Guide to apostille or legalize an official translation before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia in 2026.
In this short guide we tell you how to apostille an official translation in Colombia in 2026 in five easy steps. Click to download this printable guide.
Step-by-Step Guide to the Process
1 Go to the notary's office
Once you have the official printed translation (with seal and ink signature of the official translator) in your hands, you must go to the notary where the signature of the official translator who translated your document(s) is registered ( s).
Notaries Associated with Traductores.co
If your translations were done by Traductores.co, you can go to any of the following notaries in Bogotá (before doing so, remember to ask our team to send your physical translations to your home, as this is what the notary will require):
2 request authentication
The procedure you need to complete is known as "Recognition or Authentication of a Registered Signature." Remember to inform the notary that it is for apostille or legalization process on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Depending on the notary, the authentication process for apostille/legalization has an average total price of COP 1,400,000 per document.
3 Check your authentications
The notary's office must provide you with each official translation with a digital signature (usually a sticker attached to each translation) and upload it to the Supernotariado application, which will generate a unique alphanumeric code that you should receive in the email that you have informed the notarial officer. The arrival of this email may take from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the availability of Supernotariado's computer systems.
When you receive the email with the approval details and the unique alphanumeric code, you must verify that they are correct and correspond to your document(s). If there are any errors or inconsistencies in the information, you must request its correction from the notary, as any inconsistencies in this data will result in the subsequent rejection of your apostille or legalization request.
You can verify your document(s) by entering the 21-digit code you received in the Supernotariado apostille filing page.
4 Enter the website of the Chancellery
Once you have completed the notarial process, you must visit the website of the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Look for the option for procedures and services, select “Online Apostille and Legalization” (You can access it directly by clicking here).
In the first box, choose the option “Electronic documents with digital signature” and in the next box: “Documents signed in Colombian Notary Offices””. The next step will be to enter your email address, select the destination country for your official translations and enter the alphanumeric code provided by the notary.
5 Pay the apostille/legalization
After you enter the code, the platforms of the Superintendency of Notaries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will exchange the information. You will be able to verify that the data of the notarial document is correct, and then proceed with the payment using some of the options offered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: PSE, bank deposit, etc.
That's it, once you pay, the apostilled/legalized document will arrive in your email.
Click to download this printable guideDo you have to authenticate and apostill all official translations?
The short answer is NO. . Translations signed and stamped by official Colombian translators are valid enough for most procedures. The authentication process is only necessary if you must present an apostille of the official translation. Remember that the authentication process is not a requirement in all cases, as we explain below:
Translations into Spanish to be presented in Colombia:
The authentication process was eliminated as of December 1, 2020 for any translation to be used in Colombian territory: Official translations produced in Colombia, which have legal effects in this country, are not authenticated, since the signature of the official translator is already valid in the national territory. (see determination of the Colombian Foreign Ministry).
Translations into a foreign language to be submitted outside of Colombia:
The most common thing is that the entity that will receive the translation asks you to apostille the original documents (in Spanish); if so, you must obtain said apostille here Before requesting an official translation, ask the official translator to include the serial number and date of issue of the apostille in the official translation. In other words, in this case, You do not need to have the translation apostilled. (but only the original document) and therefore there is no need to process notarization (since this is only a prerequisite to process the apostille of the translation and has no validity at the international level), and it would be a procedure and an additional expense that we do not recommend you incur.
If you already have your documents, we invite you to request a quote.
