What the UK side costs, before anything else
Start with the number that matters most for planning: £45 for standard postal handling, or £40 per record if a registered business asks for the faster next-day option. Turnaround on the UK side runs up to 25 working days once the FCDO Legalisation Office has the paperwork, with post added either way. Nothing about a rushed order changes that £45 baseline; only the registered-business route changes the price at all.
Neither figure includes whatever Taiwan's own process costs once the record reaches that stage — that charge sits with a different body, set on its own terms and outside anything the UK quotes here. Budgeting for one number and not the other is the single most common planning mistake reported on this route, and it catches out first-time senders more than repeat ones.
Why the word is legalisation, not apostille
Taiwan sits outside the Hague Convention, so the treaty that lets an apostille pass unchecked between member countries simply doesn't reach it. An apostille from United Kingdom to Taiwan isn't a certificate the FCDO issues — for this specific destination, the office produces a legalisation mark instead, built for exactly this kind of non-member route. The name on the certificate changes; the office producing it does not.
The distinction is not cosmetic. Document legalisation for Taiwan takes an extra stage beyond anything an apostille route asks for, because the receiving side wants its own separate look at the record rather than relying on a foreign stamp alone. That second look is what actually finishes the job, not the UK mark on its own.
The route, start to finish
A civil record missing its original starts at Liverpool Register Office, which supplies a fresh certified copy from St George's Hall so the true original never risks the post. A trading company's own paperwork, already in hand, skips that step entirely and moves straight to the next stage of the process.
Either way, an apostille issued in Liverpool for use in Taiwan is a slightly misleading way to describe what happens next, since the certificate that actually gets attached is a legalisation mark, produced by the same national office in Milton Keynes that handles every UK city's post. Nothing local changes the outcome; the sender's city only decides where the record starts its journey.
Once marked, the record leaves the FCDO's hands and moves into a second, Taiwan-facing stage that a UK body has no part in running. That handover point is exactly where most confusion about this route begins, since it looks, on paper, like the job is already done.
It helps to picture the record as passing between two entirely separate systems rather than travelling one continuous line. Milton Keynes closes its own file the moment the mark goes on; whatever happens after that belongs to a different process, with its own pace and its own paperwork, unconnected to anything the FCDO tracks.
What tends to travel this route
Trade and manufacturing paperwork is common here: a company extract or a power of attorney backing a supply agreement with a Taiwanese partner, or a set of academic transcripts supporting a study placement. Personal certificates travel the identical route when family or property matters are involved, with no separate track for individuals versus firms.
Whatever the document, what you need for an apostille for Taiwan really means the same package every time: a certified UK record, the FCDO's legalisation mark on it, and the Taiwan-facing stage that only starts once that mark is in place. Skipping ahead to the second stage before the first is finished simply isn't possible; the sequence only runs one way, start to finish, and no amount of urgency on the sender's part ever changes that fixed order.