Apostille vs. Embassy legalisation for Myanmar
Myanmar does not join the Hague Apostille Convention so the ordinary path for document legalisation for Myanmar follows a chain of embassy stamps, not a single apostille stamp. The General Register Office for Northern Ireland at Stranmillis Court issues fresh certified copies of birth, marriage or death certificates—at no risk to your original—who send them on your behalf when you need a document legalised for use there. Such papers form the secure base of a certified package that must then go to several official desks, each adding their stamp to prove the previous office's authority in a recognised sequence, ending at the Myanmar embassy in London.
Myanmar's Hague status & what it means
Because Myanmar remains outside the 1961 Apostille Convention, an apostille from United Kingdom to Myanmar will not be accepted by local courts, banks or government bodies there. Instead, each authority that handles your file expects the traditional three-step legalisation: a notary public confirms the issuing office's status, then the Foreign Office confirms the signature of that notary, then finally the Myanmar embassy stamps the entire bundle. This applies whether your Belfast-obtained record is for personal use like a name change, or business such as opening a bank account. Without each verification link, the receiving office cannot trace the authority back through to Northern Ireland properly.
The Belfast → Myanmar route step by step
Begin by commissioning a fresh copy from Belfast's General Register Office for Northern Ireland at Stranmillis Court, if you hold a Northern Ireland birth, marriage or death record, as their clerk can seal it with a raised stamp needed for the start of the chain. Next, a local notary reviews and stamps this copy to certify that GRONI's signature matches their records at the Law Society of Northern Ireland. That notarised version moves by courier to the UK Foreign Office for so-called 'FCDO legalisation', where an official places their own stamp directly over the notary's signature as proof that person is indeed a registered notary in the United Kingdom.
The final step for what you need for an apostille for Myanmar—though it is not in fact an apostille—is the consular stamp placed over the Foreign Office imprint by the Myanmar embassy in London. This imprint serves the core function of telling any office in Myanmar, 'We know the UK authorities consider this signature genuine, and so should you.' That final stamp often takes the most time of any step in the chain, as funds must clear to the embassy's bank, then an embassy official examines each sheet to confirm no alterations exist between the Foreign Office and embassy stages. Only then will the embassy return your stamped bundle.