The Justice Ministry of Ukraine with support of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has introduced a new electronic apostille service, Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko has said.

"We're introducing the new innovative service under a cabinet decision – electronic apostille," he said at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The minister said that an apostille is the endorsement of non-commercial documents by justice agencies for submission to foreign institutions – sale and purchase agreements, court rulings, and birth certificates.

Petrenko said that 120,000 Ukrainians applied to justice agencies to receive apostilles each year. The apostilles were issued only in Kyiv.

He said that Ukraine now has an apostille service which also operates in 23 countries.

He said that any Ukrainian can submit documents to the civil registration offices at their place of residence and print the document in 24 hours, and representatives of foreign institutions can check the authenticity of the document and apostille online

An apostille is an international standard form for data confirming that a document is legal and can be used in countries accepting this legalization form. Only original copies of government-issued certificates can bear an Apostille stamp.