Issuing body & pre-requisites for a Articles of Incorporation
A company's Articles of Incorporation are filed with and held by Companies House, the national registrar of UK companies, not by any office in London. Westminster Register Office, at 317 Harrow Road, London W9 3RJ, certifies birth, marriage and death records only; it has no company filings and cannot produce a copy of this document. A director searching for a local company desk in London will not find one, because company records sit with a single national registrar.
The apostille stage is separate again. The FCDO Legalisation Office is the single central authority for every UK apostille and works entirely by post, with no counter anywhere in the country. Whether notarisation is needed first depends on the receiving country and is not fixed by any single rule.
Keeping the two bodies straight avoids the most common delay in this process: a director writing to a London register office for a document it simply does not hold, then having to start the request again once the reply arrives from the wrong place.
Common uses abroad
An apostilled copy of a company's Articles of Incorporation most often supports opening a bank account abroad, since a foreign bank verifying a UK company's existence commonly asks for legalised proof before it will open a business account. A foreign registry recording a new branch or subsidiary can raise the identical request.
A tender or supply contract overseas sometimes lists the same requirement, with a foreign buyer wanting documentary proof that the bidding company genuinely exists and is properly formed. A foreign tax authority registering the company for local trading purposes may ask for it too.
An overseas investor doing due diligence before a funding round can raise the same request, treating the apostilled record as one of several documents that together prove the company is what it claims to be. A foreign court in a dispute involving the company may want the same proof.
Apostilling a Articles of Incorporation from London
The certificate's content never changes through this process. The company name, its number and its registered details all stay exactly as Companies House recorded them. An apostille adds one further stamp confirming the paper is genuine, which is what most foreign banks and registries specifically ask a director to obtain before they will act on the document.
An Articles of Incorporation apostille in London follows the same national route as any other UK city: Companies House holds the record, and a single central office then legalises the paper. London does not change either step; it only marks where the company happens to be registered.
A newly formed company sometimes needs this document apostilled within weeks of incorporation, before its founders have even opened a domestic account. Planning the request early avoids the paperwork becoming the reason a foreign deal stalls, and it costs nothing to start the request sooner than strictly necessary.
Cost & turnaround
The official apostille fee is £45 per document by standard post, or £40 per document through the express, next-working-day route open to registered businesses only. Since the applicant here is typically the company itself, the express route is often the more relevant option, provided the company is registered for it.
The apostille cost for an Articles of Incorporation in London is the same figure charged anywhere else in the country, since a single national authority sets it. Standard turnaround runs up to 25 working days, plus postage each way, because the whole process moves by mail rather than over a counter.
Translation & acceptance notes
An apostille certifies that a document is genuine; it does not translate its wording. Whether a foreign bank or registry also wants a translation depends on that country's own rules and differs from one institution to the next. Some read the English original directly; others expect a translated version filed alongside it.
Acceptance of a UK apostille is near-universal among countries that joined the 1961 Hague Convention, which the United Kingdom has belonged to since 1965. To apostille an Articles of Incorporation in United Kingdom terms means routing the Companies House record through the FCDO once it has been obtained.