Legalizing Japan Documents for Use in Vietnam involves notarization, and then certification of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then legalization by the embassy or consulate of Vietnam.

Normally, the documents issued in foreign countries will be subject to a consular legalization procedure for official use in Vietnam. What about documents issued in Japan? Are they required to be legalized before putting into use in Vietnam? If yes, what should you do?

All the information you are looking for is detailed in this post.

1. Requirements for Japan’s Document Legalization for Use in Vietnam

As updated, the civil status documents issued by the competent authorities of Japan are exempted from consular legalization for use in Vietnam and vice versa.

Those documents include:

• Birth Certificate,
• ID card,
• Household Book,
• Certificate of Marriage,

Otherwise, to be officially used in Vietnam, the documents issued in Japan, such as Diploma, Certificate, Working experience confirmation, police check, etc., should be properly legalized in the procedure below.

2. Can I Legalize My Japan Documents in Vietnam?

No. All the documents issued in Japan should be legalized in Japan for official uses in Vietnam.

3. How to Legalize Japan Documents for Use in Vietnam

The procedure for consular legalization of Japanese Documents to be used in Vietnam will take four (04) steps:

Step 1: Notarization

For private documents and the documents categorized as not acceptable for certification, this step is required, yet, this step is exempted for certifiable official documents.

You can check here for details of those documents.

Step 2: Certification by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan

You will get your documents authenticated by either of two (02) offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan as follows:

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Headquarter in Tokyo: 2 Chome-2-1 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 100-8919, Japan
• Osaka Liaison Office: 4 Chome-1-76 Otemae, Chuo Ward, Osaka, 540-0008, Japan

The application for authentication/certification by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly in person or by post.

In case direct application is made, you need to submit the following documents:

• The official document to be certified (original document issued within three months)
• Application form for authentication
• Identification Document: photo of your ID issued by a public institution, such as a driving license, basic resident registration card, passport or residence card. If you do not possess any of these forms of identification, please bring your insurance card.
• Power of attorney (only for an application through an representative)
• Stamped, self-addressed envelope, or Letter Pack (if you wish to get your certified document delivered to your address).

In case of application by post, you need to submit the following documents:

• The official document to be certified (original document issued within three months, except original documents which are issued only once, such as diplomas)
• Application form (authentication or apostille)
• Power of attorney (only for an application through a representative)
• Stamped, self-addressed envelope, or Letter Pack

Important note:

• The delivery address should be an address in Japan, but not the addresses of foreign Embassies/Consulates in Japan.
• You cannot receive the certified document at the application desk if you made the application by mail.

Step 3: Consular Legalization of Japan Documents

To finish your procedure, you need to complete this step – get your certified documents legalized by the Vietnam embassy in Japan. As such, this step is also known as Vietnam embassy legalization or Vietnam embassy attestation of Japan Documents.

The documents to be submitted include:

• Application for legalization of documents (download);
• Original documents to be legalized (that are already notarized public and authenticated by local legal department (MOFA, JCCI, etc.) + its copy;
• Self-addressed postage-paid return envelope if you wish to get the legalized document delivered to your address by mail (see sample)

After getting the legalized documents, you only need to get it translated into Vietnamese and then verified for use in Vietnam.

As this procedure is complete done in Japan, we highly recommend you to do it before departure for Vietnam.

In case you are in Vietnam and find it difficult to make legalization of your Japan documents, contact us at +84 32 896 0880 or info@vietnamvisacenter.vn for assistance.

Disclaimers: While we put an effort to ensure that the provided information is correct and up-to-date, there are probably changes which we are unaware of.