Qatar Attestation: How to easily attest your documents for use in Qatar

Document attestation is a confusing topic whichever country you’re attesting your documents for. It’s always a maze of embassies, governmental departments and stamps. And Qatar attestation is one of the most confusing. If you don’t know what you’re doing (and, let’s be honest, you probably don’t), it’s easy to get it wrong and find your plans delayed.

All attested documents will need an Apostille, but there are a couple of extra steps that could be required, depending on the document type. Some documents will need to certified by a solicitor before they’re apostilled, some documents will need to be sent for a consular stamp at the relevant embassy after they’re apostilled… and some documents need both.

The vast majority of Qatar attestation needs all three steps – certification, an Apostille, and an embassy stamp. If it was any other country in the world, that might make the process a bit easier – you’d know exactly what you need to do. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with Qatar.

What makes the Qatar attestation process so complicated?

Qatar is really, really, really strict with their requirements. They’ll reject documents for all sorts of minor, petty reasons. If your documents don’t meet their exact standards, they won’t be accepted. We’ve written a full blog on how Qatar attestation can go wrong, which you can have a read of here.

That’s not the only thing that makes them one of the most complicated countries to legalise for, though – they also have extra steps, waiting to trip you up. If you aren’t familiar with the Qatar attestation process, then the chances are you’re going to make a mistake.

Let me give you an example of how the Qatar attestation process is extra complicated and how the strict requirements can catch you out.

If you’re wanting to attest a Bachelor’s degree for Qatar, you’ll need:

• The original certificate
• A transcript of your results
• A cover letter from your college or university

all of which will also need attesting.  

Qatar doesn’t accept online degrees – they just don’t recognise them. They’ll refuse to stamp any qualification that was studied online or through distance learning (apart from MScs or PhDs, confusingly enough). Now, the cover letter that you’ll need to supply as a supporting document must include your ‘Type of Study’ – so whether you studied in-person or via distance learning.

Even though it pretty strongly suggests face to face learning, we’ve known the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in Doha reject cover letters because the type of study was listed as ‘on campus’.  Can you imagine how frustrating that is? Having all your plans delayed just because of a little discrepancy over the wording of a supporting document. There are so many little pitfalls like that – things that’ll trip you up and leave you out of pocket.

If you’re worrying about education documents, have a read of our guide to legalising education documents for Qatar.

It’d be handy if you had someone to guide you through it, wouldn’t it? But it’d be even handier if you had someone to just do it for you. That’s where we come in.

If you use Vital Consular, you’ll receive a checklist so you know exactly what you’ll need to get your documents legalised. If you need one, we’ll also send you a template letter you can forward on to your university or college asking for a cover letter than meets the Qatar attestation requirements.

Once you’ve got everything you need, you just send your documents to us and we’ll take care of the rest. We’ll get them attested for you and send them back to you, then you’re ready to go!