Your Personalised Immigration Document Checklist

What your checklist looks like

Here's a sample from a UK Skilled Worker Visa checklist for a Nigerian applicant. Your checklist will be specific to your exact pathway and situation.

How it works

Universal documents every applicant needs

Every immigration application — regardless of pathway or destination — starts with the same foundation. Before you add visa-specific documents, these eight items must be in order. Missing or incorrectly authenticated versions of even one will stall your application.

• Valid international passport — minimum 6 months validity beyond your intended stay; most countries require 12–18 months of remaining validity at the point of application, so check the specific requirement for your destination before you book anything.
• Birth certificate — original plus an apostilled or notarised copy; some destinations require a certified translation if the certificate is not in English or the destination language.
• Academic transcripts and degree certificates — all levels from secondary onward, authenticated by the issuing institution and, where required, evaluated by a recognised credential assessment body (WES for Canada and the USA, NARIC/ENIC for the UK).
• Three professional reference letters — on official company letterhead, signed and dated, confirming your role, duration of employment, and responsibilities; plain-paper letters are routinely rejected.
• Six months of bank statements — showing consistent savings and income over the full period; immigration officers look for stability and pattern, not a lump sum deposited the week before application.
• Police clearance certificate — from your current country of residence and from any country where you lived for six months or more in the last ten years; most clearance certificates have a six-month validity window from the date of issue.
• Medical examination report — requirements vary by destination; the UK and Australia mandate a tuberculosis test at an approved clinic, while the USA requires Form I-693 completed by a USCIS-designated civil surgeon.
• Passport-size photographs — meeting destination-specific dimension and background specifications; US, UK, and Schengen visa photos all have different size and format rules, and rejection for non-compliant photos is common.

Pathway-specific document layers

The universal documents above are the floor. Each visa pathway adds its own layer of required evidence on top. Below is a summary of what each of the 13 supported pathways requires beyond the baseline.

Country of origin authentication: the apostille trap

One of the most common — and most expensive — delays African applicants face is underestimating document authentication. The process differs depending on whether your country has signed the Hague Apostille Convention.

All other major African countries — including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Côte d'Ivoire, and Egypt — are not Hague members. This means their documents cannot be apostilled directly. Instead, applicants must follow a full consular legalisation chain:

1. Notarise the document with a commissioned notary public.
2. Submit to your country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (or Federal Ministry of Education for academic certificates) for authentication.
3. Take the authenticated document to the destination country's embassy for legalisation.

This three-stage process adds 4–8 weeks to preparation timelines — sometimes longer during peak periods at the Nigerian, Kenyan, or Ghanaian foreign affairs ministries. Applicants who discover this requirement late frequently miss application deadlines or funding windows. Orabo's full checklist flags the authentication chain specific to your origin country for every document that requires it.

Common document mistakes that delay applications

These six errors appear repeatedly in rejected or delayed immigration applications from African applicants. Each is avoidable with the right preparation checklist.

• Expired police clearance certificates — most countries require a clearance issued within the last six months of your application date; if you requested yours early while gathering other documents, it may have expired by submission time.
• Translations by non-accredited translators — Australia requires NAATI-certified translators; Canada accepts ATIO-certified or notarised translations; the UK accepts sworn translations; using an unaccredited translator — even a professional one — results in automatic rejection.
• Bank statements from accounts under six months old — immigration officers look for a documented savings history, not a recently opened account with a large balance; statements from accounts opened within the assessment window are typically discounted or flagged.
• Reference letters on plain paper — letters not on official company or institutional letterhead are treated as informal personal statements; they must include the company's address, contact details, and the signatory's title and direct contact information.
• Passport pages close to expiry at application date — visa processing times vary from 3 weeks to 6+ months; if your passport expires within 12 months of your target travel date, renew it before applying, not after.
• Missing apostille or legalisation on foreign documents — documents from Hague non-member countries without the full Ministry of Foreign Affairs authentication chain are inadmissible at embassies and consulates; this is the single most common reason African applicants are asked to resubmit their entire package.

Frequently asked questions