This limit is barely documented anywhere, and it shapes the entire market. The Office of Authentications accepts one request per day, with a limit of fifteen documents, per customer or company. The cap is per submitting entity, not per applicant.

Why it matters more than it sounds

Fifteen documents a day across roughly twenty-one business days is about 315 documents a month. That is the entire monthly capacity of any single courier company, no matter how large. It is the reason no operator dominates federal apostille work, and why the market stays fragmented between many small firms rather than consolidating.

It also means that if you are moving a large batch, no single provider can process it quickly. Genuine volume has to be split across several independent companies, each with its own daily allowance.

Do not try to work around it

Splitting a batch into separate same-day requests under different names is treated as circumvention, and the consequence is being permanently barred from submitting. For a business that depends on counter access, that is fatal.

State limits are different and lower

Texas caps counter service at ten documents per visit, with one appointment per person or company per day; more than ten can be dropped off and are processed within 72 hours. New York caps counter service at ten documents per customer. California publishes no counter cap. Florida and Pennsylvania publish none either.

Source: U.S. Department of State, Office of Authentications. Checked 2026-08-04. We re-check this page weekly and update the date when anything changes.