Which documents need an apostille for Spain?

Foreign public documents — birth certificates, marriage certificates, criminal-record checks, and similar — need an apostille under the 1961 Hague Convention before Spanish authorities will accept them. The apostille must come from the country that issued the document, so a certificate issued back home can’t be apostilled from inside Spain.

Timing is the trap: your criminal-record check must be issued within 90 days of the visa application, and it needs both the apostille and a certified Spanish translation inside that window. List every document your visa route needs, work out which country issued each one, and start the apostille requests early — they’re often the slowest link in the chain.