The Ministry of External Affairs will not apostille a personal document that has not been pre-authenticated by someone it recognises. Two offices can do that job, and the choice between them decides whether your document takes a week or the better part of a month.
The two routes
| Sub-Divisional Magistrate | State Home Department | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical time | 3–7 working days | 10–20+ days |
| Level | District | State |
| What it verifies | That the issuing authority, or the notary, is genuine | The same thing |
| Accepted by the MEA | Yes | Yes |
Both produce a document the MEA will apostille. The apostille that comes out the other end is identical — same sticker, same QR code, same legal effect. The difference is entirely in how long you wait.
So why does anyone use the slow one?
Three real reasons, and one that is not a reason at all.
1. The receiving authority abroad asked for it specifically. Some foreign institutions name the State Home Department in their requirements. If yours does, that settles it — do not let anyone talk you out of it to save a week, because a document attested by the wrong office means running the whole chain again.
2. The document class requires it. Educational documents generally go through the State HRD rather than the SDM, and commercial documents through a Chamber of Commerce. Those are different chains, not a slow version of this one.
3. A particular district’s SDM office is genuinely backed up. It happens. It is local and temporary.
And the non-reason: habit. A number of agencies default to the Home Department because it is the route they have always used, and simply do not mention that a faster one exists. If you are quoted 15–20 days for a personal document apostille with no explanation, ask which office it is going to.
What “3–7 working days” actually covers
It is worth being precise, because this market is not.
The 3–7 days is SDM pre-authentication only. On top of it:
- Notarisation, if your document is privately made — an affidavit, a power of attorney, an employer letter. Same day, but it has to happen first.
- 1–2 working days at the MEA after deposit, for the apostille itself.
- Courier transit, both directions, which depends on your city and is nobody’s processing time.
So a realistic total is 3–7 working days of processing plus transit — which is what we publish — not a door-to-door promise dressed up as a processing time.
Some competitors advertise 1–2 working days for an MEA apostille. That is below the SDM’s own floor. Either they are quoting the MEA step alone and calling it the whole job, or they are describing something that does not happen.
Which documents go which way
The SDM route covers the personal document set: birth, marriage, death, police clearance, affidavits, powers of attorney, divorce decrees, domicile, medical, adoption, experience letters, and certified copies of passports or IDs.
Privately-made documents in that list need a Notary Public before the SDM. Government-issued certificates do not — if an agency tells you your birth certificate must be notarised first, ask them why, because it does not.
What we do
We default to the SDM, because it is materially faster and the slower route rarely buys the customer anything.
Where a destination or a receiving institution specifically requires Home Department attestation, we say so and quote it separately. We ask for the destination country and the receiving institution at order precisely so this gets decided before anything is submitted rather than after.
The full chain, step by step: How MEA apostille works · The SDM route in detail