Circular Note

A circular note is a standardized diplomatic instrument used when a sending state or international organization needs to convey the same information, request, or notification to several recipients at once. It is most often issued by a host country's ministry of foreign affairs (frequently through its protocol department) to all diplomatic missions accredited in the capital, or by an embassy to all other missions in the diplomatic corps.

Typical uses include:

• Announcing changes in protocol, such as new procedures for accrediting diplomats, issuing identity cards, or importing duty-free goods
• Notifying missions of national holidays, security advisories, or temporary road closures affecting diplomatic premises
• Communicating changes in the head of state, government, or foreign minister
• Conveying positions on multilateral matters where uniform messaging is desired

Circular notes are usually drafted in the third person, like ordinary notes verbales, and bear no individual addressee in the salutation; instead they are addressed generically (e.g., "to all diplomatic missions accredited to..."). They are stamped rather than signed and reproduced in identical copies for distribution. Depositary states and international organizations also use circular notes: the UN Secretary-General, as depositary for hundreds of multilateral treaties, issues depositary notifications in circular form to inform states parties of signatures, ratifications, reservations, and objections.

The circular note is governed by general diplomatic custom rather than a specific provision of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961), though its use is consistent with the convention's framework for official communication between sending states and receiving states. Because the form is identical for all recipients, circular notes also serve an equality function within the diplomatic corps, ensuring no mission receives privileged or earlier information.