Expedited State and Federal Apostille Services

There is no rush fee you can pay to make a government apostille counter move faster. Neither the U.S. Department of State nor any Secretary of State sells expedited service. What exists instead is a second, faster channel at each office — in-person submission — and it is only open to someone standing in the right building during a narrow window on the right day. That is the service we sell: we are already standing there.

Federal Apostille and Notary Processing files documents by hand at the U.S. Department of State's Office of Authentications in Washington, D.C., and at Secretary of State counters across the country through our offices in Washington, New York, Tallahassee, Chicago and Southern California. Whether your document belongs on the federal track, the state track, or both, you send it once and we handle the routing.

Two authorities, two clocks

The single most expensive mistake in this process is sending a document to the wrong authority. A rejected submission costs you the mailing time in both directions plus a fresh place at the back of the queue. Which authority certifies your document depends entirely on who issued or signed it.

A federal document cannot be apostilled by a Secretary of State, and a state-issued document cannot be apostilled by the Department of State. If you are unsure which side of that line your paperwork falls on, our guide to federal apostille versus state apostille works through it document by document.

How expedited federal processing actually works

The Office of Authentications publishes two channels with very different timelines. Mailed requests are processed within five weeks of the date they arrive — and that clock does not start when USPS scans your package into the Sterling, Virginia facility, but days later when it reaches the office in Washington. Walk-in submissions, dropped off and collected in person, are processed in seven business days.

The catch is access. Walk-in drop-off runs Monday through Thursday between 7:30 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. only. Appointments during the rest of the day are reserved for documented life-or-death family emergencies. The office processes work on Fridays but accepts no walk-ins that day, and federal holidays are closed entirely.

Our staff is in that line. Your document ships to our Washington office, we present it at the counter in the morning window with a completed Form DS-4194 and the $20 government fee, and we collect and return it as soon as it is released.

Before anything is filed we check the document itself, because the counter will not. FBI reports must be current and bear a valid signature; naturalization certificates may not be photocopied by a notary; DS-4194 must name the destination country, since that country decides whether you receive an apostille or an authentication certificate. Our document checklist covers the requirements for each federal record type, and the federal apostille service page explains the full submission process.

Expedited state-level apostilles

State counters vary more than most people expect, and the variation is where the delays hide. Some states run same-day counters. Others accept walk-ins but hold documents for pickup. Several restrict apostille issuance to a single office in the capital, no matter how large the state is.

Florida is a clear example. Every Florida apostille in existence is issued at one counter — the Division of Corporations in Tallahassee — and the Department offers no expedited service at all, only walk-in submission, where most requests are completed while you wait. The fee is $10 per document, or $20 for anything certified by a Florida Clerk of the Court. Payment must be a check or money order drawn on a U.S. bank; the counter takes no cash and no credit cards, which turns away more walk-ins than any other single rule. Our Tallahassee office at 113 S Monroe Street, a few minutes from the Division, files these by hand.

New York splits the work in two: many documents must first be certified by the county clerk in the county where the notary is commissioned, or carry a letter of exemplification for New York City vital records, before the Department of State will issue the apostille. Our New York offices handle both steps in sequence rather than mailing the document back to you in between.

We file state-level apostilles in all fifty states. Fees, accepted document types and counter rules differ in each one — our apostille by state directory lists the requirements per jurisdiction, and the state-level apostille service page covers what to send us.

When you need both, and when you need more

Some documents travel the state track and the federal track in sequence. A state-issued record headed for a country outside the Hague Convention — the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Vietnam's older requirements, China's pre-2023 practice — needs the state certification first, then a federal authentication certificate, then legalization at that country's embassy in Washington. Each stage has its own queue, and a document submitted to stage three before stage two is complete comes back untouched.

Running that chain from a single Washington office is the difference between a six-week process and a five-month one. Our embassy legalization guide maps the requirements country by country, and the country guide tells you which of the two certificates your destination accepts.

Fees at a glance

For current turnaround by document type, see our processing time page.

Common questions