As indicated by Articles 969 and 1295 of the Iranian Civil Code, a foreign document prepared and issued in compliance with the laws that govern the preparation and issuance of such document in the country of its origin, would, basically, be deemed valid by the Iranian authorities within the same scope granted to such document in the said country. An official Persian translation of the foreign document, however, would be required for its use before the Iranian official authorities.

On the other hand, a foreign document can be officially translated into Persian conditional upon taking certain formalities of legalization in the country of its origin and then in Iran. Herein below, a list of the actions to be taken upon a foreign document to put it in the situation of proper use in Iran, is within your reach:

1. the document should be signed and issued by the person/s who has / have full and valid legal authority to sign and issue such document as per determined by the laws of the country of its origin;
2. the signature/s of the signatory/s and their full and valid authority to do so should be verified by the official authority who has been determined to act in such position in the country of origin (this could be a notary public, the companies' registrar, the court, etc. as the case may be);
3. thereafter, and where applicable, a stamp / notice issued by the relevant official authority of the country of origin should be attached to the document in attestation of validity and reliability of the document as prepared and issued;
4. the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country of origin should, thereafter, certify the accuracy of the attestation made by the relevant authority of the said country;
5. the aforementioned certification of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country of origin, should be confirmed by the diplomatic representative of Iran in the said country (i.e. Iranian embassy or consulate, as the case may be);
6. the document as legalized as above should subsequently be submitted to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its verification of the accuracy of the Iranian embassy’s / consulate’s signature and stamp; 
7. now, the document is in legal status for being officially translated into Persian by an official translator (i.e. a translator qualified by the Iranian authorities to translate from the relevant source language into Persian for official uses / purposes); 
8. finally, the translation prepared by the official translator on their letterhead should be submitted to the Ministry of Justice for affixing their stamp as the last step to be taken. 

Note:  Although Iran ratified in 2012 the Convention of Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille Convention 1961), the procedure of its recognition as a “contracting state” has not been completed yet (on this date of December 1st, 2022). 

 

For more information and advice, please contact us in Tavakoli & Colleagues law firm.