Commercial document attestation from India for use abroad
Have you ever ventured out or plan to start your very own business in India or abroad? If you have, I can assure you that it will be a daunting task to gather all the relevant commercial documents for attestation.
Setting up your company in India is quite challenging due to the numerous supporting documentation you have to produce for the incorporation of your company. In India, the main commercial document that shows you are a corporate identity is the Certificate of Incorporation.
The process involves:
- Obtaining attestation from the respective Chamber of Commerce in India
- Getting attestation from the Ministry of External Affairs in India
- Final embassy/consulate attestation of the destination country if required.
For countries that are members of the Apostille Convention, an Apostille stamp from MEA India suffices.
The certificate of incorporation in India shows that you are operating as a company and carry out the business activity as per your certificate of incorporation.
The certificate of incorporation will specify, the name of your business, corporate identification number, Permanent Account number (PAN), Tax deduction and collection account number (TAN), Name of the city where the corporation is established, date in approval, year of approval etc
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) is the Indian government entity that issues the COI or in other words certificate of incorporation.
The certificate of incorporation does not have a
Globally, there are standard commercial documents that are issued along with the incorporation, i.e
- AOA – Articles of Association
- MOA – Memorandum of Association
The Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI) is a public document which sets out the rights, obligations and responsibilities of Shareholders, Directors. The MOI is registered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC)
A Board Resolution is a certificate or document issued by the board of Directors of a company when a decision is made within the company to incorporate or make changes within the company.
So, a Board Resolution has to be made on the Indian company letterhead and signed by all directors confirming that they would like to open a branch office in the UAE.
Once done, the following commercial documents attestation is a must from India for UAE
- Board Resolution
- Memorandum of Association
- Articles of Association
- Certificate of incumbency (optional)
- Power of Attorney (POA, optional if the directors are appointing a representative to oversee the operations)
However, attestation of commercial documents for UAE is not confined to the above commercial documents. Depending on the Department of Economic Department in UAE’s requirements, the requirements can change from time to time.
All commercial documents need to be attested by :
- Chamber of Commerce in India which is a crucial step towards the attestation for commercial documents.
- Commercial document attestation from Ministry of External Affairs in India (MEA)
- Commercial document attestation from the UAE embassy in New Delhi or Mumbai
The cost of commercial document attestation at the UAE embassy is AED 2000 per certificate. This is just the UAE embassy fee.
If you want to setup a company in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or any of the other emirates, the business license is called a Trade License and is issued by either Dubai Economic Department (DED) or the Department of Economic Development Abu Dhabi (ADDED).
Since India and Oman are members of the Apostille convention , the apostille stamping for commercial documents would suffice.
The apostille process for commercial documents:
- Chamber of commerce (COC) attestation
- Ministry of External Affairs attestation or otherwise Apostille stamp