ExpatPapers

Apostille

Which office apostilles your document?

Almost every mistake in this process comes from one thing: sending a document to the wrong office. The rule is simple. Whoever issued it, authenticates it.

Federal documents

FBI background checks, naturalisation certificates, federal court records, IRS letters, DD-214s. These go to the U.S. Department of State, Office of Authentications in Washington. No state can touch them.

  • ·Fee: $20 per document
  • ·By mail: Five weeks from receipt, per the State Department. Applicants commonly report six or more.
  • ·In person: No appointments. Couriers walk in, drop off, and collect on a pick-up slip roughly two weeks later.
  • ·Form: DS-4194

FBI background check apostille →

State documents

Birth and marriage certificates, court records, diplomas, and anything signed in front of a notary. These go to the Secretary of State of the state that issued them.

  • ·Fee and turnaround differ by state
  • ·Some allow walk-ins, most do not
  • ·A document from Texas cannot be apostilled by California

Find your state →

The single most common error. An FBI background check is federal, so it goes to Washington. Sending it to your state Secretary of State gets it returned unprocessed, and most people lose about a month. How to recover →

Straight answers

Questions the rest of this category gets wrong, each verified against a primary source.

Timing Is there same-day federal apostille service? No. There are no appointments and no expedited route, whatever some services advertise. Timing How long does a federal apostille really take? Five weeks by mail per the State Department, six or more in practice. About two weeks in person. Limits How many documents can be apostilled per day? Fifteen, per customer or company, federally. It caps every courier at roughly 315 a month. Documents Is a printed electronic FBI report accepted? Yes. You do not need to wait for a mailed hard copy, which removes weeks from the chain. Routing Federal or state? Which office handles your document Whoever issued it, authenticates it. The full list of which documents go where.

By document type

Federal FBI background check apostille An FBI Identity History Summary is a federal document. It is apostilled only by the U.S. Department of State in Washington, never by a state. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → State Birth certificate apostille Birth certificates are issued by a state, so they are apostilled by that state’s Secretary of State. Not by the federal government, and not by the state you live in now. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → State Marriage certificate apostille Apostilled by the state where the marriage was recorded. County-issued copies often need an extra certification step first. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read →
State Diploma or transcript apostille Usually needs notarising first, then the state apostilles the notary’s signature rather than the diploma itself. In progress — being verified against primary sources

By state

Each state sets its own fee and turnaround. We publish a page once we have checked that state’s own source, not before.

California Apostille in California $20 per apostille · About 30 minutes, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Arrive by 4:30pm. A $6 special handling fee applies in person. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → Texas Apostille in Texas $15 per document, not per page. Adoption apostilles are $10 per document, capped at $100 per adoption. · Appointments Tuesday to Thursday, walk-ins Monday to Friday. One appointment per person or company per day, and a maximum of ten documents per visit. More than ten can be dropped off and are processed within 72 hours. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → Florida Apostille in Florida $10 per document. $20 where a Florida Clerk of the Court certified it, because that needs a $10 certificate of incumbency alongside the $10 apostille. · Walk-ins are usually handled while you wait. There is no expedited service of any kind, and requests are worked in the order received. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → New York Apostille in New York $10 per document. · Same-day counter service in New York City, Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo and Utica, capped at ten documents per customer. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read →
Illinois Apostille in Illinois Fee and turnaround being checked against the Illinois Secretary of State. In progress
Pennsylvania Apostille in Pennsylvania $15 per document, not per page. · Counter service 8:00 to 4:30, arrive by 4:00. Walk-in requests are processed while you wait. The drop box at 400 North Street is stated as 5 to 7 business days plus mail time. Verified 2026-08-04 · Read →
Ohio Apostille in Ohio Fee and turnaround being checked against the Ohio Secretary of State. In progress
Georgia Apostille in Georgia Fee and turnaround being checked against the Georgia Secretary of State. In progress
New Jersey Apostille in New Jersey Fee and turnaround being checked against the New Jersey Secretary of State. In progress
North Carolina Apostille in North Carolina Fee and turnaround being checked against the North Carolina Secretary of State. In progress
Washington Apostille in Washington Fee and turnaround being checked against the Washington Secretary of State. In progress
Michigan Apostille in Michigan Fee and turnaround being checked against the Michigan Secretary of State. In progress

Going abroad?

The receiving country sets the rules, and it sets them per consulate rather than nationally. We read each post’s own instructions and quote them, because the consulates do not agree with each other.

Non-lucrative visa (NLV) FBI apostille for Spain Six months, and every Spanish consulate we checked says the same thing. 4 sources read · Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → Elective residency visa FBI apostille for Italy It depends entirely on which consulate holds your jurisdiction. Some require it, some do not list it at all. 3 sources read · Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → Residence permit (Aufenthaltstitel) FBI apostille for Germany Germany usually wants a German Führungszeugnis, not an FBI report — and you can order one yourself for 13 euros. 1 source read · Verified 2026-08-04 · Read → D7 and D8 FBI apostille for Portugal Ninety days, and this is the one country where that number is actually correct. 1 source read · Verified 2026-08-04 · Read →

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We will tell you when your consulate changes the rules

Consulates revise their instructions without announcing it. When one of the posts we track changes a window, a fee, or what it asks for, we send a short note saying what changed and what it means. No more than that, and nothing else.

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