Service Description

You can submit a request to the Department of Consular Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to authenticate your commercial documents. This service aims at legalizing the commercial documents to be used abroad and inside the State of Qatar. This includes the certificate of origin, the packing list (manifest), the commercial contracts and invoices.

Offline Instructions

• Submit the document required to be authenticated to the Legalization Section at the Administration Building of the Department of Consular Affairs.
• Pay prescribed fees. 

Service Center

• Legalization Section at the Administration Building of the Department of Consular Affairs from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm.
• Governmental Services Centers in Musaimeer, Alwakra, Um Selal, Alzubara on two shifts as follows:
• Morning shift from 7:30 am to 1:00 pm.
• Evening shift from 3:30 pm to 7:00 pm (except Alzubara).
• Diplomatic and consular missions of the State under the supervision of the Department of Consular Affairs.

Additional Information

• The Department of Consular Affairs at MOFA or any of its accredited branches authenticates the seal or signature of Qatar Chamber (QC) or the seal and signature of an accredited ministry or an organization accredited by the Department of Consular Affairs at MOFA.
• The document required to be authenticated shall have a number of live seals and signatures ending with a seal and signature accredited by the Department of Consular Affairs at MOFA.
• The government entities in the State of Qatar shall be deemed competent to authenticate the documents they issue and the (certified) copies of such documents.
• QC shall authenticate the seals and signatures of some translation offices.
• When authenticating a document whose seals and signatures or pre-authentication content are later proven to be invalid, the authentication of the Department of Consular Affairs at MOFA or one of its branches is deemed void, and the Department has the right to refer the issue to the competent security authorities in the State of Qatar.
• The Department of Consular Affairs at MOFA and its branches are not responsible for the content of the document, yet they abstain from authenticating any document that violates the applicable regulations in the State of Qatar.
• A transaction is reviewed and the legalization procedures are completed within a period ranging from one to five minutes, depending on the number of transactions, in the cases where the transaction is valid and complete with all the required signatures and seals. However, in case the transaction lacks any signatures or seals, customer is requested to complete the requirements and come back to process the authentication.

Fees

Prescribed QR150 fees are for the authentication of commercial documents as follows:

• Certificate of Origin.
• Packing List (Manifest).
• Business Contracts.
• Commercial powers of attorney.

As regards the commercial invoices:

• From QR1 to QR5,000: applicable fees are QR100.
• From QR5,001 to QR15,000: applicable fees are QR200.
• From QR15,001 to QR50,000: applicable fees are QR500.
• From QR50,001 to QR100,000: applicable fees are QR900.
• From QR100,001 to QR150,000: applicable fees are QR1,300.
• From QR150,001 to QR250,000: applicable fees are Q1,800.
• From QR250,001 to QR500,000: applicable fees are QR2,200.
• From QR500,001 to QR1000,000: applicable fees are QR3,000.
• 1000,001 and above: Fees are collected at 4% of the invoice value in QAR.