Apostille vs. Embassy legalisation for Togo
Most destinations treat a single Stoke-on-Trent apostille as the whole answer. Togo does not: a document bound for Togo still needs a further stamp from Togo's own diplomatic office in London after the apostille stage closes, and neither stage can stand in for the other. Both halves have to be completed, in that order, before a receiving desk in Togo will look at the paperwork.
The apostille is not wasted work in this case — it remains the first half, since the FCDO is the only body that can confirm a British record is genuine. What Togo adds is purely a second half, carried out entirely by Togo's own staff rather than anyone in the UK. Neither office can do the other's part of the job, and both parts have to be finished before the paperwork is done.
Togo's Hague status & what it means
The FCDO can issue an apostille because the United Kingdom joined the 1961 Hague Convention in 1965. Togo has not made that same commitment, so a document headed there cannot rely on the single-sticker shortcut that a member state offers, however straightforward the paperwork itself looks.
That distinction is easy to miss when a household has previously sent paperwork somewhere that does accept the sticker alone. Togo requires the additional round regardless of how routine the underlying document is — a wedding certificate needs it exactly as much as a company filing does, with no exception made for either kind of paper. The rule applies the same way every time, without regard to how the document will be used once it arrives.
The Stoke-on-Trent → Togo route step by step
Civil records — a birth, marriage or death entry — should travel as a fresh certified copy rather than the original, and Stoke-on-Trent Register Office produces exactly that copy on request, which keeps the family's own paperwork safely at home. A university transcript or a corporate document, having no such copy available, is sent in its original state instead of a reprint.
That paper goes first to the FCDO Legalisation Office, where it is checked against specimen records and stamped. Only afterwards, and only because Togo is the destination in question, does it move on to Togo's diplomatic office in London for the second stamp that finishes the process and completes the file, ready for its recipient there.
Cost & timing for this route
The FCDO charges £45 a document by standard post, or £40 apiece through its next working day lane, kept for registered businesses and not offered to a single applicant sending one certificate. That price is for the apostille alone; Togo's own legalisation fee is billed separately and does not appear anywhere in the FCDO's published rates or paperwork.
Expect up to 25 working days, plus postage, for the apostille to be issued once Milton Keynes receives the paper. Togo's own stage then runs on its own schedule, entirely outside the FCDO's control, so the two stages together generally take longer than a single-sticker corridor would, and that gap is worth building into any deadline set at the receiving end.
Destination-specific requirements
What you need for an apostille for Togo is the same starting point as any other UK document: a genuine record or, for a civil entry, a certified copy in place of the original. Document legalisation for Togo is what follows that starting point, adding the second stamp described above, never in place of it.
Records travelling from Stoke-on-Trent to Togo commonly relate to family status — a marriage certificate, or paperwork supporting a residence application — as well as academic transcripts sent for recognition. In every case the same two stages apply, in the same order, whatever the underlying reason for the trip or how urgent it feels to the sender.