This is a question that comes up often as some hope to save time or expense throughout the Legalization process and at ALSC we understand this. There are a select few countries where you can legalize your document outside of Canada. In most of these cases, it’s because the country does not have an embassy operating within Canada. Some countries only have an Embassy in the United States such as Oman or Bahrain, and some other countries use the system of partnering Country to process their documents, such as St. Maarten or Andorra. As such in most cases, you will need to have your document legalized at the country’s embassy located in Canada.
The reason is that the legalization process is a process of verifying signatures, the Embassy verifies the stamp and signature from Global Affairs Canada. All Embassies within Canada have the signatories on file but only a few embassies or agencies outside Canada have their signatures on file, which they require to legalize Canadian documents. Only embassies in the issuing country will have these signatures and be able to legalize a document. Unfortunately, some of our clients find this out once they arrive in destination country, costing them valuable time and money. Get it right the first time, speak to one of our legalization experts about your Canadian document and getting it ready for us internationally.