Lithuanian documents for Ukraine: Registrų centras extracts, civil records, translation from Lithuanian

The Lithuanian corridor is quiet but distinctly commercial: UABs with Ukrainian founders, Lithuanian fintech serving Ukrainian customers, Ukrainians who spent a few years working in Lithuania and now need that period confirmed. Documents from there reach Ukraine with three features nobody anticipates: the apostille is issued by a notary, since October 2026 it can be electronic, and formally it may not be needed at all.

Here is how to get through it without paying for anything twice.

Who brings us Lithuanian documents

• Ukrainian owners of a UAB — a register extract, the articles of association and shareholder resolutions for a Ukrainian bank, the tax office or a counterparty.
• A Lithuanian founder of a Ukrainian company: the registrar wants the extract and the articles of the Lithuanian parent.
• People who worked in Lithuania — employment and earnings certificates for Ukraine’s Pension Fund.
• Civil status records: birth certificates of children born in Lithuania, marriage and divorce certificates, for the civil registry.
• Education documents: Lithuanian diplomas and school certificates, for recognition and for employers.

Rule one: the apostille is formally unnecessary — and it is still requested

Ukraine and Lithuania are bound by the Treaty on legal assistance and legal relations in civil, family and criminal matters, signed on 7 July 1993. Treaties of this kind exempt the contracting parties’ public documents from legalisation: a Lithuanian extract or certificate should be accepted in Ukraine without any stamp.

Practice looks different. Registrars rarely apply the treaty and see apostilles every day; banks running compliance checks ask for the stamp almost without exception. Arguing in the middle of a registration is expensive, and the clock is always on the institution’s side.

Hence the rule: establish the requirement in writing before ordering the document in Lithuania. If an apostille is needed, it is affixed in the country of issue — in Lithuania, not in Ukraine.

Rule two: the Lithuanian apostille comes from a notary

Looking for a Lithuanian ministry that issues apostilles is a dead end. Since 18 January 2016 notaries do it.

What to know	Detail
Who issues it	a notary (Lietuvos notarų rūmai — the Chamber of Notaries of Lithuania)
Exception	the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for documents from Lithuanian diplomatic missions only
Cost	EUR 15 per apostille per the Hague Conference register; verify before ordering
Form	paper, and from 1 October 2026 electronic as well
Scope	the apostille certifies the signature and seal on the document — not its contents, and not the quality of any translation

The Lithuanian e-apostille: a new option and a new trap

From 1 October 2026 Lithuanian notaries issue electronic apostilles through the e.Notaras system. The condition is that the document carries a qualified electronic signature or a qualified electronic seal. Paper apostilles remain available from both notaries and consular officers.

For Ukraine this means one thing. A Ukrainian notary certifies a translation by physically binding it to the document; with a file there is nothing to bind. So:

1. The document goes to a Ukrainian registrar, notary, civil registry office or the Pension Fund — order a paper copy with a paper apostille.
2. The document is for internal company use, a foreign counterparty or electronic exchange — the electronic form is fine, and an agency stamp on the translation is enough.
3. The middle route — have a Ukrainian notary certify a copy of the printout and bind the translation to that. Faster, but not every institution accepts it, so ask the receiving side before you pay.

Registrų centras extracts: which one to order

Lithuania’s Centre of Registers keeps the register of legal entities, the real-property register and the population register. An extract comes in two states, and this is where time is usually lost.

• The informational printout is useful for checking a counterparty and almost never works as a document for filing.
• The issued extract — on paper or electronically signed — is what a Ukrainian registrar, notary or bank asks for.
• The original language is Lithuanian. The English version of the register is a translation; if the institution wants a translation of a public document, the Lithuanian text is the source.
• Freshness. There is no explicit rule, but in practice extracts older than three months are refused, and banks want them fresher still. Plan so that the apostille, the translation and the filing all fit inside that window.

We covered the general logic of this direction — which forms of extract EU states issue, what gets apostillised and what does not — separately, in EU corporate documents for Ukraine. This article adds the Lithuanian specifics on top of it.

Why the surname in the Lithuanian document is different

This is the leading cause of rejections on the Lithuanian corridor, and the reason is linguistic rather than legal. Lithuanian declines names, so a surname in a Lithuanian document acquires an ending. Male forms take -as, -is, -us, -ys; female forms traditionally take -ienė (married) or -aitė (unmarried), with -ė as the modern neutral form.

What follows in practice:

• The same man is “Kovalenko” in a Ukrainian passport and “Kovalenkas” in a Lithuanian certificate.
• A female surname in a Lithuanian document may carry a marital-status marker that the Ukrainian document does not have.
• The personal code (asmens kodas) is not an equivalent of the Ukrainian tax number; a translation leaves it as it is, with no attempt to convert it.

The rule is simple: in the translation the surname is spelled as in the Ukrainian passport, and the Lithuanian form is explained in a translator’s note. That is why we ask for a scan of the passport or of an earlier translation together with the document — spelling has to be consistent across the whole file, not individually correct in each paper. If the discrepancy is already in your documents, the route for fixing it is in name mismatch across documents.

What Ukrainian law requires of the translation

Article 15 of Law No. 755-IV requires documents to be filed in the state language, with a foreign-language document accompanied by a Ukrainian translation whose accuracy, or the authenticity of the translator’s signature, is certified in the prescribed manner. In practice that means notarisation: an agency stamp serves internal company needs, but not the registrar.

Lithuanian is a rare language in Ukraine, and the rate reflects it: from UAH 500 per standard page (1,800 characters with spaces) against UAH 300 for English. Notarisation is UAH 400 per document and the agency stamp UAH 100. The full list is on the prices page.

Personal documents from Lithuania

Document	Where it is filed in Ukraine	What to watch
Birth certificate of a child born in Lithuania	civil registry, to enter the record	the spelling of the name must match the parents’ Ukrainian documents
Marriage or divorce certificate	civil registry, court, notary	if a Lithuanian court dissolved the marriage, the finality endorsement is required
Employment and earnings certificates	Pension Fund of Ukraine	the Lithuanian original is translated, not an English-language certificate
Diploma, school certificate, supplement	Ministry of Education (ENIC Ukraine), employers	recognition is a separate procedure on top of translation
Power of attorney from a Lithuanian notary	Ukrainian notary, court, bank	check the scope of authority against Ukrainian law before translating

When a Lithuanian court decision is involved — divorce, inheritance, a debt claim — translation is only the first step: whether the decision needs recognition by a Ukrainian court depends on whether it requires enforcement. We set out that distinction in foreign court decisions in Ukraine. For a child born abroad the route is wider than translation, and it is in child born abroad.

Common mistakes

• Ordering the apostille without asking the institution. The 1993 treaty may make it unnecessary.
• Ordering an electronic apostille for a Ukrainian notary. A file cannot be bound to a translation.
• Translating the English version of the extract. The public document is the Lithuanian one; the register’s English is informational.
• Keeping the Lithuanian surname ending in the translation. To the civil registry and the Pension Fund that is a different person.
• Ordering the extract too early. The apostille and the translation can eat the three-month freshness window.
• Splitting a set into separate orders. The extract, the articles and the resolutions share terminology — together they are cheaper and more consistent.

How we handle it

We start not with the translation but with the question of where you are filing: the answer decides whether an apostille is needed at all and in which form — paper or electronic — the Lithuanian original should be ordered. We then translate from Lithuanian directly, align the spelling of names and entity names with your earlier documents, have the translation notarised, and hand over a set that is ready to file. For extracts, articles and financial statements that is corporate document translation; for court and contract volumes, legal translation; and when a Ukrainian document needs the stamp in the opposite direction, obtain an apostille.

Send us the scans and the name of the institution that wants them, and the quote comes back within 15 minutes.