Two invoices, not one
The first invoice is fixed: £45 per document by standard post through the FCDO Legalisation Office, or £40 for a registered business on the next-day route, taking up to 25 working days plus postage. The second invoice, from Burkina Faso's own mission, is set independently and is not part of this figure at all — a separate body, a separate charge, and its own separate timetable.
Document legalisation for Burkina Faso is priced this way precisely because two authorities are involved on two sides of one paper trail. A family arranging several certificates at once often finds it worthwhile to group the first invoice together, then deal with the mission in a single later visit rather than making several separate trips for what is really the same closing step repeated.
A single signature is not the finished product here
An apostille for Burkina Faso would be the whole answer on most corridors out of London, but Burkina Faso sits outside that particular group of destinations. The FCDO Legalisation Office's mark opens the file rather than closing it, and a further, separate signature from Burkina Faso's own mission is what actually finishes the job.
Anyone assuming one parcel out and one parcel back — the pattern most corridors follow — needs to add a second appointment to that picture here. Neither signature stands in for the other; both are required before an official body in Burkina Faso will treat the paper as complete, and a bundle missing either one is simply sent back unread.
What you need for an apostille for Burkina Faso before it will land
Family paperwork dominates this corridor — marriage certificates for a wedding to be recognised, birth certificates for a child's own papers, death certificates for an inheritance matter back home. A French translation is usual for anything not already in French, since French is the language of official business in Burkina Faso, and it should stay attached to the signed original rather than travel on its own.
The underlying certificate, the UK mark, and the mission's own closing signature all stay bundled together throughout, whatever the document's subject. A civil record, a business filing and an academic transcript all follow the identical two-signature rule for this destination, and none of them can skip the mission's own stamp regardless of urgency.
Where the London route begins and where it hands off
An apostille issued in London for use in Burkina Faso is, strictly, not the correct name for the finished bundle, since the paper carries a UK authentication mark rather than a Hague apostille. Civil records begin at Westminster Register Office, 317 Harrow Road, W9 3RJ, where a fresh certified copy protects the original from ever leaving the applicant's hands.
A degree certificate or company extract skips that first stop, since it already carries its own signature. Either way, Milton Keynes is a staging point, not the destination — the paper returns to London once marked, and only then does the hand-off to Burkina Faso's own mission begin, rather than being sent onward while still incomplete.
Where Burkina Faso sits, stated plainly
An apostille is not accepted for Burkina Faso — that is the position given for this destination, and it is why a second, consular signature is not optional here. There is no ambiguity left for the applicant to resolve: the requirement is fixed and stated in advance, rather than discovered partway through a process that is already under way and hard to reverse.
The UK side of the process does not change because of this: the same office, the same £45 or £40 fee, and the same standard turnaround apply regardless of destination. What changes is only what happens once that first mark is issued, when a second authority in the chain takes over and the paper finally leaves UK hands for good.