Who issues apostilles in Texas, and where are they filed?

The Office of the Texas Secretary of State is the only agency in Texas that can issue certificates and apostilles authenticating Texas public records for use outside the United States. Its Authentications Unit files in person at 400 West 15th Street in Austin, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. County clerks, district clerks and the state registrar issue the underlying certified copy — they cannot attach the apostille.

That split is the single most useful thing to understand about the Texas process. Two different offices touch your document, and each one has a job the other cannot do. A district clerk in Harris County can certify a divorce decree; only Austin can certify that the district clerk’s signature is genuine. A Texas notary can notarize your signature on a power of attorney; only Austin can certify that the notary holds a valid commission. When people describe “Texas apostille services,” what they are describing is the handoff between those two layers — and, increasingly, whether that handoff happens by mail or across the counter in Austin.

Federal Apostille files at the Austin counter in person rather than posting documents into the mail queue. Our price is $120 per apostille, all-inclusive. The Secretary of State’s filing fee is already inside that number — there is no separate government-fee surcharge and no per-page add-on.

What is an apostille, and what does the Texas version look like?

An apostille is a standardized certificate created by the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents. It attaches to a public document and certifies the authenticity of the signature, the capacity in which the signer acted, and the identity of any seal or stamp on the document. It does not certify that the contents are true. An apostilled birth certificate proves the record came from a genuine Texas registrar; it does not prove anything about the facts recorded on it.

Texas does something slightly unusual and genuinely convenient: it issues a single universal Apostille. The same certificate functions as an apostille when the destination is a Convention party, and as an authentication when the destination is not. You do not choose between two products at the counter. For a non-Convention destination, that Texas certificate is typically the first step, after which the document needs further authentication from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Authentications and then legalization at the destination country’s embassy or consulate.

Physically, the Texas certificate is a printed page bearing the state seal and a red stamp used as a fraud-prevention measure, attached to your document and signed by an authorized official of the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State publishes a sample on its authentication FAQ page, which is worth looking at once so you recognize the real thing when it arrives.

The Convention itself now has 130 Contracting Parties according to the HCCH status table, last updated 30 June 2026. The HCCH also notes that an e-Apostille is governed by the same rules as a paper one and is equally valid in every Contracting Party.

When do you actually need a Texas apostille?

You need one when a foreign government, court, employer, university or registry asks for proof that a Texas document is genuine. The most common triggers we see:

• Marriage abroad — a civil registry in Italy, Mexico, Spain, Japan or the Philippines asking for an apostilled birth certificate and, often, a single-status affidavit.
• Residency and work visas — a consulate requiring an apostilled background check, diploma or marriage certificate as part of a residency file.
• Dual citizenship — Italian, Irish, Polish and German citizenship-by-descent files, which consume large numbers of apostilled vital records at once.
• Teaching and licensure overseas — apostilled diplomas and transcripts for teaching posts in East Asia and the Gulf.
• Property, inheritance and litigation abroad — apostilled powers of attorney, probate orders and corporate resolutions.
• Intercountry adoption — court orders and agency documents, which Texas handles under a distinct fee tier and its own form.

One caution before you file: being on the Convention list is not always enough. A Contracting Party can object to another State’s accession, and where that happens the Convention does not enter into force between those two States. Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland each objected to Burundi’s accession, for example, so documents moving between those countries still need consular legalization. Read the entry-into-force column and the footnotes on the HCCH table, not just the country list.

Which Texas documents can be apostilled?

Texas divides everything into two buckets, and almost every rejection traces back to putting a document in the wrong one.

Recordable documents are officially recorded and issued by state or county officials. They cannot be notarized or turned into certified copies by a notary public, and they must be less than five years old. Birth, marriage and death certificates, divorce decrees, name-change orders, probate and guardianship orders, and state-issued corporate certificates all live here.

Non-recordable documents are not recorded with any state or county official and can be notarized by a Texas Notary Public. Powers of attorney, affidavits, parental travel consents, corporate resolutions, letters, and — in practice — diplomas and transcripts reach the Secretary of State through a notary’s signature rather than a clerk’s.

The five-year rule is the trap. It measures the issue date of the certified copy, not the date of the event. A certified birth certificate ordered in 2018 for a 1985 birth is too old to be apostilled today, and no amount of expediting fixes it — the only remedy is ordering a fresh certified copy from the office that holds the record.

How do you make a document “apostille-ready”?

Run this checklist before anything leaves your hands. Every item comes from a published Texas Secretary of State rule.

• It is an original, not a copy. Texas apostilles an original Texas-issued document, a Texas-issued certified copy, or an original Texas-notarized document. Photocopies and scans of certified or notarized records are not apostilled.
• It originates in Texas. All documents must be issued by the State of Texas or properly notarized by a Texas notary. An Oklahoma birth certificate goes to Oklahoma, no matter where you live now.
• It is under five years old if it is recordable.
• The seal and signature are intact. Do not remove staples, do not separate pages, do not laminate anything.
• The notarial certificate is complete if it is non-recordable — signature, seal, date, and the notary’s printed name and commission details as the acknowledgment requires.
• You know the destination country by name. The apostille request has to state it, and the Department of State gives the same instruction for federal filings.
• Adoption documents include Form 2103 for each official or document requiring an apostille.
• You have checked whether the recipient wants a translation and, if so, whether the translation itself must be apostilled — which means notarizing the translator’s affidavit before filing.

How does the Texas apostille process work, step by step?

1. Identify the layer. Texas-issued or Texas-notarized documents go to the Secretary of State in Austin. Anything signed by a federal official — an FBI Identity History Summary, a naturalization certificate, an IRS letter, a consular record — goes to the U.S. Department of State instead. Sorting this out first prevents the most expensive kind of delay.
2. Get the underlying record into acceptable form. For recordable documents, order a current certified copy from the clerk or registrar that holds the original. For non-recordable documents, sign before a Texas notary, or have the custodian of the record — a registrar, an officer, a physician — sign before one.
3. Confirm the destination. Check the country against the HCCH status table, including the entry-into-force column and any objection footnotes. If the country is outside the Convention or the Convention does not apply bilaterally, plan for the Department of State and embassy legalization steps after Texas.
4. Send the originals to us, tracked. Include the destination country and, for adoptions, the completed Form 2103. Use a carrier with tracking; original vital records are not trivially replaceable.
5. We file in person in Austin. Documents are presented at the Authentications Unit counter at 400 West 15th Street rather than entering the mail queue. Walk-in filing is capped at 10 apostille transactions per person, so larger batches go through the office’s drop-off lane, which it runs on a three-day processing turnaround with mandatory QR drop box registration.
6. The apostille is attached and the package returns to you. The universal Apostille certificate is affixed to each document. We return the completed set by tracked courier, or ship it directly to your attorney, consulate or registry abroad if that is where it needs to land.

What is the difference between filing it yourself and using a service?

Doing it yourself is entirely legitimate, and for a single local document with no deadline it is often the right call. The trade-offs are concrete rather than mysterious.

If you file yourself by mail, pull the current turnaround directly from the Secretary of State’s apostille request page on the day you send it. Mail queues at state authentication offices move at different speeds depending on season and staffing, and a figure repeated on a blog is worth nothing compared to the one the agency publishes today.

Document playbooks: exactly what each Texas record needs

Birth certificate apostille

You need a certified copy issued by the office that holds the record, issued within the last five years. The hospital souvenir certificate with footprints is not a vital record and cannot be apostilled. A photocopy of a certified copy cannot be apostilled either, and a Texas notary has no authority to certify one into existence. If your copy is old, order a new one first — that is the entire fix, and it is the most common reason a birth certificate file stalls.

For citizenship-by-descent files, check whether the consulate wants the long-form certificate showing parents’ details. Order the long form even if the short form is cheaper to obtain; an apostille on the wrong version is a wasted apostille.

Marriage certificate apostille

Texas marriage records live with the county clerk that issued the license, not with a central state office. Order the certified copy from that county, confirm the issue date falls inside the five-year window, and send the clerk-certified document rather than the decorative certificate the officiant handed you. Foreign registries almost always want the certificate showing both spouses’ full legal names exactly as they appear on the other documents in the file — a mismatch between “Robert” and “Bob” across two apostilled records causes real problems at the receiving end.

Divorce decree apostille

The certified copy comes from the district clerk of the county where the divorce was granted. Send the complete decree as the clerk certified it, including every page and any attached property or custody orders the clerk included. Do not remove pages you think are irrelevant — the clerk’s certification covers the document as a set, and pulling pages breaks it. The five-year rule applies here as it does to vital records, so a decree certified a decade ago needs re-certifying by the clerk before it can be apostilled.

Death certificate apostille

Same structure as a birth certificate: a certified copy from the registrar, under five years old, original only. Estate and pension matters abroad often require several apostilled copies rather than one, so order the number you need at the same time — reordering later restarts the clerk’s processing clock for no reason.

Court orders: name change, adoption, probate, guardianship

All of these are recordable and all come from a clerk. Adoption files are the exception worth flagging: Texas requires Form 2103 for each official or document requiring an apostille, and applies a reduced per-apostille fee with an overall cap for apostilles used in adoption proceedings. That fee structure is handled inside our flat price like any other filing fee. Intercountry adoption files also tend to be large and time-boxed by a foreign court date, which is exactly the situation where an unnoticed five-year-old certified copy is most damaging.

Notarized documents: powers of attorney, affidavits, consents

These must be original and notarized by a Texas notary. A power of attorney notarized in Nevada goes to Nevada, even if the property it concerns is in Houston. Sign in wet ink, let the notary complete the full certificate, and resist the urge to correct anything afterwards — crossing out and initialing a notarized document after the fact invites questions the Austin counter cannot resolve. Many foreign recipients dictate exact wording for a power of attorney; get that wording approved by the receiving lawyer or registry before you sign, because changing a word later means re-notarizing and re-apostilling.

Diplomas and transcripts

A diploma is a private document. It reaches an apostille through a notary certifying a signature — typically the registrar’s or another authorized university official’s — after which the Secretary of State authenticates the notary’s commission. Practical sequence: ask the registrar’s office whether it will issue a signed letter or certified transcript and have an official sign before a campus or local Texas notary. Many Texas university registrars do this routinely and have a preferred process; ask before you improvise. Sealed transcript envelopes create a conflict, because opening the envelope to notarize defeats the seal — resolve that with the registrar rather than at the counter in Austin.

Business records: certificates of fact, good standing, resolutions

Certificates of fact and status for Texas entities come from the Secretary of State’s own Business & Public Filings Section, so the document and the apostille originate in the same building. Order the certificate fresh for the apostille request. Documents from a company incorporated elsewhere — Delaware articles, a Nevada good-standing certificate — must be apostilled by that state, because Texas authenticates only signatures on documents issued in Texas or notarized by a Texas notary. Internal corporate paperwork like board resolutions and certificates of incumbency is non-recordable and takes the notary route: an authorized officer signs before a Texas notary.

What if your document is federal, not Texan?

This is the branch that catches the most people, because the document often relates to a Texas resident and feels like a Texas document. It is not. The U.S. Department of State’s Office of Authentications issues both apostilles and authentication certificates for federal records, on Form DS-4194. Use the federal route if the document is signed by a U.S. federal official, a U.S. consular officer, or a foreign consul registered with the Department of State’s Office of Protocol.

Published Department of State processing: 5+ weeks by mail, 2–3 weeks for walk-in drop-off and pick-up, and under 2 weeks by appointment — with appointments restricted to life-or-death emergencies, 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. The drop-off window is 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. Monday through Thursday; Fridays are processing days with no walk-ins or appointments. The Department also warns against submitting a second request while the first is pending.

FBI Identity History Summaries are the highest-volume federal item we handle. If yours came from a channeler, the report’s origin affects what needs to accompany it — see the complete directory of FBI-approved channelers, or the specific walkthroughs for how to apostille an FBI background check issued through VetConnex and how to apostille an FBI report from National Credit Reporting. If your file mixes Texas and federal records — common in residency applications — our federal apostille filing service in Washington, DC runs the federal leg while the Texas leg runs in Austin.

Common reasons a Texas apostille request is rejected

Nearly every rejection is one of these, and every one of them is preventable before a document leaves your desk.

• A photocopy or scan of a certified record. Texas apostilles the original certified or notarized instrument, not a reproduction of it. Printing a PDF of a certified copy does not create a certified copy.
• A recordable document older than five years. Vital records and court records outside the window are returned. Reorder from the clerk or registrar.
• A notary-“certified” copy of a recordable document. Texas notaries may make certified copies only of non-recordable documents. A notarized photocopy of a birth certificate or court order is invalid for this purpose, and no amount of good faith from the notary changes that.
• A document from another state or another country. Texas authenticates Texas-issued documents and Texas notarizations only. A California marriage certificate goes to Sacramento.
• No destination country stated. The request has to name where the document is going; omitting it stops the file.
• An adoption request missing Form 2103 for each official or document requiring an apostille.
• An unregistered drop-off. Texas requires drop-off requests to be registered through the QR drop box system, warns that failure to register may delay processing, and states it is not responsible for an unregistered request that goes missing.
• More than ten walk-in transactions in one visit. The counter caps walk-in customers at 10 apostille transactions per person; oversized batches belong in the drop-off lane.
• A defective notarial certificate. A missing seal, an illegible stamp, an unsigned acknowledgment, or a notarization performed after the notary’s commission lapsed.
• A dismantled document. Removed staples, separated pages, or a laminated certificate. Lamination in particular is usually fatal and cannot be undone.
• Wrong version of the record. A short-form birth certificate where the consulate demanded the long form; a partial decree where the clerk certified the full one.
• Wrong office entirely. A federal record sent to Austin, or a Texas record sent to Washington. This one costs the most time because the round trip is long before you learn anything.

How do you get a quote and a realistic timeline?

Three pieces of information settle it: what the document is, when the certified copy or notarization was issued, and which country it is going to. With those, the route is determined — Austin only, Austin plus the Department of State, or Austin plus the Department of State plus an embassy — and the honest timeline follows from the published processing posture of each office in that chain plus shipping in both directions.

Be wary of any quoted turnaround that does not ask about your destination country. A single Texas birth certificate for Spain and the same certificate for a non-Convention destination are not the same job, and no service can compress an embassy’s calendar.

Pricing on our side is simple: $120 per apostille, all-inclusive. Government filing fees are inside that number rather than added afterwards, which means the price you are quoted for a five-document adoption file or a two-document marriage file is the price you pay.

What to do next

Pull out the documents you intend to send and check two things right now. First, the issue date on every certified copy — if any recordable record was certified more than five years ago, order a replacement from the clerk or registrar today, because that order sits on the critical path ahead of everything else. Second, the exact name of the destination country, checked against the HCCH status table including the footnotes, so you know whether the Texas certificate is the end of the chain or the start of it.

Once those two facts are settled, start an order and send the originals tracked; we take them across the counter at 400 West 15th Street and return the apostilled set to you or straight to your recipient abroad. Requirements vary by destination, and the authority receiving your document always has the final say on what it will accept — when a consulate or registry has given you written instructions, send them along with the documents so we can file to match them.