India-issued · for use abroad

Experience Certificate
Apostille in India

An experience certificate is issued by a private employer, which makes it a private document — notary first, then SDM. The frequent problem is not the route but the certificate: a letter without a letterhead, a signatory's designation or clear employment dates will often be refused by the notary or questioned by the receiving authority abroad. Check the content before you spend anything on authentication.

All-in price

₹2,100per document

Processing

3–7 working days

plus courier transit

Govt fees shown at costSDM route · not 10–20 daysNo email gate on pricing

Check this first

An apostille only works for Hague Convention countries.

There are 130 Contracting Parties as of 30 June 2026. If your experience certificate is going to the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Malaysia, Iraq or Iran, an apostille is not valid — you need embassy attestation instead, which is a different process. Check your destination before you order.

Check your destination country
The Correct Route

Who Issues an Indian Experience Certificate

Issuing Authority

The employing organisation, on its letterhead, signed by an authorised signatory of the HR or management function

A experience certificate is a privately-made document, not a government record. That is why it must be attested by a Notary Public before the SDM will pre-authenticate it. Skipping that step is the most common reason a first attempt fails.

Step by Step

How the SDM Route Works for a Experience Certificate

1

Notary Public

Same day

A Notary Public attests the certificate and the authorised signatory's signature.

2

Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM)

3–7 working days

The SDM verifies the notary's signature and register entry and attests the certificate.

3

Ministry of External Affairs

1–2 working days after deposit

The MEA verifies the SDM signature against its records and affixes the apostille sticker with its QR code. The MEA accepts no document directly from an individual, so we deposit through an MEA-authorised collection channel.

SDM or State Home Department?

Personal documents can be pre-authenticated by either the SDM or the State Home Department. We default to the SDM because it is materially faster, and because the slower route rarely buys the customer anything. The exception matters though: some destination countries and some receiving institutions specifically require Home Department attestation, and getting that wrong means running the whole process again.

Pre-authentication authorityTypical timeWhen it applies
SDM Our default3–7 daysThe standard route for personal documents
State Home Department10–20+ daysWhere a destination or institution specifically requires it

Tell us the destination country and the receiving institution when you order and we will confirm which route yours needs before anything is submitted. If it needs the Home Department, we will say so — quoted on request.

Experience Certificate Apostille by State

The SDM is a district-level officer, so the office that pre-authenticates your experience certificate follows the district where it was issued — not where you live now. The Home Department alternative is state-level. Both routes end at the same MEA counter, and our price is the same from every state.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Telangana

Issued by
GHMC or the relevant municipality / gram panchayat
Home Department route
General Administration Department, Government of Telangana (Hyderabad)

Hyderabad births are registered by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. A hospital-issued discharge slip is not a birth certificate and cannot be apostilled — the GHMC-issued certificate is the one that can.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Andhra Pradesh

Issued by
The municipal corporation, municipality or gram panchayat of registration
Home Department route
General Administration Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh (Amaravati)

Records for births before the 2014 bifurcation may sit with the authority in the district as it then stood. Tell us the district and year and we will confirm which office holds it.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Maharashtra

Issued by
BMC in Mumbai; the relevant municipal corporation or gram panchayat elsewhere
Home Department route
Home Department, Government of Maharashtra (Mumbai)

Mumbai civil records are issued by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Documents registered in Pune, Nagpur or Nashik follow their own corporations, not BMC.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Karnataka

Issued by
BBMP in Bengaluru; the relevant municipal body elsewhere
Home Department route
Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Government of Karnataka (Bengaluru)

Bengaluru records come from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike. Degrees from Karnataka universities take the HRD route rather than the SDM route — that is a different service, quoted on request.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Tamil Nadu

Issued by
Greater Chennai Corporation, or the municipality / panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Public (Political) Department, Government of Tamil Nadu (Chennai)

Tamil Nadu civil records are commonly issued in Tamil. Where the receiving authority abroad requires English, a certified translation is needed — the apostille does not translate anything.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Kerala

Issued by
The local self-government body — corporation, municipality or panchayat
Home Department route
General Administration (Political) Department, Government of Kerala (Thiruvananthapuram)

Kerala has among the highest volumes of documents going abroad, much of it to Gulf states. Several of those — the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait — are not Hague parties, so an apostille has no effect there and embassy attestation is required instead.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Gujarat

Issued by
The municipal corporation or gram panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Home Department, Government of Gujarat (Gandhinagar)

Documents issued in Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara each come from their own municipal corporation. Confirm which body issued yours before ordering a fresh copy.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Punjab

Issued by
The municipal corporation, council or gram panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Department of Home Affairs and Justice, Government of Punjab (Chandigarh)

Chandigarh is a Union Territory administered separately from Punjab and Haryana. If your document was issued in Chandigarh itself, the UT administration holds it, not the Punjab department.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Haryana

Issued by
The municipal corporation or gram panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Home Department, Government of Haryana (Chandigarh)

Gurugram and Faridabad records come from their own municipal corporations. As with Punjab, documents issued in Chandigarh itself follow the UT administration.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Uttar Pradesh

Issued by
The Nagar Nigam, Nagar Palika or gram panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Home Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow)

Late-registered births are common in UP and the certificate will say so. That does not prevent an apostille, but some receiving authorities ask for supporting evidence alongside it — tell us if yours is late-registered.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Rajasthan

Issued by
The municipal corporation, council or gram panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Home Department, Government of Rajasthan (Jaipur)

Rajasthan issues many civil records in Hindi. Where the destination requires English, budget for a certified translation in addition to the apostille.

Experience Certificate Apostille in Madhya Pradesh

Issued by
The Nagar Nigam, Nagar Palika or gram panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Home Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal)

Indore and Bhopal records come from their own municipal corporations. Documents from smaller districts follow the local body that registered them.

Experience Certificate Apostille in West Bengal

Issued by
Kolkata Municipal Corporation, or the municipality / panchayat of registration
Home Department route
Home and Hill Affairs Department, Government of West Bengal (Kolkata)

Kolkata civil records are issued by the KMC. Bengali-language certificates need a certified translation where the destination requires English.

We do not publish state office addresses here because they change and a stale address is worse than none — check the current one on your state portal, or just send the document to us and we will route it. Stamp-paper values and notary charges are set by the state and vary; we confirm those at order.

What about e-Sanad?

Private employers are not e-Sanad issuing authorities. Public-sector employers may be reachable through state or central systems in limited cases — check esanad.nic.in if your employer is a government body.

e-Sanad is the government's own free platform for digitally verifying documents from onboarded issuing authorities. Where it covers your document and your destination accepts it, it is genuinely the better option and we will tell you so. It is not a replacement for a physical apostille sticker in most cases.

Pricing

What a Experience Certificate Apostille Costs

Government feesAt cost

MEA apostille ₹50 + authorised-channel collection ₹84 + scanning ₹3/page

₹143

Veritas service fee

SDM pre-authentication, authorised-channel deposit, handling and tracking

₹1,957
Total per document₹2,100

Courier

Quoted before payment, charged at what it actually costs

At cost

Notarisation

Required for this document before the SDM stage

Quoted at order

The same ₹2,100 applies to every personal document we handle, whatever its page count. Most sites in this market either publish no figure at all or put their calculator behind an email form — on searches where the whole intent is to find out what it costs. Government fees are reproduced from mea.gov.in and passed through at cost. See the full charges breakdown.

When It's Needed

Why People Apostille a Experience Certificate

Work visas and skilled migration

Points-based systems in Canada, Australia and New Zealand require verified employment history, frequently in apostilled form.

Professional licensing abroad

Engineering councils, medical boards and other regulators require authenticated evidence of practice.

Credential assessment

Assessment bodies evaluating foreign work experience often ask for the apostilled certificate rather than a copy.

Employer background verification

Some foreign employers require authenticated employment records as part of onboarding.

Variants & Edge Cases

Which Experience Certificate Do You Actually Have?

This is where applications fail, and it is almost never the apostille itself. Find your case below before you courier anything — a rejected document costs a full second run, not a correction.

Salary certificate

Follows exactly the same route as an experience certificate — notary, SDM, MEA. Often requested alongside it for visa income thresholds.

Relieving letter

Apostillable on the same route. Where the destination asked specifically for an experience certificate, a relieving letter may not be an acceptable substitute — check the wording of the requirement.

Certificate without a letterhead or signatory designationOften rejected

A common refusal. The notary needs an identifiable authorised signatory and an official letterhead. A plain-paper letter or an unsigned scan will not get through.

Employer no longer tradingOften rejected

Where the company has closed, there may be no one able to reissue the certificate on letterhead. Options narrow considerably here — tell us early and we will tell you honestly what is and is not possible.

Public-sector employer

A certificate issued by a government department under its own seal may be treated as a public document and skip the notary step. Send a scan and we will confirm.

Not sure which you have? Send photos on WhatsApp — we check before you courier anything, and we will tell you if the answer is that we cannot help.

Requirements

What to Send Us

1

The original experience or employment certificate on company letterhead

2

The signatory's name, designation and signature on the certificate

3

Clear start and end dates of employment and the role held

4

A photocopy of your passport (photo and address pages)

FAQ

Experience Certificate Apostille — Common Questions

Does an experience certificate need notarisation before apostille?

Yes, for a private employer. An experience certificate is a private document, so a Notary Public must attest it before the SDM will pre-authenticate it. A certificate issued by a government department under its own seal may be treated as public and go directly to the SDM.

What must an experience certificate contain to be apostilled?

It must be on the company's letterhead, name you as the passport does, state the role held and the start and end dates of employment, and carry the signature, name and designation of an authorised signatory. A letter missing the letterhead or the signatory's designation is commonly refused at the notary stage.

Can a salary certificate be apostilled too?

Yes, on the same route and at the same flat ₹2,100 per document. Salary and experience certificates are frequently apostilled together for visa income requirements.

Hague Convention figures verified against theHCCH status tableon 30 June 2026. Government fees from mea.gov.in, same date.

Ready to Apostille Your
Experience Certificate?

₹2,100 per document, 3–7 working days processing. We check your document for free before you courier anything.

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