Do I need a state apostille or a federal apostille?

Look at the signature on your document. If a state or county official signed or sealed it — a notary public, a county clerk, a state registrar, a university registrar — the Secretary of State of that state issues the apostille. If a federal official or federal agency signed it, only the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Authentications in Washington, DC can. Nothing else decides the route.

This is the single point most people get wrong. They sort by document type — “it’s a background check, so it must be federal” — when the correct question is who put their name on it. A background check issued by a state police agency is a state document. An FBI Identity History Summary is a federal one. Same category of paper, two completely different authorities, and sending it to the wrong one costs you weeks.

The U.S. Department of State’s authentication fee is non-refundable by statute. If your document arrives without the required prerequisites, it is returned unprocessed and the fee is not returned with it. Verify the requirements before submission, never after.

How do I tell who signed my document?

Pick up the document and find the signature block at the bottom or on the reverse. You are looking for a title, not a name.

• Federal signals: “U.S. Department of…”, “Federal Bureau of Investigation”, “United States District Court”, a federal agency seal, a U.S. consular officer’s signature, or the letterhead of an executive branch department.
• State and county signals: “State Registrar”, “County Clerk”, “Notary Public, State of…”, “Clerk of the Superior Court”, a state seal, a county recorder’s stamp.

Documents signed by U.S. federal officials — including those issued by federal agencies and U.S. federal courts, and documents bearing the seal of a U.S. Embassy or Consulate — must go to the U.S. Department of State’s apostille requirements page for federal processing. Everything else is a state matter, and the NASS directory of state authentication officials is the official list of who to contact in each state.

A quick decision aid

Which state apostilles my document?

The state where the document was issued or where the notary holds their commission. Not the state you live in, and not the state you are moving from.

A birth certificate issued in Ohio is apostilled by Ohio, even if you have lived in Arizona for twenty years. A power of attorney notarized in New York is apostilled by New York, even if the property is in California. If you are assembling a packet with a birth certificate from one state, a marriage certificate from another and a notarized affidavit signed today in a third, you have three separate submissions to three separate offices. There is no single desk that handles all of them.

Some states add an intermediate step. Where a notary’s commission is registered at the county level, the county clerk must first certify that the notary was validly commissioned on the date of signing, and only then will the Secretary of State apostille the document. Check the authentication page of the specific state before you mail anything — this requirement is not universal and the states that impose it will reject a submission that skips it.

What route does each document type take?

The FBI route deserves a note of its own. You cannot shortcut it with a state background check if the receiving authority asked for a federal one — Spain, Colombia and Portugal routinely specify the FBI report for residency and visa files. Fingerprints go to the FBI directly or through an authorized channeler, and if speed matters, the channeler route is normally the faster of the two. We maintain the complete directory of FBI-approved channelers so you can compare them before you submit prints.

Can you apostille a photocopy instead of the original?

For vital records, no. Birth, death and marriage certificates must be a certified copy issued by the state vital records office or county registrar, carrying the registrar’s original signature and seal. The hospital souvenir certificate with footprints is not a vital record. A scan, a photograph or a plain photocopy will be returned. Many states also require the certified copy to be recent — order a fresh one rather than using the one in your filing cabinet from 2009.

For some other document types a notarized copy certification can work, in which case the notary’s signature is what gets apostilled, not the underlying document. Passport identity pages, diplomas and corporate records are the usual candidates. Two cautions: whether a state will accept a copy certification varies, and even where it works, the receiving authority abroad may insist on the original anyway. Ask the destination what it will accept before you build a submission around a copy.

How long does an apostille take?

One detail that trips up people tracking a federal submission: the processing clock starts when the Office of Authentications actually receives your package, not when the courier scan shows delivery to the Sterling, Virginia mail facility. Federal mail is screened before it reaches the office, and the gap between those two events can be substantial. Build it into your deadline.

State times are not comparable to each other. Utah turns mail-in requests in one to three business days and also issues digital apostilles, though not for vital records. Large-population states with heavier volume often run into weeks. Check the posted turnaround on the specific state’s site the week you submit — these numbers move.

What is the step-by-step process?

1. Confirm the destination country’s status. Check the HCCH Apostille Convention status table. Convention members — Spain, Colombia and Portugal among them — receive an apostille. Non-members require a different chain of certification ending at that country’s embassy or consulate.
2. Identify the signer and therefore the authority. Federal signature means the U.S. Department of State. State or county signature means that state’s Secretary of State. Do this before you order anything.
3. Obtain the correct original. A fresh certified copy for vital records and corporate filings; a properly executed notarization for affidavits, powers of attorney and copy certifications. This is where most requests are won or lost.
4. Add county certification if the state requires it. Where notary commissions are county-registered, the county clerk certifies the notary first. Skipping this step guarantees a rejection in those states.
5. Prepare the submission. Federal submissions use Form DS-4194 and must name the destination country, since the country determines whether you receive an apostille or an authentication certificate. State submissions use that state’s own request form.
6. Submit and track to the correct address. Mail-in, courier or in-person drop-off, depending on the authority and your deadline. Include a prepaid return label where the office permits one.
7. Check the returned apostille before you send it abroad. Verify the names, dates and destination country on the certificate itself while you can still correct an error cheaply.

What are the common reasons an apostille request is rejected?

• Sent to the wrong authority. A federal document mailed to a state office, or a notarized document mailed to Washington. The most expensive error, because it burns the full processing window.
• Sent to the wrong state. Submitting to the state of residence instead of the state of issuance or notarization.
• Photocopy submitted for a vital record. No original registrar signature, no apostille.
• Certified copy too old. Several states will not authenticate a vital record copy beyond a set age. Order a new one.
• Missing county clerk certification. Required in states where notary commissions are filed at county level.
• Defective notarization. Missing venue, missing commission expiry, an illegible or expired seal, or the notary signing as a witness rather than executing a proper acknowledgment or jurat.
• Notary commission expired on the signing date. The state verifies the commission as of the date of the notarial act, not the date you mail it.
• Destination country omitted or wrong on DS-4194. The office cannot decide between an apostille and an authentication certificate without it.
• Document stapled, laminated or altered. Removing a staple from a multi-page certified document can void it. Laminated certificates are routinely refused.
• Signer not in the authority’s registry. If the official’s signature is not on file with the certifying office, it cannot be verified and the document comes back.
• Translation attached when it should not be, or missing when it should be there. Sequence depends on the destination; confirm before you attach anything.

At a glance: what to have ready before you start

• The document with its signature block visible, so you can name the signer.
• The destination country, in writing from whoever requested the document.
• Confirmation of whether the receiving authority wants a federal or state-level record — this is the difference between an FBI report and a state police check.
• A recent certified copy for any vital record, ordered from the issuing state.
• Form DS-4194 for federal submissions, with the destination country entered.
• Any county clerk certification the state requires ahead of the Secretary of State.
• The receiving authority’s instructions on translation and whether it happens before or after the apostille.

When is it worth handing the routing to someone else?

Multi-document packets are where self-filing gets painful. A residency file for Spain or Colombia might combine an FBI report going federal, a birth certificate going to one state and a notarized affidavit going to another, each with its own form, address and turnaround. Any one of them arriving wrong resets that leg of the timeline.

We handle both routes from Washington, DC, including hand delivery for federal submissions. Our price is $120 per apostille, all-inclusive — the applicable government filing fees are covered by that, with no separate surcharge and no per-page add-ons. You can send documents to our federal apostille office at 1200 G Street NW, to federal apostille handling at 1500 K Street NW, or to our 1015 15th Street NW location in Washington, DC.

Requirements differ by state and by destination, and the authority receiving your document abroad has the final word on what it will accept.

What should you do next?

Take the document out, find the signature block, and write down the exact title of the person who signed it. That one line tells you whether you are dealing with the U.S. Department of State or a Secretary of State, and everything else — form, address, timeline, prerequisites — follows from it. If the signature is ambiguous, or you are holding documents from more than one state, send us the list of documents and the destination country and we will map each one to its correct authority before anything is mailed.