Pursuant to Resolution 1959 of August 3, 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established new provisions regarding apostille and legalization of documents.

The new resolution provides new terms and definitions used for the authentication of signatures and documents. 

Electronic document: it is the document issued in electronic format with a digital signature, which can be interoperable to facilitate its sending from one Entity to another, through an automatic or semi-automatic system.
Private document: it is the document issued and signed by a natural or legal person of a private nature that, for apostille or legalization purposes, must contain official certification from a public officer or an individual in the exercise of public functions, which endorses the signature or the entity that issues it.

Signature registration: internal procedure carried out by public officers before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which allows to verify or compare the authenticity of the signature imposed on a public document, for the apostille or legalization process.

Automatic system: procedure by which an electronic document with a digital signature is transferred from one Entity to another for interoperability, without human intervention, and that contains all the metadata that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs receives for immediate approval without requiring revision of the apostille or legalization request.

Semi-automatic system: procedure by which an electronic document with a digital signature is transferred from one Entity to another for interoperability and that partially contains the metadata that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs receives for approval, after review by the Coordination of Apostille and Legalizations.

Official Translation: It is the translation of a text or document written in Spanish into another language, or vice versa, which must be carried out by a sworn translator for it to take legal effect.

Official (Sworn) Translator: is the person who performs the official translation and is duly accredited in the terms of article 33 of Law 962 of 2005 or the regulations that modify, add or replace it.

Pursuant to the new regulations, every public officer or individual in the exercise of public functions who signs or certifies documents that must have legal effects abroad, will have to register and / or update their handwritten or digital signature (when applicable) before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and report any changes.

For the apostille or legalization purposes, the signature of the sworn translator must have been previously acknowledged or authenticated before a Notary Public. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will apostille or legalize the signature of the Notary. 

The Ministry of Foreign Relations will apostille or legalize the signature of the public officer or individual in the exercise of public functions imposed on the document and will not be able to certify or endorse or review its content. The apostille or legalization is issued based on a single document, regardless of the number of pages it contains.
In addition this resolution sets forth the steps that must be taken for the following procedures: legalization of Colombian documents that must have legal effects abroad; chain of legalization of foreign documents that must have legal effects in Colombia; legalization of foreign documents that must have legal effects in Colombia, through the figure of a friendly country; legalization of foreign documents that must have legal effects in Colombia, through the figure of circumscription.