50/- is payable for Apostille of each document. (W.e.f 21 December 2016, payment by means of postal orders has been discontinued.) Normal Attestation is done free of cost.
Outsourced agencies: As the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is not accepting documents directly from the applicant/individual, all documents for the purpose of Attestation/ Apostille by MEA are to be submitted and collected from the four designated outsourced agencies. The fee chargeable by the outsourced agencies per document for its collection and delivery for Apostille/normal attestation by MEA will be Rs.22/- (Personal document), Rs.18/- (Educational document) and Rs.16/- (Commercial document).
