An apparatus is provided for stacking flat articles, such as double bags, which have been severed by hot-wire welding from a continuous tubular or semitubular plastic film and have opening-defining edges adjacent to their center lines. The bags are delivered by a transfer apparatus, called a wicketer. The wicketer has feeding arms, which are secured to a shaft and rotate about a horizontal axis and which are arranged in pairs in a starlike array. The bags are needled adjacent to their longitudinal center line on a holding plate, which is provided in a stacking station and carries upstanding stacking pins or needles, so that stacks are formed. Two radial holding plates are rotatably mounted on the shaft or axle and are connected to separate respective drives for pivotally moving the holding plates to a stacking position for receiving the articles. One of several types of devices is provided for removing the stacks from the holding plates, which have consecutively been rotated to the stacking position, and for removing the stacks.