An Essential Marriage Requirement for Foreign Documents to have Legal Effect in Italy.
Legalization is a mandatory procedure to ensure that a foreign document can produce legal effects in Italy or that an Italian document is recognized in a country abroad.
In your specific case, this may involve a document issued by your foreign consulate in Italy (e.g., the nulla osta) or a document issued by the authorities of your home country that needs to be recognized in Italy.
For instance, this could include a certificate of no impediment if a bilateral agreement between Italy and your country stipulates that the nulla osta is replaced by another document issued in your home country.
If the document is issued by a foreign authority in Italy (such as the Nulla Osta in your consulate in Italy), it must be legalized by the Prefettura in the district where the foreign authority (your consulate) is located.
This is because the consul’s signature is registered with the Prefettura and must be verified through this procedure.
Exceptions to this rule include the Italian region of Valle d’Aosta, where the President of the Region is responsible, and the provinces of Trento and Bolzano, where the responsibility lies with the Commissariato del Governo.
Legalization, however, does not address the validity of the document’s content in its country of origin. In this sense, it is far less comprehensive, as legalization (including the Apostille) does not involve any verification or acceptance of the document’s content.
The absence of legalization means that the document, even if valid and effective in its country of origin, cannot produce legal effects in Italy and, under Italian law, cannot be submitted to a town hall for a civil wedding ceremony.
Specifically, a foreign public document will not be recognized as such in Italy and will instead be treated as an unauthenticated private document.
Conversely, if an Italian document is to be used abroad, legalization involves affixing an Apostille (if the Hague Convention is applicable in the recipient country) by the Italian Public Prosecutor at the competent Court.
Alternatively, if the document is issued by a Municipality (such as a marriage certificate), it must be legalized with an Apostille (if the Hague Convention is applicable in the recipient country) by the competent Prefettura.
If the recipient country has not signed the Hague Convention, the legalization process must be completed through the consular services of the country where the document is to be recognized (your home country’s Consulate or Embassy located in Italy).
To simplify, you should imagine that both for entering and exiting Italy, the document must go through the legalization process.
For example, if an American citizen needs to submit a divorce certificate to an Italian court, the document must first have the Apostille affixed by the designated U.S. authority (Secretary of State), as the United States is a signatory of the Hague Convention. Afterward, it must be translated and certified (asseverazione) at any Italian court.
If the divorce certificate comes from a country that is not a signatory of the Hague Convention, it must be legalized by the Italian consulate in that country (without the Apostille but through a different procedure) and then translated in Italy through a certified translation process at any Italian Court.
The situation is different for European countries that have signed the Vienna Convention. Thanks to this convention, any certificate issued by the civil registry of a participating country is provided in a multilingual format (including Italian) and does not require legalization.
The Vienna Convention of September 8, 1976, provides for the issuance of multilingual extracts of civil status records exempt from legalization. According to available information, the countries that adhere to this convention are: Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cape Verde, Croatia, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland.
Who will be your Legal Counselor in Italy?
Due to our experience in law firms and the foreign offices of the Italian public administration, we gained significant expertise in Consular affairs, and we are trained to solve the most complicated procedure such as:
- Marriage Nulla osta process, legalization procedure, Court hearings for the refusal of the town hall when there documents missing , legal translation, apostille procedure, emergency procedure for legalization.
- Immigration law services and consular support for non-EU citizens applying for a Schengen visa.
- Same-sex couples that want to celebrate a civil union in Italy as in their country the union is forbidden;
- Couples that come from countries where divorce is not allowed;
Italians living abroad registered at A.I.R.E. that need to recover their document to start the marriage banns in the Italian Consulate; - Assistance with people that come from countries that do not release the nulla osta;
- American and Australian couples who needs assistance with “atto notorio” in an Italian Court or the Italian Consulate in the USA or Australia.
- People with refugee status who have requested asylum in Italy.
For all other matters, please visit our FAQ section.
