Expat Community > Colombia

V8mondo
Joined 2023
Posts: 6

Professional Card - matrícula profesional expedida por el COPNIA

1 year ago

Hello People,

I am new to the forum and recently moved to Bogota. I am a chartered surveyor with 35 years experience in construction and construction inspections for statutory and insurance purposes in England.
I find here I will need to have a valid professional card registered with COPNIA the people that issue such cards. Prior to that I have to have my Bachelors Degree recoginsed by the Minsitry of Education in Colombia.
This means notarising my degree and transcripts prior to sending to the only office in England that is permitted to legalise/Apostile documents. Fortunately, they now have an e-Apostile service, where the notarised PDF document can be electronically signed by the notary and sent to the Legalisation Office. 2 -3 day later you receive the documents with e-Apostile attached.... 30 quid a document. Not so bad...

However, I have been trying to find out from the Ministry of Education in Bogota, if they will in fact accept an e-Apostile?

The e-Apostile is quite new and accepted across Europe and Asia apparently. But in Colombia I am not sure...

Anybody been through this process? The Cost for the Ministry to check the document validity, a document that has already been checked and notarised, is around 700.000 COP and can take up to 4 months.

Apprently, the Minsitry had around 4000 such applications in the first 100 days of 2023. : (

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