Apostilling a Memorandum & Articles of Association from Leicester
A memorandum and articles of association set out a company's own rulebook: what it was formed to do and how its board runs its affairs. A foreign tender board or a joint venture partner often wants a stamped copy of that rulebook before it will sign anything, and the stamp comes from one office: the FCDO Legalisation Office, working UK-wide by post.
Leicester itself has no counter for this step; the paper travels to Milton Keynes and comes home the same way. Leicester Registration Service handles birth, marriage and death entries at 115 Charles Street, Leicester LE1 1FZ, and has no role here at all, since a company's own rulebook is not a civil record.
Issuing body & pre-requisites for a Memorandum & Articles of Association
Companies House, the UK registrar of companies, holds every company's constitution on file and can supply a certified copy carrying its own seal. That seal is what the FCDO checks; a plain print-out from the company's own records will not carry it, so the certified route has to come first.
Notarisation sits outside that step: some receiving boards want a notary's version on top of the certified copy, others accept the Companies House copy on its own, and which applies rests with the board reading the file abroad, not with a fixed rule here.
Getting the right copy before you post anything
How to apostille a Memorandum & Articles of Association starts with the Companies House copy, not the working document a solicitor drafted years ago for the company's own files. An outdated version, even a genuine one, will not carry a seal the FCDO can check, so it is worth ordering a current copy rather than digging one out of a drawer.
A single company can hold several linked constitutional papers over its life if its rules were amended, so state clearly to Companies House which version is wanted. Getting the wrong version certified simply means starting the whole request again, adding a delay that a live tender deadline may not forgive.
Cost & turnaround
The apostille cost for a Memorandum & Articles of Association in Leicester is £45 a document by standard post, or £40 a document on the next working day route, open only to registered businesses. That figure covers the FCDO's own mark; Companies House sets a separate charge for producing the certified copy that travels with it.
Standard post takes up to 25 working days, plus the days the postal service adds each way. The next working day route is genuinely express and stays closed to a company that is not registered for it, so a tender or partnership deadline should be planned around the full 25 working days rather than the faster figure.
Common uses abroad
A Leicester company most often needs this stamp to bid on a public tender overseas, set up a joint venture with a foreign partner, or register a subsidiary with a foreign trade body that wants proof of the parent company's rules before it will act. The board reviewing the file abroad usually holds it open until the stamped copy arrives.
You can also apostille a Memorandum & Articles of Association in United Kingdom to satisfy a foreign bank opening a corporate account, since banks abroad often want the same proof of a company's own governance. The United Kingdom joined the Hague Convention in 1965, so one FCDO mark is accepted across every other member state without a further stamp from an embassy.
Translation & acceptance notes
Legalisation of a Memorandum & Articles of Association in Leicester and an apostille of the same paper name one act; the word shifts by country and older habit, not because a second process exists. Whether the receiving board also wants the text turned into its own language rests with that board's own rule, and this page states only what the FCDO itself requires.
Once stamped, treat the apostilled copy as the master file for that bid or partnership and store it somewhere it will not be creased or lost. A damaged or missing apostilled paper cannot be patched; a fresh certified copy has to be ordered from Companies House and sent through the whole route again, adding weeks a live deal rarely has spare.