France is currently going through a period of major malfunctions and considerable delays in the issuing of apostilles, following the reform that came into force on May 1, 2025. This reform, which was intended to modernize and simplify the recognition of French documents abroad by transferring the jurisdiction of the Courts of Appeal to the Interregional Chambers of Notaries.unfortunately led to an alarming situation, far from the initial objectives.
While processing times of 3 days for standard service and 1 working day for priority service were promised, the reality is quite different: current lead times now extend to one year. minimum 4 to 5 weeksafter just 2 months in operation.
There had been many warnings of inconsistencies and malfunctions in recent months, and all fears were confirmed by experience and discussions with the heads of the Regional Notary Centers. As a reminder, the implementation had already been postponed for several years, and even pushed back a few months at the last minute, from January 1 to May 1.
Reasons for an unprecedented bottleneck
Several key factors explain this deep crisis:
The new apostille process comes up against an initial obstacle computer failure. The dedicated platform, apostille.notaires.fris considered unreliable, with frequent and random bugs, pricing errors, inconsistencies, and major problems downloading apostilles, with users sometimes receiving blank pages or being unable to download documents. A technical article has specifically listed these malfunctions.
What's more, the new dematerialized apostille is considered to be without legal value. For an apostille to be valid, it must be affixed to an original or a certified copy. This approach is likely to result in a massive rejection of documents by foreign administrations recipients of these apostilles".new-wave"an error deemed "terrible and unforgivable"of the project.
The Centre Régional des Notaires de Lyon has already taken the decision to revert to material apostilles.
L'The organization of this new service is also undersized. The replacement of the 30 Appeal Court departments issuing apostilles until the end of April 2025 by just 13 Regional Notary Centers in mainland France has led to total saturation. There is even a lack of coverage in central France.
Finally, the essential due diligence proves impossible. The national database of public signatures, under the responsibility of the Conseil supérieur du notariat (CSN), is supposed to enable verification of the legalization of signatures, the only prerequisite for obtaining an apostille. However, this database doesn't contain a quarter of what it shouldThe project was launched despite this fundamental shortcoming.
Many communes, particularly those with more than 3,500 inhabitants, failed to transmit the required signatures by the May 1 deadline. This was partly due to technical problems in creating ProConnect accounts, a step ignored by many agents and elected representatives, as well as to the CSN itself being overwhelmed by requests for help. The CSN acknowledged "malfunctions"and a "congestion"of his services, even if he wants to be reassuring about tolerance" for latecomers.
Consequences for individuals and businesses
The implications of these delays and malfunctions are far-reaching, and have serious consequences difficult to measure. They affect a wide range of players and situations:
- For private customersFor example, administrative procedures for studying abroad (e.g. medicine in Spain), inheritance (e.g. in Argentina), burial of a deceased person (in Saudi Arabia) or immigration procedures are directly impacted, with almost systematic delays.
- French companies may find themselves losing out on foreign tenders (in Australia, for example), or encountering difficulties in opening branches (in Canada), simply because they are unable to produce apostilled documents within an acceptable timeframe. Lawyers working on international cases, such as those in Iceland, are also affected.
All in all, nearly 100 destinations worldwide are affected by these problems, including major countries such as Canada, China, the United States, Spain, India, Japan and the whole of South America.
There state responsibility is deemed total. France, as a signatory to the Hague Convention, is failing to meet its obligations. The Ministry of Justice, under the aegis of the Keeper of the Seals, has chosen to outsource the issuing of apostilles for reasons of budgetary savings, without properly organizing the transition. The State could find itself taken to court for substantial damages. The notarial authorities, for their part, should never have accepted a start-up under such conditions.
Urgent calls for rectification, before things get worse
Faced with this critical situation, the head of a firm of expert translators, with 20 years' experience in legalizing documents destined for foreign countries, made 4 urgent recommendations to management:
- Abandon dematerialized apostilles immediatelywhich, as things stand, is a "bad fantasy". This project, which requires validation by all the signatory countries of the Hague Convention, should be envisaged in ten years' time. In the meantime, it is crucial to return to material apostilles without delayThese are glued to the back of the original document, a process already initiated by the Centre Régional des Notaires de Lyon.
- THE transfer of legalizations from the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) to the same notarial bodies, scheduled for September 1, 2025, must be cancelled. This transfer will extend the difficulties to the fifty or so countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention, and will inevitably worsen the saturation of the Regional Chambers of Notaries. This development can only be envisaged when apostilles are normally issued within 3 days.
- Expand treatment centers and double staffing levels as a bare minimum.
- Finally, it is absolutely essential to complete without delay the census of personnel authorized to legalize signatures town halls and Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI). This database is indispensable, and town halls and CCIs need to add to it as a matter of urgency.
Until the situation has been rectified, we strongly recommend that youanticipate apostille requests as far as possible to avoid damaging delays, particularly in immigration procedures and international mobility.
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