What is an apostille, in one paragraph?

An apostille is a standardized certificate that authenticates the signature, the official capacity of the signer, and the seal on a public document so that another country party to the 1961 Hague Convention will accept it without further legalization. It proves the document is genuinely from the office it claims to be from. It says nothing about whether the contents are true.

That distinction causes more confusion than anything else in this process. An apostille on a power of attorney does not mean the power of attorney is legally effective in Spain. It means a Spanish official can verify that the U.S. notary who signed it was a real, commissioned notary. Whether the document works for its intended purpose is decided by the authority receiving it.

Which authority issues my apostille — state or federal?

This is the single most important question on the page, because getting it wrong means starting over. The rule is jurisdictional: the apostille comes from the government that has custody of the signature being authenticated.

• Federal agency documents — FBI Identity History Summary, IRS certifications, federal court records, documents signed by a federal official — go to the U.S. Department of State, Office of Authentications, in Washington, D.C.
• State and county documents — birth, death, and marriage records, divorce decrees, state court orders, corporate filings, school records — go to the Secretary of State of the state that issued them.
• Private documents — affidavits, powers of attorney, parental consent letters, translator declarations — have no government signature at all until a notary public signs them. The notary’s commission is registered with a state, so the apostille comes from that state.

A state cannot apostille a federal document, and the federal government cannot apostille a state document. An apostille issued by an authority with no jurisdiction over the signature is void on its face and will be rejected abroad even though the certificate looks perfectly legitimate.

Which route applies to your document?

What do I need before I submit — an at-a-glance checklist

How does the process work, step by step?

1. Confirm the destination is a Convention party. Check the country against the HCCH status table before doing anything else. If it is not listed, you need consular legalization instead.
2. Obtain a qualifying original. Order a certified copy from the issuing office, or have the private document notarized. Photocopies and downloaded PDFs of records are almost never acceptable on their own.
3. Add any prerequisite certification. Several states require a county clerk to certify the notary’s commission before the Secretary of State will act. Some courts require a separate clerk-of-court exemplification. Skipping this step is a leading cause of returns.
4. Submit to the correct authority with the destination named. Federal requests go to the Office of Authentications on the Department of State’s request form; state requests go to that state’s apostille unit. Both need the destination country stated, because the certificate wording differs for non-Convention countries.
5. Arrange translation and delivery. If the receiving authority requires a sworn translation, have it prepared after the apostille is attached so the translated set matches the authenticated original.

How long does an apostille take?

Turnaround is a function of the authority, not the document. The Department of State publishes current processing windows for authentications and adjusts them as volume shifts; state apostille units publish their own, and many offer expedited or same-day counter service that the federal office does not. Because those windows move, the only reliable number is the one posted today on the Department of State’s authentication page or on the relevant Secretary of State’s site.

Two timing traps are worth planning around. First, the clock usually starts when the authority receives the document, not when you mail it. Second, the slowest leg is often upstream: waiting on a vital records office or an FBI result before the apostille stage can even begin. Build the schedule backwards from your appointment or filing deadline abroad.

How do FBI background check apostilles differ?

An FBI Identity History Summary is federal, so it is authenticated in Washington regardless of where you live or where you were fingerprinted. You can obtain the report directly from the FBI or through an approved channeler, and the route you used affects what the printed result looks like. If you used a channeler, the specifics matter — see our guidance for reports from TRP Associates, for First Advantage Biometrics (PrintScan), and for National Credit Reporting.

Immigration and residency applications often ask for a police clearance rather than a federal report, and the two are not interchangeable; our explainer on what a certificate of no criminal record is and how it gets apostilled covers the difference. Federal documents follow their own pattern by destination too — Germany, for instance, has recognizable quirks covered in our note on federal apostilles for documents going to Germany.

Do I need a translation, and when?

The apostille itself is multilingual by design and needs no translation. The underlying document often does. Spain and Colombia both commonly expect a sworn or officially recognized translation, and each defines who qualifies as a sworn translator differently — Spain through translators accredited by its foreign ministry, Colombia through its own official channels. Ask the receiving institution which translators it accepts before commissioning one.

Sequence matters. Translate after the apostille is attached, so the translator can render the complete authenticated set. If instead the translation is produced in the United States and notarized, the translator’s sworn statement becomes a private notarized document that can itself be apostilled at the state level — a useful route when the destination will accept it.

What if my destination country is not in the Convention?

Then you use legalization: the document is certified up the chain and finally endorsed by the destination country’s embassy or consulate in the United States. Each consulate sets its own fee schedule, appointment process, and document standards, and they change without much notice.

One trap even careful people miss: membership alone is not always sufficient. When a new state accedes to the Convention, existing parties may object to that accession, and where an objection stands, the Convention does not operate between those two countries — meaning your U.S. apostille will not be accepted there. Check the notes column of the HCCH status table, not just the membership list.

Common reasons an apostille request is rejected

• Wrong jurisdiction. A federal document sent to a state office, or a state record sent to Washington. Both come back unprocessed.
• Defective notarization. Missing venue, missing date, an expired commission, or a notary whose signature is not on file with the state.
• Missing county-level certification. Some states require the county clerk to certify the notary first; the state will not backfill that step for you.
• Uncertified photocopy. A scan or plain copy of a birth certificate has no authenticatable signature on it.
• Destination country omitted. The authority cannot decide between an apostille and a legalization certificate without knowing where the document is going.
• Document too old for the receiver. The apostille is fine, but the institution abroad rejects a background check or good-standing certificate issued outside its recency window.
• Altered or laminated originals. Lamination, staples removed and replaced, handwriting added, or a torn seal can all disqualify a document.
• Restricted document types. Certain records — naturalization certificates among them — carry reproduction restrictions that make a copy unacceptable.

Requirements vary by state and by receiving authority, and the office abroad that receives your document always has the final say on whether it accepts what you send.

What should I do next?

Do two things before you spend any money. Look up your destination on the HCCH status table and read the notes column. Then identify the exact office that signed your document, because that determines everything downstream. Once you know those two facts, the rest is logistics — and if you would rather hand off the logistics, we handle the routing, the prerequisite certifications, and the submission for a flat $120 per apostille, all-inclusive, with government filing fees already covered in that price. Pension and benefit documents follow the same logic; see our walkthrough on apostilling a Social Security benefit letter for a Costa Rica pensionado visa for a worked example from start to finish.