1 Primary required

Primary for 70 points

Foreign Passport (current)
Australian Passport (current or expired within last 2 years but not cancelled)
Australian Citizenship Certificate
Full Birth certificate (not birth certificate extract)
Certificate of Identity issued by the Australian Government to refugees and non Australian citizens for
entry to Australia

Primary for 40 points

Australian Driver Licence/Learner’s Permit
Current (Australian) Tertiary Student Identification Card
Photo identification card issued for Australian regulatory purposes (e.g. Aviation/Maritime Security
identification, security industry etc.)
Government employee ID (Australian Federal/State/Territory)
Defence Force Identity Card (with photo or signature)

Secondary

Secondary 40 points

Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) card
Centrelink card (with reference number)

Secondary for 25 points

Birth Certificate Extract
Birth card (NSW Births, Deaths, Marriages issue only)
Medicare card
Credit card or account card
Australian Marriage certificate (Australian Registry issue only)
Decree Nisi / Decree Absolute (Australian Registry issue only)
Change of name certificate (Australian Registry issue only)
Bank statement (showing transactions)
Property lease agreement – current address
Taxation assessment notice
Australian Mortgage Documents – Current address
Rating Authority – Current address eg Land Rates

Secondary 20 points

Utility Bill – electricity, gas, telephone – Current address (less than 12 months old)
Reference from Indigenous Organisation
Documents issued outside Australia (equivalent to Australian documents).
Must have official translation attached

There are three acceptable ways to apostille a university document.

1. Get your document notarised by a public notary. The notary will need to verify the document through myequals or any of the online University services. There is a specific blog about online university verification https://apostillestamp.com.au/university-qualifications-can-be-verified-online/
2. Get the original document signed and stamped by the University student records department. The University employed signer must be registered with DFAT.
3. Get the myequals version of the document sent to authentications.nsw@dfat.gov.au and bring the original to DFAT.

Apostille Stamp has notaries available and can process the document at DFAT in one to two days.

Call 0450 007 064 if you have any further questions.

The Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority has a helpful website for verifying documents created by them. The website address is https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/api/access/#/authenticate

You will need the last name of the person on the document, the LUI and the Document ID which is also on the document.

Lodging documents at the Chinese Visa Application Center is fraught with problems.

You are not allowed to include any copies of Chinese Documents like passports, drivers licenses and now I have learnt the previous legalization stamp is not allowed to be present in the documents.

A copy of the legalization stamp can be made when a notary includes a previously notarised, authenticated and legalised document that is used as support evidence of verification in the document to be legalized. The legalization stamp is issued by the Chinese Embassy and is the result of lodging the documents at the Chinese Visa Application Center.

I also had a police check issued in Queensland rejected by the Sydney Chinese Visa Application Center even though the authentication was completed in Sydney. The solution was to make a notarised copy of the police certificate that could be authenticated and legalised. I recommend all of my clients to get a police check from the AFP so this problem can be avoided.

Translations need to be notarised before they are authenticated at DFAT as the Chinese Visa Processing Centre will not legalise translations that have only been authenticated.

The Chinese Government signed onto the Hague Convention and will start accepting Apostilles in November 2023 which means we may not need to go to the Chinese Visa Application Center after November.

The director can sign on the constitution in front of the notary and the document can then be apostilled. If a director is not available to sign a copy in front of a notary, the directors can sign a print out of the constitution and state this version of the constitution is the current version of the constitution.

NSW has approximately 1200 Notary Publics, VIC has about 180 Notary Publics. Despite NSW having vastly more Notary Publics there are still some places in NSW that have no Notary Publics in town.

Having so many notaries in NSW means that many Notary Publics in NSW see only one or two clients requiring notary work per year. Other notaries in NSW will see ten a week and so become very good at their craft. To become a notary you must be practicing law for more than 5 years and pass an exam. There are no further learning requirements to stay a notary.

Lawyers who have been practicising law for more than five years generally have a well running legal practice and have existing client requirements which means they are not often available for notary work.

Despite notary work being fairly expensive the lawyer can make far more money running their court cases. Court cases often involve huge amounts of dedicated time so a notary must make a conscious choice to make time to do enough notary work to be a good notary.

One page documents that are notarised generally have no problem being apostilled as all notaries know to sign and stamp a one page document.

Documents that have more than one page have to have the notaries signature on every page or they need to have a notarial certificate bound to the front of the document.

I had a client give me a document that was bound together but the front page was not a notarial certificate and did not have the notary’s signature. The notary had a hand written note on the back page. The document was not accepted at DFAT and could not be apostilled.

Printers are really good at making copies of documents. Businesses and Governments around the world needed a way to tell if a document was genuine. Originally an international system called authentication was created. This allowed governments to stamp documents that they could verify were true and correct. Governments could authenticate documents that were issued by the government like birth certificates and marriage certificates. For documents that were not issued by the government the government relied on a network of notaries to verify the authenticity of the document.

There was only one problem with the authentication system and that was that documents that were authenticated needed to be legalised by the country where the documents were going. The legalisation could be done at the countries embassies which are located in major cites although smaller countries may only have one embassy to support a whole region.

The Hague Convention of 1961 proposed a new system to replace the authentication system which would not require documents to be legalised at embassies. Many countries signed onto the Hague Convention and began issuing apostilles. Having an apostille on a document meant that a document did not need to be legalised at a countries embassy after being authenticated. Some countries to this day have not signed onto the Hague Convention and still require a document to be authenticated and legalised.

You can see a list of countries that accept apostilles here: List of Countries accepting an Apostille

Getting an apostille still has the same requirements as getting an authentication. Documents that are issued by the government can be directly apostilled. Documents that are not issued by the government need to be verified by notaries. Since 2018 documents that were translated by a NAATI translator can also be apostilled.

Often our busy lives make it hard for all signers to be in the same room. As long as all the signers see the same notary the different signers can see the notary at different times.

The ATO is where you can find the most acceptable proof of residency overseas.

Please see https://www.ato.gov.au/Forms/Certificate-of-residency-and-certification-of-overseas-tax-relief—individuals/

The document is called a Certificate of Residency and can be obtained by going to sending a letter or a fax or finding a tax agent.

The letter should be sent to:

Australian Taxation Office
PO BOX 3544
ALBURY NSW 2640

This address was updated on 15 June 2023. The ATO changes the address from time to time.

The letter will need to contain the following information

• full name of the Australian resident
• residential address of the Australian resident and postal address if different
• date of birth (individuals only)
• tax file number (TFN) or Australian business number (ABN) (or both)
• country the certificate is for
• a statement whether the Australian resident is only a tax resident of Australia or whether the Australian resident is also dual resident under the relevant tax treaty
• period the certificate is required for – the certificate period can’t be greater than a year from the date of issue
• number of certificates required
• signature and date.

Please note your taxes must be up to date to release the Certificate of Residency

The Proof of Residency does not need to be notarised and can be directly apostilled.