Bangladesh's apostille, and the countries that refuse it

The short version, which almost nobody gets right

Two things are true at once, and missing either one costs you weeks.

Bangladesh is a member of the Apostille Convention. It deposited its instrument of accession on 29 July 2024 and the Convention entered into force for Bangladesh on 30 March 2025. So the sentence you will still read on agency websites — "Bangladesh is not a Hague country" — is out of date.

And an apostille from Dhaka is still worthless in some countries. Accession is not automatic. Under Article 12 of the Convention, any existing Contracting State may object to a new country joining, and under Article 12(2) the Convention then simply does not enter into force between those two countries. Twelve States objected to Bangladesh.

Where your apostille works, among the nine countries we serve

The complete list of objecting States, with the dates the Hague Conference records: Germany (10 Sep 2024), Czech Republic (12 Dec 2024), Austria (23 Dec 2024), Belgium (13 Jan 2025), Finland (13 Jan 2025), Netherlands (14 Jan 2025), Estonia (16 Jan 2025), Greece (21 Jan 2025), France (23 Jan 2025), Argentina (24 Jan 2025), Denmark (24 Jan 2025), Lithuania (27 Jan 2025).

⚠️ That list matters beyond our nine countries. If you are also applying to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria or France, the same problem applies there.

Why this is the single most expensive detail on this page

A student heading to Finland or Greece who reads "Bangladesh is now a Hague country", pays for an apostille and stops there arrives at the embassy with documents it cannot accept. The chain then has to be started from the beginning, and each stage has its own queue. It is a month of your timeline, lost to one sentence.

The reverse mistake costs money rather than time: a student going to Italy or Hungary who runs the whole legalisation chain out of habit pays for stages that a single apostille would have replaced.

The legalisation chain, for the three countries that still need it

The chain is strictly ordered and each stage refuses to act without the one before it. Detail on the first three stages is in education board verification before attestation and notary, magistrate and MOFA attestation compared.

⚠️ Note that Finland, Greece and Denmark do not all have a mission in Dhaka that handles this — see countries with no embassy in Dhaka, because that adds a further step and further time.

Verify it yourself before you spend anything

This is a legal status that can change: an objection can be withdrawn, and new objections are possible. Two checks, in this order, and they take ten minutes:

1. 1The Hague Conference's own status table for the Apostille Convention. Find Bangladesh, and read the objections column. That is the legal position and no other source outranks it.
2. 2The destination country's embassy or consulate accredited to Bangladesh — their own document requirements page. That is the practical position.

If those two disagree, follow the embassy. They are the ones who will accept or refuse your file, and a mission's internal practice can lag a treaty change by months.

What to do this week

1. 1Identify your destination country and find it in the table above.
2. 2Apostille route: get the apostille, and keep scanned copies of everything.
3. 3Legalisation route: start at stage one immediately — the full chain takes weeks, not days.
4. 4Either way, ask your university in writing which they require. Some ask for a certified translation on top, which is a separate step again — see certified translation of documents in Dhaka.