What is a CRBA apostille?

A CRBA apostille is the certificate the U.S. Department of State attaches to a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (Form FS-240) so a foreign government will accept it. Because the FS-240 is a federal record issued by a U.S. embassy or consulate, only the Department of State in Washington, DC can apostille it — no state office can.

That single fact causes most of the wasted time on these cases. People mail an FS-240 to the Secretary of State in the state where they now live, wait weeks, and get the envelope back untouched. The document never had a state route. Below is the correct path, the prerequisites for each branch of it, how to replace a CRBA you can no longer find, and the specific errors that get packets returned.

What is a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (FS-240)?

A Consular Report of Birth Abroad is the U.S. Department of State’s record that a person acquired United States citizenship at birth while being born outside the United States. It is issued on Form FS-240 and functions as the federal equivalent of a birth certificate for a child born abroad to a qualifying U.S. citizen parent.

Parents obtain it by reporting the birth to the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate, which then issues the CRBA. That is the answer to “how do I get a birth abroad certificate” — there is no other office that can create one. The State Department does not issue CRBAs to naturalized citizens or to lawful permanent residents, because the document exists to record citizenship acquired at the moment of birth, not citizenship acquired later. A U.S. citizen may request a replacement or amendment for themselves or for their child born abroad. All of this is set out on the Department of State’s page on replacing or amending a birth abroad record.

At a glance: what you need before you request an apostille

• The original FS-240 issued by the consulate, with its seal intact — not a photocopy, not a scan, not a laminated card.
• The exact destination country, because the apostille request names it and the certificate is issued for that country.
• Confirmation that the destination is a party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention; if not, you need legalization instead.
• A replacement FS-240 (Form DS-5542) first, if the original is lost, destroyed, laminated, or shows a name that has since been legally amended.
• A plan for translation after the apostille is attached, if the receiving registry requires one.

What does “Certification of Birth Abroad” mean?

“Certification of Birth Abroad” refers to older Department of State birth records, and the phrasing still turns up on foreign checklists written decades ago. Three form numbers matter:

• FS-240 — Consular Report of Birth Abroad. The current document. The present design has been issued since January 3, 2011.
• DS-1350 — Certification of Report of Birth. Discontinued as of December 31, 2010 and no longer issued.
• FS-545 — Certification of Birth Abroad. A legacy record, also no longer in current issuance.

Critically, previously issued FS-240 and DS-1350 documents remain valid as proof of identity, citizenship and for other legal purposes. A 1985 FS-240 does not need replacing simply because it is old. Replace it only if it is damaged, lost, or contains details that need amending — or if the foreign authority you are filing with insists on a recently issued copy, which some civil registries do. You may request multiple copies at any time. The form history is documented in the U.S. Embassy guidance on replacing or amending a CRBA.

FS-240 vs. a state-issued birth certificate: which office apostilles which?

The distinction is about who signed the document, not where you live now or where the child was born. An apostille authority can only certify signatures and seals of officials within its own jurisdiction. A state Secretary of State certifies notaries, county clerks and state registrars commissioned in that state. The U.S. Department of State certifies federal officials, including consular officers abroad.

Families assembling a dual-citizenship file often hold a mix of these — an FS-240 plus a marriage certificate plus a notarized declaration — and each sheet takes a different route. Our overview of which federal documents can be apostilled sorts them, and the apostille guides showing which route a document takes break it down document by document.

How do you apostille a CRBA yourself?

The self-service route is a mail transaction with the Department of State’s Office of Authentications in Washington, DC. It is entirely doable; it is also unforgiving about details, since a single missing field means the packet comes back and you restart the clock.

1. Confirm the destination is a Hague party. Check the country on the HCCH status table for the 1961 Apostille Convention. For recent accessions, look at the entry-into-force date — apostilles are not accepted before it. If the country is not a party, you need authentication followed by legalization at that country’s embassy in the United States.
2. Get an original FS-240 in hand. If yours is missing, laminated, water-damaged, or reflects a name that has since changed, order a replacement with Form DS-5542 before you do anything else. See the replacement section below.
3. Complete the Department of State authentication request. The mail-in request form (Form DS-4194, Request for Authentication Service) asks for the destination country, the number of documents, and your return address. Name the country exactly — “Spain,” not “Europe” — because the apostille is issued for a specific destination.
4. Assemble and mail the packet. Send the original FS-240, the completed request form, the required filing fee payment, and a prepaid trackable return envelope. Verify the current mailing address and payment instructions on the Department of State’s Office of Authentications page before you seal the envelope; addresses and submission channels have changed more than once.
5. Check the published processing time and wait. The Department of State posts current turnaround for authentication requests on its own site. Do not rely on a figure you read on a blog, including the wait somebody quoted last year — these move.
6. Arrange translation after the apostille arrives. If the receiving registry requires a sworn or certified translation, have it done once the apostille is physically attached so the certificate itself is translated too.

Never laminate, staple through, trim, or unstaple a CRBA, and never send a photocopy in place of the original. A federal record with a compromised seal or a detached page is treated as unverifiable, and the fix is not an appeal — it is ordering a new FS-240 and starting over.

How long does a CRBA apostille take?

Three separate clocks can apply, and only the ones you actually need will run. Published turnaround times are revised by the agencies themselves, so the table below tells you what governs each stage and where the current figure lives rather than quoting a number that will be stale by the time you read it.

When we run the case, the federal filing fee and the handling are covered by our flat charge of $120 per apostille, all-inclusive — there is no separate government-fee surcharge and no per-page add-on. For deadline-driven filings such as a school registration or a citizenship appointment, see how we handle a quick-turnaround CRBA apostille for Israel.

How do you replace a lost CRBA?

Replacement runs through the Department of State’s Passport Vital Records Section, not through the embassy that originally issued the document. Use Form DS-5542, which covers both replacements and amendments.

Your packet needs:

• A completed DS-5542.
• A notarized request containing your identifying details, plus available passport information — issue date, expiration date and passport number.
• Either the original FS-240 (or prior replacement FS-240s, DS-1350 or FS-545 records) or a notarized affidavit stating where the original is. That affidavit is the path when the document is genuinely lost.
• A copy of the requester’s valid photo ID.
• Payment of the filing fee, made payable to the U.S. Department of State. When we handle the case, that fee is already inside our flat price.

Mail it to: U.S. Department of State, Passport Vital Records Section, 44132 Mercure Cir., PO Box 1213, Sterling, VA 20166-1213. After submitting, you can check status through the web form on travel.state.gov — but if your mailing address changes while the request is pending, you must call 202-485-8300 instead, because the online form will not update it. A returned envelope on a vital record is a bad outcome, so make the call.

Can you use a CRBA for dual citizenship?

Yes — an apostilled FS-240 is one of the most common U.S. documents filed in foreign dual-citizenship and civil-registry cases. It establishes the child’s date and place of birth and names the U.S. citizen parent or parents, which is exactly what a foreign registry needs to inscribe a birth or evaluate a citizenship claim by descent.

Typical scenarios: a family registering a U.S.-recognized birth with a Colombian notaría or registraduría; parents inscribing a child in a Spanish Registro Civil so the child can hold both nationalities; a family relocating and needing the record recognized by a provincial authority, as covered in our guide to apostilling a CRBA for a move to Canada; or an Israeli filing requiring the apostilled record alongside other proof, which we cover in our Apostille for Israel requirements and timelines page.

What varies is the surrounding paperwork. Some registries want the apostilled CRBA plus an apostilled parental marriage certificate; some want a sworn translation by a translator on their approved list; some want the FS-240 issued within a set recency window even though the document itself never expires under U.S. rules. Requirements differ by country and the receiving authority has the final say, so get the checklist from that consulate or registry in writing before you order anything.

Common reasons a CRBA apostille request is rejected

Nearly every returned packet traces to one of these:

• Sent to a state Secretary of State. The most frequent error. State offices cannot certify a consular officer’s signature; the FS-240 is federal and goes to Washington, DC.
• A photocopy or scan instead of the original. Federal vital records are apostilled in original form. A notary cannot rescue a copy by certifying it — notarizing a copy of a federal record does not convert it into an apostillable document in this context.
• Laminated or trimmed document. Lamination obscures the raised seal and prevents verification. This is a replacement job, not a correction.
• No destination country named. The apostille is issued for a specific country; a blank or vague field stops the request.
• Destination is not a Hague party. The Department of State will not issue an apostille for a non-party country. You need an authentication certificate plus embassy legalization.
• DS-5542 request not notarized. The written request accompanying a replacement must be notarized, and the affidavit describing the location of a lost original must be notarized too.
• Missing photo ID copy on a replacement request. Omitting it stalls the file before it ever reaches the apostille stage.
• Name mismatch across documents. If the FS-240 shows a birth name and your passport shows a married name, the receiving authority may demand the linking documents — amend the CRBA or supply an apostilled name-change record.
• No prepaid return envelope or an untracked one. You will not get quick answers about a federal vital record sitting somewhere in the mail stream.
• Translation done before the apostille. The apostille certificate then sits untranslated on the back, and fussy registries reject the whole file.

What if the destination country is not in the Hague Convention?

Then an apostille is the wrong instrument entirely. The document goes through the older two-step legalization chain: the U.S. Department of State issues an authentication certificate, and the destination country’s embassy or consulate in the United States then legalizes it, usually with its own fee, forms and appointment system. Check membership and the entry-into-force date on the HCCH status table before assuming either way — the Convention has added several members in recent years, and a country that required legalization two years ago may now accept an apostille. Our explainer on how the Hague Apostille Convention works for US documents covers what the treaty does and does not do.

Your next step

Take the FS-240 out of the file, put it under good light, and check three things: the seal is intact and unlaminated, the page is whole and unaltered, and the names on it match the names on the rest of your filing set. If all three check out, you are ready for the federal apostille and only need to confirm the destination country’s Hague status. If any of the three fails, order a replacement on Form DS-5542 first — that is the long pole in the schedule, and everything else waits on it.

If you would rather not manage the mail run, the filing form and the federal queue yourself, send us the original and we will take it from there at $120 per apostille, all-inclusive, with the government filing fee covered. Tell us the destination country when you start the order, because that determines whether your document gets an apostille or needs the legalization route instead.