Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The Private International and Commercial Law Section within the Attorney-General's Department is Australia's Central Authority for the following treaties:

• Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (Hague Service Convention)
• Hague Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters 1970 (Hague Evidence Convention)
• Treaty on Judicial Assistance in Civil and Commercial Matters between Australia and the Republic of Korea 1999
• Agreement on Judicial Assistance in Civil and Commercial Matters and Cooperation in Arbitration between Australia and the Kingdom of Thailand 1998.

The Hague Service Convention enables judicial and extrajudicial documents to be transmitted for service between countries that are party to the convention.

The convention ensures that the foreign litigant will receive a certificate or affidavit confirming service or attempted service. This can be used as evidence of service, or the reasons for non-service. The convention deals primarily with the transmission of documents. It does not address or comprise substantive rules relating to the actual service of process.

The Hague Evidence Convention establishes methods of cooperation for the taking of evidence abroad in civil or commercial matters between members of the convention.

The convention provides an effective way to overcome the differences between civil law and common law systems for the taking of evidence.

See our factsheet How to serve a foreign civil legal documents in Australia for more information on how to serve foreign civil legal documents on someone in Australia for civil legal proceedings.

It includes information on options for serving documents including through the Hague Service Convention, bilateral treaties with other countries, diplomatic channels and private process servers.

Overseas requesting parties must ensure their request complies with any declarations or reservations made by Australia.

See our factsheet How to serve a civil legal document overseas for more information on how to serve Australian documents on someone overseas for Australian legal proceedings.

This factsheet includes information on options for the service of documents under the Hague Service Convention, bilateral treaties with other countries, diplomatic channels and private process servers, local agents and post.

Australian requesting parties must ensure the request complies with any declarations or reservations made by the overseas country.

If your spouse is located in a Hague Service Convention country, a registrar of the Australian court where you applied for a divorce can help with your request for service on your spouse.

To find out if your spouse is located in a Hague Service Convention country, refer to the Hague Conference website. The practical information page of the relevant country may have set out costs and accepted methods of service.

Do not send your request for foreign service to us as we are not involved in this process. You will need to contact the court where you applied for divorce to find out how to apply to the registrar.

Part IIAB, Division 2 of the Family Law Regulations 1984 sets out the documents you must include in your application to the registrar. If you have applied for divorce through the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, you can contact them by phone, live chat or email. You can also find more information on serving a divorce on their website.

For enquiries about divorce in Western Australia, contact the Family Court of Western Australia. You can also read more about service when your spouse is overseas on their website.

You may wish to seek legal advice on this process. The Family Law Services and Support Fact Sheet has information on Australian legal assistance and legal services options (page 2).

To find your nearest legal service provider, visit:

• National Legal Aid
• Community Legal Centres Australia
• Women’s Legal Services Australia

To serve an Australian application for divorce in a country that is party to conventions other than the Hague Service Convention, see Part IIAC, Division 2 of the Family Law Regulations 1984 for how to apply to the registrar.

If your spouse is not located in a Hague Service Convention or other convention country, you can seek to serve your application for divorce through diplomatic channels or private process servers, local agents and post. This applies to service of Australian applications for divorce in New Zealand. We can only provide general advice on these avenues, as contained in our factsheet How to serve a civil legal document overseas.

If you need to serve a document on someone who is located in a country that is not a member of the Hague Service Convention, there are other options available. These include:

• bilateral treaties (Republic of Korea, the Kingdom of Thailand and some treaties entered into by the United Kingdom)
• service using diplomatic channels
• service using private process servers, local agents and via postal mail.

For more information, see our factsheets Service of Australian civil legal documents overseas ("outgoing requests") and Service of foreign civil legal documents in Australia ("incoming requests").

There are several ways for a foreign court to obtain evidence in Australia for use in proceedings, including through applicable international agreements.

Australia is a party to the following international agreements:

• Hague Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil and Commercial Matters 1970
• bilateral treaties with Korea and Thailand, available on the AustLii website
• bilateral treaties between the United Kingdom and other European countries that have been extended to Australia by the UK. These bilateral treaties were concluded in the 1920s and 1930s and many of the countries extended the treaty to their external territories at the time. Even though those territories are now independent states, in many instances the treaty continues to operate. The relevant treaties are available on the Austlii website.

Diplomatic channels are used to transmit requests where there is no agreement or treaty in place between Australia and the foreign country.

See Taking evidence in Australia for Foreign Court Proceedings for more information. Overseas requesting parties must ensure the request complies with any declarations or reservations made by Australia.

Generally, the taking of evidence overseas for Australian proceedings must comply with the procedural and evidentiary rules of both the Australian court and the overseas jurisdiction.

In complex cases, we recommend obtaining advice from a local lawyer in the relevant foreign country. For more information, including links to relevant Australian court rules, see Taking evidence across international borders.

Australian requesting parties must ensure the request complies with any declarations or reservations made by the overseas country.

It generally takes around 3-6 months to execute a request for service in Australia. However, the current timeframe is longer due to a backlog of requests received during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The time taken also varies according to the relevant state or territory, which depends on where the person to be served is located. If the person is in a remote location, it will also take longer than if the person lives in a capital city.

Requests for taking evidence can often take 6 months or more to execute.

To help minimise delays, include the following information when sending us a new service or evidence request:

• contact name
• phone number
• email address.

Providing an email address helps us to process your request more efficiently as we can obtain further instructions or information from you more quickly than regular mail.

There may be costs associated with the execution of requests for service. Generally, Australian authorities will forward an invoice for service fees with payment instructions to the foreign litigant. There is no fee to serve documents in South Australia or Western Australia.

Note: the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) currently requires the litigant to prepay the foreign service fee. The current fee is listed on the Supreme Court website. Service fees generally increase on 1 July each year.

Payment can be made by international funds transfer to the ACT Supreme Court. Visit the Hague website for more information. Once payment has been completed, you must forward a receipt or remittance advice along with the request for service. This will help the ACT Supreme Court to identify the payment.

There may be costs associated with executing the request. The forwarding authority will receive a statement of costs/invoice for the litigant in Australia to pay.

For more information, refer to the relevant country’s practical information pages on the Service section of the Hague Conference website.

Requests for the taking of evidence made under the Hague Evidence Convention generally do not incur a fee or cost. However, an Australian authority has the right to require the overseas authority reimburse the fees paid in relation to experts, interpreters and costs resulting from the use of a special procedure requested.

We recommend you contact the relevant Australian state or territory authority directly for more information on fees to execute evidence requests.

Similarly, Requests for the taking of evidence overseas made under the Hague Evidence Convention generally do not incur fees or costs. However, an overseas authority has the right to require an Australian authority reimburse the fees paid in relation to experts, interpreters and costs resulting from the use of special procedures used.

Other potential costs may include where an overseas requested authority has obtained the consent of the Australian requesting authority to appoint a suitable person to execute a request, or where constitutional limitations require the Australian authority to reimburse the overseas authority for fees and costs for the service of process necessary to compel the appearance of a person to give evidence, the costs of attendance of those persons, and the costs of any transcript of the evidence, in connection with the execution of the Request.

We recommend you contact the relevant overseas authority for more information.

For information on the Central Authorities for the Hague Service Convention, visit the Authorities section of the Hague Service Convention webpage.

• 14: Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters

For information on the Central Authorities for the Hague Evidence Convention, visit the Authorities section of the Hague Evidence Convention webpage.

• 20: Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters

We are unable to provide information on overseas authorities located in a country that is not a member of the Hague Service Convention or Hague Evidence Convention. These requests are usually transmitted via diplomatic channels and should be sent directly to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, not the Attorney-General's Department.

We are unable to provide information on substituted service. You may wish to contact the relevant Australian court in the jurisdiction in which you are seeking documents be served by substituted service.

Find contact details of all the Australian Supreme Courts on our webpage Serving a legal document across international borders.

No. We are unable to assist with locating or verifying the address of a person located in Australia. We recommend that you conduct a search of public records in Australia, in particular the online telephone listings on the White Pages website or the Australian electoral roll. For information on how to check the electoral roll, visit the Australian Electoral Commission website.

Alternatively, you may wish to engage the services of a private law firm in Australia to assist with locating the person.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is responsible for the legalisation of Australian public documents and affixing of Apostilles. This is done through the Australian Passport Office in your capital city. Find out more about the legalisation of documents on the DFAT website.

Note: if you require an Apostille on a foreign public document, you may need to contact the relevant authorities of the country in which the document was issued. For more information, check the authorities listed on the Apostille section of the Hague Conference website, or contact the embassy or consulate of that country.

Death certificates can be obtained directly from the relevant state or territory authority that maintains these records (generally the relevant Australian state or territory Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages).

These authorities have their own policies about handling requests and generally require adequate reasons for granting access to these records. We recommend the requesting authority or party contact the authority directly.