Pakistan’s much-hyped digital attestation system is barely two weeks old and it is already running into trouble. Citizens trying to get their documents attested online say the Ministry of Foreign Affairs portal is missing dozens of countries from its destination list, including some of the biggest destinations for Pakistani workers, students and families.
The system was launched on October 12, 2026 at the ministry’s headquarters in Islamabad and its liaison offices in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta and Gujrat. A ministry circular issued two days later promised that applicants could submit documents for general attestation and the Hague apostille through the online portal, pay the prescribed fee, and receive an e-certificate by email without having to visit an office in person, except in exceptional cases. It was presented as the end of long queues and repeated visits to MoFA offices.
Within days, however, users began reporting that they could not find their destination country in the portal’s drop-down menu. The complaints surfaced in a Facebook discussion where applicants asked why the UAE, Germany and Austria were absent from both the general attestation and the apostille lists. Others replied that nobody seemed to have an answer, and that they would probably have to make the trip to a MoFA office after all, which is precisely what the new system was meant to spare them.
A closer look at the portal shows the gap is wider than a few missing names. The site currently lists 114 destinations, nearly all of them parties to the Hague Apostille Convention. The convention itself, according to the official status table of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, has 130 contracting parties. That leaves a long list of apostille members with no presence on the portal, among them Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Germany, Greece, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Senegal and Vietnam. Algeria and Vietnam only joined the convention recently, with membership taking effect for them on July 9 and September 11, 2026.
Some of the absences have an explanation, though it raises a fresh problem. Germany, Austria, Greece and the Netherlands formally objected to Pakistan’s accession to the apostille convention, and under the convention’s rules the apostille system does not apply between an objecting member and Pakistan, so documents meant for those countries must go through regular attestation instead. Yet applicants report that Germany and Austria cannot be selected under general attestation either, which leaves them with no online option at all. Curiously, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland and Poland also objected to Pakistan’s accession but do appear on the portal’s list, adding to the confusion.
The non-Hague side of the list is in even worse shape. Countries that are not party to the convention, and therefore need general attestation, are almost entirely missing. The absentees include the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Nigeria and Kenya, a roll call that covers many of the most important destinations for Pakistani workers, students and families. Thailand has since joined the convention, but its membership will only take effect on February 28, 2027, so for now it too needs the regular route.
Even the list that does exist looks hastily assembled. The destinations are not in complete alphabetical order. The names run alphabetically from Albania to Venezuela, but Bangladesh, the Czech Republic, Canada, Finland, Denmark and Poland have been tacked on at the end, out of order, suggesting they were added as an afterthought rather than planned.
Applicants are also asking about something the portal does not clarify at all: whether a family member, such as a sibling, spouse, parent or child, can verify a relative’s documents through the system. With no guidance available, many are simply guessing or giving up and heading to the offices in person.
The promise of the online attestation service was straightforward: get your documents attested from home. Two weeks in, that promise holds only for a limited set of destinations. Until the missing countries appear in the drop-down lists and the basic questions about family verification are answered, the portal risks becoming another half-finished digitisation exercise, and citizens will keep doing what they have always done, standing in line at the MoFA offices.
