Fees and steps checked on
An Albanian diploma for a labour card, a birth certificate for a child's residency, a marriage certificate to sponsor a spouse: each one needs recognising before a UAE office will accept it. The Albanian side is handled in Tirana. The UAE side is not in Albania at all. It is the UAE Embassy in Athens, which issues a digital certificate that already includes MOFA attestation.
Price: There is no fixed price for Albania. Send a copy on WhatsApp and you get the total price plus VAT, all official fees included, before any work starts. More on how totals are built: attestation fees.
Important to know: we are an independent company in Bur Dubai. MOFA, the embassies and the Albanian ministries are separate public bodies and we do not act for them. Collection and return of your papers anywhere in Dubai costs nothing.
Why the apostille route fails
Albania is a Hague Convention member, and Albanians are used to seeing an apostille on documents for other member states. That stamp means nothing to a state outside the convention. The UAE is outside, so Albania falls back on the older method: the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs legalises the paper, and then the UAE side certifies that legalisation.
The Tirana stage
Before the ministry will touch a document, the office that issued it often has to be confirmed by a higher local authority. A civil registry certificate, a university diploma and a court decision each have a different confirming office, so we read your copy before saying which. Private papers, like a power of attorney or a parental consent, are signed before an Albanian notary first. Only then does the consular directorate at the ministry legalise the signature and seal.
The Athens stage
- We file the request on the MOFA website through UAE PASS, picking the Republic of Albania as the issuing country, and settle the UAE charges online.
- The original is taken to the embassy in Athens on a weekday, within the counter hours it publishes.
- Officers attest it and an email follows with the digital certificate, issued in the names of the embassy and the UAE ministry.
- The paper itself is picked up from the same counter.
- Anyone can confirm it later through MOFA attestation verification, using the reference number and date.
Papers Athens sends back
Athens only serves documents from Greece and Albania; a paper from Kosovo or Italy must go to the UAE mission for that country. The counter also refuses plastic laminated sheets and sets fastened into one bundle. Customs paperwork such as commercial invoices and certificates of origin is never handled at an embassy; MOFA's eDAS platform takes those. Civil status certificates are only accepted as originals.
Albanian documents we handle most
- Diplomë and transcript. For engineers, nurses and teachers needing a labour card. Our degree certificate attestation page explains the employer side.
- Certifikatë lindjeje. For a newborn or older child joining a parent here; read birth certificate attestation for the visa side.
- Certifikatë martese. Needed when one spouse sponsors the other, covered in marriage certificate attestation.
- Prokurë (power of attorney). For property or inheritance back home. Business powers turn it into a commercial paper.
- Business register extract. For a trade licence or bank account; memorandum and statute go in as separate items.
Spelling and translation
Albanian names change form with grammar, so Gjergj may appear as Gjergji, and the letters ë and ç usually vanish in passports. Show us the passport and we keep the English or Arabic text identical to it. If an Albanian paper must be read by a UAE court, legal translation in Dubai supplies the Arabic.
Greek papers share the Athens embassy but begin at the Greek ministry: see Greece certificate attestation. Skopje documents follow North Macedonia certificate attestation.
No trip home needed
You can remain in the Emirates. The MOFA request may be filed by anyone on your behalf, and the original travels Tirana to Athens with a courier or a relative. When it is done, the attested paper is brought back to your door in Dubai.
