Costs can include transcript or replacement document fees from the institution, possible credential evaluation services, and legal time reviewing whether the finalized records support the claimed profession. These vary by institution and country, so confirm actual fees directly rather than estimating.
Budget for institutional fees separately from legal costs
Institutions typically charge their own fees for official transcripts or replacement records, separate from any legal or evaluation service cost. Ask the institution directly about its current process and charges, and treat any credential evaluation as a distinct line item that may or may not be necessary depending on how clear the finalized records turn out to be. Ask the institution for its current fees and its stated turnaround in the same message as the records request, since both vary and neither is reliably published.
Where a credential evaluation may be needed, obtain a written view first on whether an evaluation would actually resolve the mismatch for this specific profession, because evaluations differ in scope and one prepared for a licensing body may not address the question at hand. Ordering the cheapest determinative step before the expensive optional one is the whole discipline here, and it usually saves more than it costs. Keep the institution's fee, the evaluation fee and the legal review as three separate lines in any budget, since only the first is unavoidable.