What a P60 Actually Is — and Who Issues It
A P60 is an end-of-year certificate summarising one thing: what a single employer paid you during one UK tax year, and what was deducted before it reached you. GOV.UK puts it in a sentence — your P60 “shows the tax you've paid on your salary in the tax year (6 April to 5 April)”.
The detail that decides everything else on this page is in the next sentence of the same guidance: “If you're working for an employer on 5 April they must give you a P60. They must provide this by 31 May, on paper or electronically.”
📋 What is on it, and why foreign authorities like it
On one page it sets out your name and National Insurance number, your employer's name and PAYE reference, the tax year, your total pay from that employment, the tax deducted, National Insurance by letter category and earnings band, and any student loan deductions. If you changed jobs mid-year, the figures may include pay carried forward from a previous employment.
For a foreign tax office, lender or employer that is close to a complete annual picture of a British employee, in a layout that does not vary between companies. A payslip covers one month and anyone can produce one. That is why the P60 is the document people are asked for — and why they are usually told to have it authenticated too.
🔒 The two things a P60 is not
It is not a statement from HMRC about you; it is a statement from your employer on a form HMRC designed. That sounds pedantic until you are standing in front of an authentication office. We meet the same distinction on degree certificates, which look thoroughly official and are also issued by a private institution.
It is also not proof of tax residence. It shows an employer paid you in the UK, which is a related but different question. Section five covers the document that does prove residence.
🗑️ If you no longer have your P60
This comes up constantly, because people are usually asked for a year that ended some time ago. GOV.UK gives three routes, and they are worth knowing before you order anything from us:
- Ask your employer for a replacement. GOV.UK says so directly: “If you've lost your P60, ask your employer for a replacement.” A reissued P60 certifies exactly like an original.
- Use your personal tax account or the HMRC app to find the information that would be on the P60. That gives you the figures, but what you hold is a screen you printed — treat it as an unsigned printout, not as a P60.
- Contact HMRC and ask for the information that would be on the P60. What comes back is a different document, and depending on its form it may be a better one for legalisation. Section five explains why.
If the employer has been liquidated or dissolved, the first route disappears and the third becomes the sensible one — the usual position for people who worked in Britain a decade ago and are now asked by their new country's revenue service to evidence that period.
Why the FCDO Cannot Apostille a P60 Directly
This is the mechanical heart of the subject. Once you see what the Legalisation Office actually does, every rule and price on this page stops being arbitrary.
🏛️ What the Legalisation Office is checking
The office does not read your document, does not check its arithmetic and has no opinion on whether its contents are true. GOV.UK sets out the whole operation in one sentence: the Legalisation Office will “check the document and see if any signatures, stamps or seals match their own records”. Match found, apostille issued. No match, document returned.
Those records are the point. The FCDO holds specimen signatures and seal impressions for the officials whose documents it authenticates — registrars, court officers, named officials in government departments, registered doctors, and the solicitors and notaries on its list. It is a comparison, nothing more.
❌ Why a P60 fails this test
Look at your P60. There is usually no handwritten signature at all, and where there is a name it belongs to a payroll manager, a director or an outsourced bureau. The FCDO holds no specimen of that signature, no record of your employer's letterhead and no register of British payroll departments. There is nothing to compare, so there is nothing to authenticate — the only honest position an authentication office can take about a private company's paperwork.
📜 What GOV.UK says the FCDO can legalise directly
The same guidance lists what goes straight to the Legalisation Office, and a P60 is conspicuously absent while something that sounds very like it is present. The FCDO can legalise documents issued by:
- a court, where the document is sealed with a wet ink court seal;
- a public registry — GOV.UK gives a birth, marriage or death certificate, or a company certificate from Companies House;
- a government department, where it has been signed by an official — and GOV.UK's own example is “a letter of confirmation of tax registration”;
- a registered doctor, such as a medical certificate signed by a doctor.
Read the third bullet twice. A letter from a tax department, signed by an official, is exactly what the FCDO handles directly. A P60 is not that letter — it is a form your employer filled in. That gap is the £30 difference in our pricing and the reason this article exists.
🔗 The sentence that provides the way round
“You can also get other documents legalised, as long as they have been certified by a UK ‘public official’, such as a UK notary or solicitor.” — GOV.UK, Get your document legalised
That sentence is what makes a P60 apostille possible at all. The same page names the documents this route is for: “a power of attorney, a contract or a qualification certificate”, and “copies of documents such as a passport or a driving licence”. A P60 is not among the examples, but it belongs to that family — a document with no FCDO-recognised signature, which becomes legalisable the moment a certified professional adds their own.
🔗 The chain, drawn out
1. Your P60, issued by your employer
An employer document. Invisible to the FCDO. No signature the office can match.
2. Solicitor or notary certificate
A UK public official inspects the P60 and attaches their certificate, signature and seal. This is what the Convention recognises.
3. FCDO apostille
The Legalisation Office matches the professional's signature and seal against its records and attaches the apostille.
4. Embassy legalisation — non-Convention destinations only
The destination's consulate in London stamps the apostilled bundle. Section nine explains who needs this.
Notice what the apostille is not attached to. Not your earnings — a solicitor's confirmation that they inspected a document and certified what they saw.
🔍 What the apostille certifies — and what it does not
Article 5 of the 1961 Convention states the effect of the certificate, and it is far narrower than almost everyone assumes. When properly filled in, the apostille “will certify the authenticity of the signature, the capacity in which the person signing the document has acted and, where appropriate, the identity of the seal or stamp which the document bears”. Three things, and only three. There is no fourth limb covering the truth of the contents.
❌ What an apostille on a P60 does not certify
- Not that your gross pay figure is correct, or that the tax deducted was right. The FCDO never read either.
- Not that you were UK tax resident that year. That is an HMRC certificate of residence.
- Not that the employer exists or ever employed you. Companies House proves existence; an HMRC record proves employment.
- Yes: that a real UK solicitor or notary, holding the office they claimed, signed the certificate. That is the complete content of an apostille.
So ask which doubt you are being asked to resolve: an apostille answers provenance, never accuracy. Our FCDO apostille process guide covers the office's operation in more depth.
Need your P60 apostilled?
£120 per document including solicitor certification, apostilled the next working day. Send us a photo on WhatsApp and we’ll confirm what you need in minutes — no commitment.
The Solicitor Certification Step, Explained
Certification is the step people understand least, usually because they imagine a legal opinion about their tax affairs. It is a narrow, factual act, and knowing which of its three forms you need saves more money than anything else on this page.
Certifying a true copy — what a P60 normally needs
The solicitor inspects your original P60, compares a photocopy against it and certifies the copy as a true copy of what they were shown. Your original stays with you; the apostille attaches to the certified copy. This is the standard route for a P60, and what our £120 service covers.
Witnessing a signature
You sign in the solicitor's presence and they certify that they saw you sign. Irrelevant to a P60, which you did not sign — but relevant if you have also been asked to sign a declaration about your income, which is a second document with its own fee.
Administering an oath, affirmation or statutory declaration
You swear or solemnly declare that something is true and the professional records it. Some foreign authorities want an affidavit of income rather than, or as well as, a certified P60. Tell us at the outset, because it changes the wording and the price.
⚠️ What the solicitor is not doing
The certificate says the copy matches the original the solicitor inspected. It does not say the P60 is genuine, that the employer issued it properly, or that the figures are right — a solicitor is not auditing your payroll. If the receiving authority wants the substance of your income confirmed, as some foreign lenders do, what they want is an accountant's certificate — a different document, usually needing the same chain on top.
👤 Solicitor or notary public?
GOV.UK accepts either, with no stated preference. The receiving authority abroad may be less relaxed: civil-law jurisdictions — particularly Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland and most of Latin America — sometimes specify a notarial act, because the notary is the professional their own legal system recognises. Middle Eastern consulates frequently do too. One email to the receiving body settles it, and it is worth sending: getting solicitor certification where a notarial act was required means the work is done twice and the apostille paid for twice.
📝 To certify and apostille a P60, send us
- ✓ The P60 itself — the original paper form, or a clean single-sided print of the electronic one
- ✓ Photographic ID — passport or in-date photocard driving licence
- ✓ Proof of address dated within three months — utility bill, bank statement or council tax bill
- ✓ The written requirement you were given — it tells the solicitor what wording the certificate needs
- ✓ The destination country, so we check the Convention status before quoting rather than after
- ✓ If more than one tax year is needed, all of them together — separate documents, but one job
One practical point: print single-sided and leave room at the foot of the page. The certificate and the apostille both need somewhere to attach, and a sheet crammed to the margin has to be reprinted.
Original, Certified Copy or Electronic P60?
Almost everyone asks whether they have to give up their only original. The answer is no. Because the apostille attaches to the solicitor's certificate rather than to the P60, what travels abroad is a certified copy carrying a certificate and an apostille; your original stays in your drawer. That is not a workaround but how the Convention was designed to work for documents carrying no official signature, and it is why we can handle P60s for clients who have already emigrated.
| What you have | What we do with it | What you get back |
|---|---|---|
| The original paper P60 from your employer | Solicitor inspects the original and certifies a copy as a true copy; the apostille attaches to the certificate | Your original, plus a certified and apostilled copy for the foreign authority |
| An electronic P60 issued as a PDF | You print it single-sided; the solicitor certifies it against the payroll portal or email you can show them | A certified and apostilled printout — the standard outcome for modern payroll |
| A replacement P60 reissued by the employer | Treated identically to an original; a reissued P60 is not a lesser document | Certified and apostilled copy, same £120 |
| A screen print from your personal tax account | Certified as a copy of what you displayed, with the certificate worded honestly to say so | An apostilled printout — weaker evidence, worth checking is acceptable first |
| Nothing — the P60 is gone and the employer has dissolved | We suggest requesting your employment history from HMRC instead | Potentially a government document that goes direct at £90 — see section five |
📱 The electronic P60 question
Most P60s are now electronic, and GOV.UK expressly permits it — employers must provide the P60 “on paper or electronically” — so a PDF is in no sense second class. What changes is the mechanics: the solicitor certifies a printout, and a careful one words the certificate to reflect what they actually saw, which may be the PDF open in your payroll portal.
That honest wording occasionally trips people up abroad, where an official expects “true copy of the original” and reads anything else as a hedge. Ask in advance whether a certified printout is acceptable. Where it is not, the fix is to ask the employer for a signed paper copy on letterhead, which certifies more cleanly.
❌ Do not do this to the document
Do not laminate it, write on it, highlight the figures for the foreign reader, or fold it to fit an envelope. And once the apostille is attached, do not remove the staple to photocopy the bundle and re-attach it — detaching an apostille destroys the physical link between certificate and document, and is a well-known reason for rejection abroad.
One planning point: each apostille covers one physical bundle, and authorities retain what they are given. If a foreign tax office, a lender and an employer all need a certified P60, order two or three at once — far cheaper than repeating the chain in three months, and dramatically so outside the Convention, where each embassy stage is charged and queued individually.
P60, P45, SA302 or an HMRC Letter — Which You Actually Need
This is the section we would most like people to read before ordering, because it is where the money is. These documents get confused constantly, they cost different amounts to legalise, and often the one you were told to get is not the one that answers the question being asked.
| Document | Who issues it | What it proves | Route & price with us |
|---|---|---|---|
| P60 | Your employer, by 31 May, for anyone employed on 5 April | Pay and tax from that employment for one complete tax year | Solicitor certification, then apostille — £120 |
| P45 | Your employer, when you leave a job | Leaving date, tax code, and total pay and tax from 6 April to the date you left | Solicitor certification, then apostille — £120 |
| SA302 and tax year overview | Printed by you from your HMRC online account, or by your accountant from their software | Self Assessment income and the tax calculated on it — the self-employed equivalent | Solicitor certification, then apostille — £120 |
| HMRC employment history record | HMRC, from its PAYE records, on request | Who employed you and when, across the current and past five years | Often direct to the FCDO — £90 where signed by an official |
| HMRC certificate of residence | HMRC, on application | That you were UK tax resident for treaty purposes — the double taxation document | Often direct to the FCDO — £90 where signed by an official |
💰 The £90 documents, and why they are cheaper
The bottom two rows are worth pausing on. GOV.UK says the FCDO can legalise a document issued by a government department where it has been “signed by an official”, and its own example is “a letter of confirmation of tax registration”. A letter issued by HMRC and signed by a named officer sits squarely in that category — no solicitor, £90 rather than £120.
Two honest caveats. Not everything HMRC sends qualifies: an unsigned printout, a screen you exported yourself or a letter with no named officer gives the FCDO nothing to match, and goes down the £120 route like any other unsigned paper. And the request takes time — HMRC's guidance on proof of employment history tells applicants to ring the National Insurance helpline if they have not heard back after 40 days. If your deadline is three weeks away, the P60 you already hold is the practical answer even though it is dearer. Send us a scan and we will tell you which price applies.
📑 How to get each of them
Employment history from HMRC
GOV.UK sets out the route: the current and past five years' employment through your personal tax account or the HMRC app, or an application by post. The published use cases are making a compensation claim, applying for a loan and renewing a work visa. A legal representative acting for you needs your written consent on the employment history consent form.
Certificate of residence
GOV.UK explains you can claim tax relief in another country if you pay tax on foreign income in the UK and hold a certificate of residence, where a double taxation agreement exists. Individuals and sole traders apply online or by form; companies and partnerships use the RES1 service. HMRC will not issue one if you are not entitled to treaty benefits.
SA302 and tax year overview
You print the tax calculation from your HMRC online account under Self Assessment, or your accountant prints it from their software. GOV.UK warns you cannot print until 72 hours after the return was sent, and advises checking your mortgage provider accepts documents you printed yourself. Because you printed it, no official signed it — so the certify-then-apostille route applies.
A replacement P45 — the one you cannot get
GOV.UK is blunt: “If you've lost your P45 or your employer says they sent one but you did not get it, you cannot get a replacement.” A new employer uses the starter checklist instead. So if a P45 is wanted and you still hold it, certify a copy and keep the original — there is no second chance.
Why People Legalise a P60: The Five Real Reasons
Nobody wakes up wanting a P60 apostille — a specific institution abroad has asked. In our order book the reasons fall into five groups, and the right document depends on which you are in.
🏦 1. Double taxation claims — the biggest single group
You earned money in the UK, you now live somewhere that also wants to tax it, and the local revenue service will only give relief if you can evidence what you earned and what Britain already took. The P60 is the neatest single sheet answering both halves, which is why foreign tax offices ask for it by name.
What catches people out is that relief usually turns on residence, and the P60 says nothing about residence. GOV.UK is clear that you can claim tax relief in another country if you pay tax on foreign income in the UK and you have a certificate of residence, and that the overseas authority decides whether relief is granted. The file that succeeds usually contains both documents. If you are ordering only one, order the one your foreign accountant names.
🏠 2. Mortgages and lending abroad
British buyers in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece and Cyprus meet the same demand: two or three years of income evidence, authenticated, and often translated by a sworn translator in the destination country. Underwriting departments cannot evaluate a British payslip, so they fall back on the standardised annual form. Three tax years is three documents, three certificates and three apostilles; ordered together it is one job and one delivery. Our guide to buying property abroad covers what else the file needs, and our apostille cost guide sets out the arithmetic.
📋 3. Visa, residency and settlement applications
Golden visa and residence-by-income schemes, family reunification files, retirement visas and long-stay permits all require proof of sustained income. Where that history is British the P60 is the natural evidence, and the migration office normally wants it apostilled because it cannot verify a foreign employer's paperwork. Portugal and Spain are the routes we see most, and both are Convention countries, so the chain stops at the apostille — see our guides to moving to Portugal and apostilles for Spain.
💼 4. Proof of income or employment for a foreign employer
Employers abroad, particularly in regulated sectors and the Gulf, ask for evidence of previous salary or employment at onboarding. Here the P60 is often the wrong tool and an HMRC employment history record the right one: the employer usually wants to know that you worked there, not what you were paid, and the HMRC record covers five years of employers on one document. If the destination is the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia the chain is longer — see section nine and our working in the UAE guide.
⚖️ 5. Court and family proceedings abroad
A recurring pattern in our order book is a P60 travelling alongside a court order — maintenance assessments, divorce financial remedies, child support enforcement and inheritance matters, where a foreign court needs the British order and evidence of the parties' income. The order itself, if sealed with a wet ink court seal, goes straight to the FCDO at £90; the P60 beside it needs certification first at £120. Two documents, two prices, one job — worth saying, because clients assume the whole bundle takes the same route.
The Process, Step by Step
Assuming the P60 genuinely is the document required, this is the whole job from the form in your drawer to a bundle in the hands of a foreign official.
Step 1 — Get the requirement in writing (before anything else)
Confirm four things: which document and which tax years; solicitor certification or a notarial act; apostille only, or apostille plus consular legalisation; and what language. Getting this wrong is the only mistake that costs the whole fee twice.
Step 2 — Assemble the P60s
Originals if you have them, clean single-sided prints of the electronic ones if not. If a year is missing, ask your employer for a replacement first — the fastest fix, and free.
Step 3 — Solicitor certification (same day with us)
The solicitor inspects the P60 and certifies a copy, attaching their certificate, signature and seal — the step that turns an employer document into something the Convention recognises. We handle it as part of the £120 service rather than sending you to find your own appointment.
Step 4 — FCDO apostille (next working day with us)
The Legalisation Office matches the solicitor's signature and seal against its records and attaches the apostille. The FCDO's own standard service is £45 plus courier or postage costs and usually takes up to 25 working days, plus courier or postage time. We use the registered next-day channel, so a document reaching us in the morning is normally apostilled the following working day.
Step 5 — Embassy legalisation (non-Convention destinations only)
The destination's embassy or consulate in London stamps the apostilled bundle. Timing belongs to the mission, and each document is normally submitted individually. Budget one to two weeks and do not book flights around it.
Step 6 — Translation, last
Translate the P60, the solicitor's certificate and the apostille together, once every stamp is physically on the paper. Section eight explains why this order is not negotiable.
Step 7 — Scan everything before it leaves your hands
Including the apostille's reference number. If the bundle is lost in the post, that number lets the FCDO confirm the apostille was issued rather than starting the chain again.
⏰ Realistic total timings
Convention destination, our service: two to four working days from receipt, covering certification, apostille and return delivery. Non-Convention destination: add the consulate's processing, commonly one to two weeks. Doing it yourself through the FCDO's standard postal route: add up to 25 working days plus postage on the apostille step alone. Waiting on HMRC first: add the request time — HMRC's guidance points applicants to the helpline only after 40 days. Plan backwards from the submission deadline, not the travel date.
📱 Paper apostille or e-Apostille?
The FCDO issues apostilles electronically as well as on paper. The e-Apostille costs £35 and takes up to 2 working days, against £45 and usually up to 25 working days for the standard paper service. A certified P60 is not on the FCDO's e-Apostille exclusion list — that list covers birth, death, marriage, civil partnership and adoption certificates and any other document from the General Register Office, ACRO police certificates for England and Wales, DBS certificates for England and Wales, disclosure certificates for Scotland and Northern Ireland, fingerprint certificates, and ACCA membership certificates.
Two conditions decide whether it is worth it. The document must be electronically signed by the certifying solicitor or notary, which not every firm can do. And the authority at the other end has to accept an electronic apostille, which many foreign tax offices and almost all lenders still do not. Outside the Convention the question does not arise: embassies stamp paper. Our position is unglamorous — use an e-Apostille when the recipient has said in writing that it accepts one, and paper otherwise. Our e-Apostille versus paper comparison sets out the trade-off.
Translation: Why It Comes Last, Always
More P60 files come back over translation order than over anything else, and the fix is a single rule: translate after the apostille, never before.
An apostille is a physical certificate attached to the bundle and is itself part of what the foreign official reads. A translation produced before the apostille exists cannot cover it — the translator had nothing to translate. When the file arrives with a translated P60 and an untranslated apostille stapled to it, the receiving officer sees a document whose authentication they cannot read, and the file is returned. The same applies to the solicitor's certificate: it is the thing the apostille actually authenticates, and it has to appear in the translation.
📝 What the translation must cover
- ✓ The P60 itself, including box headings and National Insurance category letters — not just the numbers
- ✓ The solicitor's or notary's certificate in full, including the wording about what was inspected
- ✓ The apostille, including the issuing authority, the reference number and the date
- ✓ Any embassy stamp added afterwards, outside the Convention — so translation comes after that stage too
Who may translate it is decided by the destination, not by you and not by us. Some countries accept a certified translation from a UK company with a statement of accuracy. Others accept only a translation produced in their own jurisdiction by a sworn, court-appointed or ministry-registered translator — Spain's traductor jurado, Italy's sworn translation lodged at court, Poland's tłumacz przysięgły. Where that is the rule, a UK translation is wasted money: the document travels in English and is translated on arrival.
Financial documents carry a particular trap. Terms like “pay in this employment”, “statutory maternity pay” and the National Insurance letter categories have no exact equivalents in most languages, and a translator unfamiliar with British payroll produces something a foreign tax officer cannot reconcile. Use someone who has handled UK tax documents before, and give them the whole bundle. Our apostille and translation guide goes through the country rules.
Costs, Timelines and the Embassy Route
Plain numbers, and why a P60 never qualifies for the cheaper price.
| Service | Price | Applies to a P60? |
|---|---|---|
| Apostille, no solicitor required | £90 | No. This price is for documents that go straight to the FCDO — GRO certificates, ACRO certificates, sealed court documents, and letters from a government department signed by an official. An employer-issued P60 never qualifies. |
| Apostille with solicitor certification | £120 | Yes — this is the P60 price. Certification and apostille as one job, apostilled the next working day. The same price applies to a P45 and to an SA302. |
| Embassy or consular legalisation | From £150 | Only where the destination is outside the Apostille Convention. Charged per document, plus the mission's own fee and its own timetable. |
| Notarial act instead of solicitor certification | Quoted | Where the receiving authority specifically requires a notary public. Tell us before you order rather than doing the work twice. |
For reference, the FCDO's own fees are £45 for a standard paper apostille plus courier or postage costs, and £35 for an e-Apostille. Our prices include the FCDO fee, the certification, registered next-day submission and return delivery. Full details on our pricing page.
🌎 Is your destination in the Convention?
If it is, the apostille ends the chain. If not, the destination's embassy or consulate in London must legalise the document afterwards. Destinations we handle regularly that sit outside the Convention:
| Destination | Route for a P60 | Note |
|---|---|---|
| AE United Arab Emirates | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | The largest single group in this category for employment documents |
| QA Qatar | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Documents are normally submitted individually, not bundled |
| KW Kuwait | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Allow extra time; there is rarely an express option |
| EG Egypt | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Common for employment and residency files |
| NG Nigeria | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Often paired with degree certificates in the same order |
| GH Ghana | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Check whether an HMRC letter would be accepted instead |
| KE Kenya | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Requirements vary by receiving ministry |
| JO Jordan | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Translation usually required after the embassy stage |
| LB Lebanon | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Consular timelines are unpredictable; build in slack |
| LK Sri Lanka | Solicitor → apostille → embassy | Common for property and inheritance matters |
| TH Thailand | Solicitor → apostille → embassy, until 28 February 2027 | Thailand joins the Convention on 28 February 2027, after which the embassy stage falls away — see our Thailand guide. |
✅ Viet Nam: apostille only, as of 11 September 2026
Viet Nam joined the Apostille Convention with effect from 11 September 2026. A P60 for Viet Nam now needs solicitor certification and an FCDO apostille and nothing else — the consular stage has gone. Guidance published earlier, much of it still online, describes the old embassy route, so anyone quoting you for embassy legalisation to Viet Nam is working from stale information. Our Viet Nam apostille guide has the current position.
We check the destination against the HCCH status table before quoting, every time. If you are unsure which side of the line yours falls on, our What Do I Need? tool will tell you, and the complete UK apostille guide carries the current country list.
💼 How we handle a P60
- ✓ We ask what the receiving authority actually wrote down — and if a cheaper HMRC document answers it, we say so
- ✓ We check the destination against the HCCH status table before quoting, not from memory
- ✓ Solicitor certification and FCDO apostille as one job, apostilled the next working day
- ✓ Multiple tax years processed together, so you pay one delivery rather than several
- ✓ FCDO registered, insured to £2 million, 15+ years and 127+ countries
For the answer before you order, call 0203 916 6250, send the requirement to +44 7494 434 224 on WhatsApp, or email a scan to info@legalisenow.com. We confirm which price applies before anything is charged.
Mistakes That Get P60s Sent Back
Drawn from files that have come back to us, roughly in order of how often we see them.
1. Sending the P60 straight to the FCDO
The commonest and the most predictable. There is no signature for the Legalisation Office to match, so it comes back unlegalised and the postage and waiting time are both lost.
2. Buying a P60 apostille when a certificate of residence was required
The foreign accountant said “proof of your UK tax position” and the client heard “P60”. A P60 shows what an employer paid you; it does not establish residence under a double taxation agreement.
3. Getting solicitor certification where a notarial act was required
The most expensive error on this list, because everything is done twice. One email to the receiving body prevents it.
4. Translating before the apostille
The translation cannot cover a certificate that did not exist when it was produced. Translate the whole bundle, last.
5. Ordering one year when the authority asked for three
Each tax year is a separate document with its own certificate and apostille. Three ordered together is one job; three ordered separately is three of everything, and abroad it is three embassy queues.
6. Assuming a P60 covers every employer
A P60 is issued by one employer for one tax year. If you had two jobs you may have two P60s for the same year, and a file missing one reads as a gap. An HMRC employment history record avoids this entirely.
7. Redacting the National Insurance number before sending
Understandable, and usually fatal. The NI number is how the foreign authority ties the document to you and to the certificate of residence beside it. A blacked-out field looks like tampering.
8. Detaching or re-stapling the apostille
Removing the staple to photocopy the bundle and reattaching it destroys the physical link between apostille and document. Scan it intact or leave it alone.
9. Working from a stale country list
Viet Nam joined the Convention on 11 September 2026 and Thailand joins on 28 February 2027. Check the HCCH status table, not a country guide of unknown vintage.
10. Trying to legalise a foreign document in London
GOV.UK is explicit: you cannot get documents issued outside the UK legalised through this service — get them legalised in the country they were issued. A P60 is British by definition, but the payslips and employer letters people attach to it often are not.