Apostille vs. Embassy legalisation for Chad
Where a treaty covers both ends, a single certificate settles a document and the story stops there. Where it does not, a second set of officials — those of the receiving country, working in Britain — take up the file afterwards. An apostille for Chad falls on the second side of that line, which is what gives this route a middle: a moment when the paper is back in your hands, half done.
Chad's Hague status & what it means
Chad has not joined the Hague Apostille Convention. In practice that turns a one-office errand into a two-office project with a handover between them, and handovers are where documents go astray: wrong sheet forwarded, one certificate short, a bundle split between two envelopes. The extra body is not only extra time and cost; it is an extra join in the chain.
Inspect the work before it travels on
The Legalisation Office returns its certificate attached to the sheet it was issued against, by post, to the address it was given. That envelope is the halfway mark of the job. Look at it properly: match the number of certified documents against the number you sent, and check that each one is joined to the paper you expected rather than to a near neighbour in the same batch.
It matters because responsibility now shifts. Officials of Chad see only what arrives at their stage, and cannot know what you posted in the first place. A missing sheet spotted in Plymouth costs a reprint from Plymouth Register Office at Derriford Park and one more certification. The same sheet missed here, and found abroad, costs the route from the very beginning.
Cost & timing for this route
The British side is priced per document at £45 by post at the Legalisation Office, or £40 on the next-day route open to registered businesses. The consular charge and its turnaround belong to the receiving side and are not set out here. Two postal legs sit around the British stage alone, so the halfway pause you take costs almost nothing against the length of the whole job.
Destination-specific requirements
Chad expects consular legalisation, applied for in Britain after the British certification is complete, and in that order. An apostille issued in Plymouth for use in Chad would arrive at that stage as an unfinished document rather than a wrong one, which is a distinction worth understanding: the first half is still needed, it simply is not the end. Check it, then send it on.