When a document is issued in one country and used in another, an Apostille may be available if the Apostille Convention applies between the two countries. If the Convention does not apply, the document will generally need to follow the traditional consular legalization route instead.

Legalization involves several authorities verifying the signatures and seals on the document in sequence. Because each stage is handled independently, the total processing time is less predictable than a single administrative procedure.

A Chinese Graduation Certificate for Use in the UAE

For example the UAE is not currently a party to the Apostille Convention, so Chinese documents intended for use there still follow the legalization route. For a Chinese university Graduation Certificate, the usual China-side process is:

Graduation Certificate → Chinese notarization → Chinese MFA or authorized Foreign Affairs Office authentication → UAE Embassy/Consulate authentication

Chinese educational documents such as Graduation Certificates, Degree Certificates and Academic Transcripts cannot normally be submitted directly for legalization; they first need to be notarized in China.

Why Is the Embassy Stage Harder to Predict?

Most of the time, embassy legalization follows a fairly regular pattern. However, an estimated processing time should still be treated as an estimate rather than a guaranteed completion date.

Public holidays are one obvious reason. A foreign embassy in China may be affected by both Chinese public holidays and holidays observed by its own country. The UAE Embassy in Beijing, for example, operates on weekdays and publishes its own mission working arrangements.

Religious and traditional periods can also affect processing. During Ramadan, working arrangements and administrative pace across UAE institutions may differ from normal periods, so document processing can sometimes take longer than at other times of the year.

Another common factor is application volume. If the embassy receives an unusually large number of documents within a short period, a backlog can develop even when there has been no formal change to the published procedure.

Internal administrative changes can also have an effect. Staffing adjustments, procedural updates, system changes, additional document checks or temporary changes in submission arrangements may all slow down processing for a period of time.

Allow Extra Time for Embassy Legalization

When a document needs embassy legalization, it is sensible to leave some buffer before a visa appointment, employment start date or school deadline. The earlier notarization and foreign-affairs authentication stages can often be planned relatively closely, while the embassy stage has more variables outside the applicant’s or service provider’s control.

In practice, most applications are completed within a reasonably consistent timeframe. The important point is to avoid treating an estimated embassy processing time as a guaranteed delivery date, especially around public holidays or periods of unusually high application volume.