Where do you get FBI fingerprints taken in Medellín?

There is no FBI office in Medellín. To get an FBI background check from Colombia, you have an FD-258 fingerprint card rolled locally — by a private fingerprint technician, an identification or security services provider, or a police station willing to take prints for a foreign records request — then send that card to the FBI or to an FBI-approved channeler. The apostille comes afterwards, from Washington.

The FBI does not care who holds the ink roller. It cares about the card. A submission is accepted or rejected on four things: whether every rolled and plain impression is legible, whether the biographic block is complete and matches your passport, whether the reason for the request is stated, and whether the official taking the prints has signed and dated the card with their title and agency. A perfectly rolled card from a private technician in El Poblado is accepted; a smudged card from a government office is not.

Practical advice that saves people a second trip across the city: ask the technician to roll two complete cards in the same session. Cards are cheap, appointments are not, and if the FBI rejects the first set for illegible impressions you can post the spare the same day instead of starting over.

What a usable FD-258 card looks like

• All ten rolled impressions plus the plain (flat) impressions, nail-edge to nail-edge, no smearing or double-rolling.
• Name spelled exactly as it appears on the passport you will use, with no nicknames or abbreviations.
• Date of birth, place of birth, sex, height, weight, eye and hair colour completed.
• Social Security number if you have one; leave blank rather than guess.
• “Reason Fingerprinted” filled in — for example, a visa, residency, or employment application.
• Signature of the person being printed and, separately, the signature, printed name, and agency of the official taking the prints.

Do not fold the card. Do not laminate it. Send it flat in a rigid envelope.

What can the nearest American post actually do for you?

Less than most people expect, and this is the single biggest source of wasted weeks for applicants in Antioquia.

A U.S. embassy or consulate cannot issue an apostille on a U.S. federal document. That authority sits exclusively with the Office of Authentications at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC. An embassy also cannot pull your FBI record, speed up the FBI, or certify that your fingerprints are genuine for FBI purposes.

Historically, some posts would roll fingerprints for U.S. citizens as a notarial-type service. Consular service menus abroad have narrowed considerably, and availability varies post by post and month by month. Before you plan a trip to Bogotá, check the current service list on the U.S. Mission Colombia notarial services page and book only if fingerprinting is explicitly offered. Treat a consular appointment as a bonus, not the plan.

Only the U.S. Department of State can apostille an FBI Identity History Summary. Colombia’s Cancillería apostilles Colombian public documents — it has no authority over a U.S. federal record, and an apostille it issued on one would be worthless. If anyone in Medellín offers to “apostillar” your FBI report locally, they are selling you a rejection.

Who issues the apostille, and why does Colombia accept it?

Colombia is a contracting party to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents. You can confirm Colombia’s status and the date it took effect on the HCCH status table for the Apostille Convention. The practical consequence: a U.S. federal document carrying a Department of State apostille is accepted in Colombia without any further consular legalisation. There is no second stamp to chase at a Colombian consulate, and no “legalización” step layered on top.

The chain of authority is short and rigid:

1. The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division issues the Identity History Summary.
2. The U.S. Department of State verifies the FBI official’s signature and attaches the apostille certificate.
3. The Colombian receiving office accepts the apostille under the Convention.

No link in that chain can be skipped or substituted. A notary in Medellín cannot stand in for step two. A state Secretary of State in the U.S. cannot either — Secretaries of State apostille documents issued by their own state, and the FBI is not a state agency.

How does the process actually run from Medellín?

1. Roll your FD-258 card in Medellín. Find a technician with experience producing cards for U.S. submissions. Bring your passport. Have two cards rolled, and check every impression under good light before you leave.
2. Choose direct FBI or a channeler. You can mail the card to the FBI yourself with the FBI’s application form, or submit through an FBI-approved channeler, which is generally the faster route. We maintain a full directory of FBI-approved channelers, and the FBI publishes its own list.
3. Authorise us to receive the result. Waiting for a printed summary to reach Colombia by international post before it can be apostilled adds weeks and a real risk of loss. We take delivery of the summary in the United States and move it straight into authentication.
4. Federal apostille in Washington, DC. The Office of Authentications verifies the FBI signature and binds the apostille certificate to the summary. The agency filing fee is included in our flat price — there is no separate government-fee surcharge.
5. Courier to your address in Antioquia. The apostilled original ships tracked to Medellín, or to any address you nominate, including a lawyer, employer, or university.
6. Official translation, if required. Once the apostille is physically attached, have a traductor oficial translate the complete package — summary and apostille certificate together.

How long does each stage take?

Turnaround is driven by three independent queues, and only one of them is under anyone’s control. Published times change without notice, so verify each against the source below rather than relying on a figure you read on a blog — including this one.

Which apostille route applies to your document?

People in Medellín often need more than one document apostilled at once — an FBI check plus a degree, a birth certificate, or a marriage record. Those travel different routes, and mixing them up is the most common planning error.

What are the translation requirements in Antioquia?

Colombian public offices, notarías, and universities generally require documents in Spanish, translated by a traductor oficial — a translator officially certified in Colombia. A translation done by a bilingual friend, a U.S. translation agency, or software will not be accepted by a government counter in Medellín.

Three rules that prevent the most expensive mistakes:

• Apostille first, translate second. The apostille certificate is part of the document set and must itself be translated. If you translate before the apostille is attached, you will pay for a second translation.
• Translate the whole package. Summary pages, any “no record” wording, the FBI official’s signature block, and the apostille certificate — all of it.
• Ask whether the translator’s signature needs authentication. Some receiving offices want the translator’s signature recognised before a notaría; others accept the translator’s seal alone. Ask the specific office, not a general-information line.

Finding a certified translator in Medellín is straightforward — several work around Laureles and El Poblado, and the Cancillería publishes listings of officially recognised translators. Book them only once the apostilled original is physically in your hands.

Which office in Medellín receives the apostilled summary?

There is no single destination. Where the document goes depends entirely on why you obtained it, and each recipient has its own filing habits:

• Migración Colombia for visa and residency applications filed in Medellín.
• A notaría where the document must be protocolised or attached to a public deed.
• An employer’s HR or compliance department, common for multinationals and BPO operations in the city.
• A universidad for academic admission, exchange programmes, or teaching appointments.
• A foreign consulate in Colombia if the FBI check supports an application to a third country rather than to Colombia itself.

Before you order anything, ask the receiving office three questions in writing: does it require the original or a copy, how recently must the FBI summary have been issued, and does it require the Spanish translation to be authenticated. Answers vary between offices in the same building, and the receiving authority always has the final say on what it will accept.

How do you get the document back into Medellín?

Use a tracked international courier, not ordinary post. An apostilled FBI summary is a bound original with a wet-sealed certificate; there is no reprint, and losing it means restarting from the fingerprint card.

Ship to an address where someone will be present to sign — a home in Envigado or Sabaneta with a portería, an office, or your lawyer. Declare the shipment as a personal document with no commercial value. And when it arrives, resist the urge to tidy it: do not remove the staple, do not unbind the pages, do not put it through a hole punch for a binder. A detached apostille is treated as no apostille at all.

Common reasons an apostille request is rejected

Almost every failure we see falls into one of these categories, and all of them are preventable.

• Illegible fingerprints. Smudged, over-inked, or partial rolls get the card returned by the FBI before any record search happens.
• Name mismatch. The name on the FD-258 differs from the passport — a missing second surname is the classic Colombian-context error.
• Sent to the wrong authority. The summary mailed to a state Secretary of State, which has no jurisdiction over federal documents and will return it.
• A copy instead of the issued record. Photocopies, scans printed at a papelería, and notarised copies of the summary are not what the Department of State authenticates.
• Apostille separated from the document. Someone removes the staple to scan or photocopy the pages. Colombian offices reject the result.
• Missing or incomplete official block on the card. No signature, title, or agency from the person who took the prints.
• Translation done too early. The apostille certificate is untranslated, so the package is incomplete at the counter.
• Document too old for the receiving office. Many Colombian offices want a recently issued summary; confirm the window before you order, because the apostille does not refresh the issue date.
• Wrong country’s apostille. A Cancillería apostille applied to a U.S. federal document. It cannot be cured — the document has to go to Washington.

What is actually specific to Medellín?

Honest answer: less than you would think, and knowing that is useful. The authentication chain is federal on the U.S. side and national on the Colombian side. Nothing about Antioquia changes who issues the apostille or what the FBI requires.

What is genuinely local is narrower and still worth planning around: the availability and quality of fingerprint technicians in the city, outbound courier reliability from Medellín compared with Bogotá, the pool of officially certified translators working in Antioquia, and the counter-level habits of the particular office that will receive your document. Everything else is the same process an applicant in Cartagena, Cali, or Barranquilla runs.

One thing that is Medellín-specific in practice: there is no U.S. consular section in the city issuing routine documentary services, so every consular question routes to Bogotá. Factor a domestic trip into your plan only if you have confirmed the appointment exists and that the service you need is on the current menu.

Which other cities do we handle FBI fingerprinting apostilles for?

The same federal route applies wherever you are living, and we publish city-specific guides for the destinations where U.S. citizens most often need an FBI check abroad — including FBI fingerprinting in Madrid, FBI fingerprinting in Barcelona, and FBI fingerprinting in Alicante, all of which follow Spain’s own receiving requirements. For Central America, see our guide to the FBI background check apostille for Costa Rica. If your summary came back through a specific channeler, our walkthrough on how to apostille an FBI background check issued through VetConnex covers the handoff in detail.

Your next step

Do one thing today: email the office in Medellín that will receive the document and ask, in writing, how recently the FBI summary must have been issued and whether the Spanish translation must be authenticated. That single answer determines your timing and whether you need a translator lined up before the courier lands.

Then book your FD-258 fingerprinting locally, have two cards rolled, and start the order so we can take delivery of your summary in the United States and move it straight to the Office of Authentications. Our price is $120 per apostille, all-inclusive — the government filing fee is covered, with no per-page add-ons and no surcharge at the end. Requirements differ between receiving offices, and the authority that accepts your document has the final word on what it will take.