What is an Apostille and how do you obtain one?

Why you were asked for an Apostille?

Do you question why a Power of Attorney, statement or affidavit that you notarized and sent to a foreign country was rejected? Does a Notary overseas state that your document containing your notarized signature is not complete and insist on obtaining an Apostille (something that you’ve never heard before!) on it? Do not worry! We try to cover every single aspect of what is an apostille and how to get one on your document!

A Notary who asked you for an Apostille is absolutely right! In accordance with the Hague Convention and documents legalization requirements, any document meant to be used overseas must be apostilled, or legalized.

How to get an Apostille or Legalize your documents?

Below is the list of necessary steps you should complete in order to prepare a document for international use:

Step 1: You should determine which procedure (Apostille or Consular Legalization) you should go through in order to prepare a document for use in any foreign country. So, the first thing you should do is to see if a country to which you are going to take your document is a party of the Hague Convention.

Step 2: Obtaining or drawing a document
If you found that a country to which you are taking a document accepts the Apostille, then the next step you should take is drawing a text of a power of attorney, statement, consent, etc. Take into consideration that these types of documents should be composed in professional legal language and require deep knowledge of legal terminology in order to be written in accordance with requirements of the Notarial Law of a particular foreign country. If you are not sure you able to create legally a correct and well–composed document, it is recommended to pass the task to a specialist – a Notary Public.

If you need to apostille a Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, Death Certificate, Police Clearance Certificate, or FBI Background Check Certificate, obtain a certified copy of it first.

When it comes to Vital Records Apostille, remember to obtain a correct copy of the document, for international use purposes. Other types of certified copies of the documents are not accepted for Apostille. Each document should be obtained from the appropriate department. Since all official departments such as Department of Health, City Hall, and courts are open from Monday to Friday only, you must think about taking a day off to go there personally, or go through the time-consuming procedure of online ordering. When choosing to order a certified copy via the Internet on your own, make sure to fill in all required fields accurately because if you make a mistake, you’ll receive an order confirmation, but your request will not be processed due to inaccuracies. Therefore, it is recommended that you give a department a call in few days after you placed an order and check if everything is well with your request. If the application was filled out improperly, a clerk will tell you what you should do next.

When it comes to ordering an FBI Background Check Certificate, make sure to let the FBI know that you need it for foreign use. This is very important because if they do not know about this, they’ll skip the authentication step and you will need to re-mail the certificate back to the division for authentication. As a result, you will lose one more week due to mailing the document back and forth.

Step 3: Notarizing your signature
This step is the simplest one. Once a power of attorney, statement, or consent is written, it is ready for putting your signature on it and getting your signature notarized. When it comes to vital records, an FBI Background Check Certificate, or Police Clearance Certificate, skip this step.

Step 4: Authentication
Authentication means checking the validity of the license of a notary who verified your identity by notarizing your signature. Authentication should be completed in an official department in the county where the notary is licensed. When it comes to authentication of Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, and Death Certificates, or other documents, such as FBI Background Check Certificate or business documents, the authentication procedure looks different because only the Department of State in your state or in Washington, D.C. is authorized to issue the Authentication Certificated for them. If you do have doubts regarding which department to send your documents to, it would be wise to speak to a specialist or an Apostille agent who knows the requirements for a particular document authentication.

Step 5: Legalization
This step replaces the step 4, discussed above, and is to be performed in case a country you intend to present your document in is not a party of the Apostille Treaty. In order to initiate a document legalization procedure, contact an embassy or consulate of a country and learn about their prerequisites of the legalization procedure. The specifics of embassy and consular Legalization procedures I’ll discuss in one of my next articles.

Step 6: Apostille
Once authentication is completed, you are close to the finish – your document is ready for Apostille, which is to be obtained in the U.S. Department of State division, where you need to send the package containing a document requiring Apostille, a money order of a specified amount, a properly filled Apostille request application, and return envelope with stamp. If any of above-mentioned is missing or you accidently provided wrong information, the department may return the package to you and ask you to resubmit a request, or, what’s worse, your document can be lost in the mail. Another option is to visit the U.S. Department of State division if there are any close to where you reside. Since there are always lines due to the large volume of daily visitors, be prepared to spend up to two hours in the department. If you think that, due to a busy schedule, you are unable to take a day off to complete the Apostille procedure, simply pass the task to those who do this – to an Apostille agency.

Step 7: Certified Translation
Your document is apostilled now; however, it is not complete yet. The certified translation of all documents that are in English is required. Otherwise, you should do the translation in a country where you take your documents to, which often is more expensive than in the USA. Furthermore, being in a rush, you risk hiring people who are not familiar with legal translations, and Apostilles and Authentication Certificates contain specific legal terminology.
So, I recommend you complete all document preparation steps in one office where they provide Notary Public services as well as certified translation services. If a Notary is really competent and knows his/her job, he/she will smoothly lead you through the debris of the steps describes above, find an apt solution for any issue related to those described above, and deliver to you the final document, properly prepared and ready to use internationally.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding the document legalization or Apostille obtaining procedure.