This is the most widely repeated wrong answer in the category. Several services advertise same-day federal apostilles. What actually happens at the Office of Authentications is this: a courier walks in, hands the document over the counter, and receives a pick-up slip dated roughly two weeks out. There is no queue to pay to skip, because there is no queue to skip.

What the two routes really are

By mail. The State Department states five weeks from receipt. Applicants routinely report six or more.

In person. Drop off, then collect on the slip about two weeks later. The gain over mail is real but it is weeks, not days.

Where the confusion comes from

State apostilles genuinely can be same-day. California processes a walk-in in about thirty minutes. Pennsylvania and New York do them while you wait. Because most apostille content on the internet is about state documents, the same-day expectation gets carried over to federal ones, where it does not hold.

If your document is a birth certificate, a marriage certificate or anything notarised, same-day is realistic. If it is an FBI background check, a naturalisation certificate or a federal court record, it is not.

One warning on that first list. A birth or marriage certificate must not be notarised at all, and a notarised photocopy of one is returned unprocessed. Which documents need a notary, and which must never see one →

What to do if your date is tight

Work backwards from the consulate appointment and allow three weeks end to end. If you have less than that, the honest options are to move the appointment or to accept the risk. No amount of money buys speed at this particular counter.

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.