On this page

1. Who issues apostilles in California?
2. What is an apostille, and what does the California one look like?
3. Which route applies to your document?
4. Which California documents can be apostilled?
5. How does mailing it to Sacramento compare with filing in person?
6. How does our California apostille service work?
7. What does a California apostille cost?
8. Common reasons a California apostille request is rejected
9. What about FBI background checks and other federal documents?
10. When do you need an apostille, and when do you need something else?
11. Your next step

California apostilles are issued by the California Secretary of State, and requests are filed at its Sacramento office. The office authenticates signatures on documents issued in California and signed by a California notary public or a listed California public official. Federal records — FBI reports, IRS letters, Social Security letters — go to the U.S. Department of State instead. Our price is $120 per apostille, all-inclusive.

Who issues apostilles in California?

One office: the California Secretary of State. Among its notary and authentication duties, it commissions California notaries, keeps their signatures on file, maintains signature files for county and state officials, and issues apostilles. County clerks, courts, and school registrars all sign documents that eventually get apostilled, but none of them issue the apostille itself.

The scope limit is the thing most people get wrong. The Secretary of State authenticates signatures only on documents issued in the State of California and signed by a California notary public or by the public officials and deputies on its list — county clerks and recorders, court clerks, the State Registrar, and similar. A Nevada birth certificate, a Texas notarization, or a federal agency letter cannot be processed in Sacramento no matter how urgently you need it.

If the signature on your document does not belong to a California notary or a California public official whose signature the Secretary of State holds on file, the document will come back unprocessed. Check whose signature is actually on the page before you ship anything — that single check prevents the majority of wasted filings.

What is an apostille, and what does the California one look like?

An apostille is a certificate that authenticates the signature and capacity of the official who signed a public document, so the document can be accepted in another country without further diplomatic legalization. It says nothing about whether the contents of your document are true — it certifies the signature, the seal, and the authority behind them.

The certificate follows the model annexed to the 1961 Hague Convention, which is why an apostille issued in Sacramento is structurally identical to one issued in Madrid or Tokyo. It carries the French heading Apostille (Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961) and ten numbered fields:

1. Country of issue
2. The document has been signed by (name of the signer)
3. Acting in the capacity of (their title)
4. Bears the seal or stamp of (the issuing body)
5. Certified at (the place — Sacramento)
6. The (date of certification)
7. By (the authority — Secretary of State, State of California)
8. Number (the certificate’s serial number)
9. Seal or stamp of the issuing authority
10. Signature

In practice California attaches the apostille to your document as a separate certificate with the state seal. Do not detach it, do not photocopy it and send the copy abroad, and do not remove the staple to scan it flat. A separated apostille is treated as an incomplete document by most receiving authorities.

Which route applies to your document?

Which California documents can be apostilled?

Vital records: birth, marriage, death, and divorce

Birth, marriage, and death certificates must be certified copies issued by the county recorder or by California Department of Public Health Vital Records, carrying the signature of an authorized registrar or recorder. Hospital keepsake certificates, church records, laminated cards, and any copy stamped as informational are not eligible — the apostille has no official signature to authenticate. If your certified copy is more than a few years old, order a fresh one; older copies sometimes bear the signature of an official no longer on the state’s signature file.

Divorce records travel a different path. A dissolution judgment is a court record, so it must be certified by the clerk of the superior court that issued it. Some counties require a second step in which the county clerk certifies the court clerk’s signature before the Secretary of State will accept it. Ask the courthouse for a certified copy specifically intended for apostille, and confirm with that county what the chain looks like.

Notarized documents: powers of attorney, affidavits, consents

Powers of attorney, parental travel consents, single-status affidavits, translation declarations, and corporate resolutions are apostilled through the notary route: a California notary public signs and seals the notarial certificate, and the Secretary of State authenticates that notary’s signature.

Two things sink these more often than anything else. First, the notarial certificate wording — California prescribes specific acknowledgment and jurat language, and a certificate copied from an out-of-state template or an outdated form can be rejected. Second, the notary’s commission must be current and correctly identified: name, commission number, county, and expiration all legible. Ask the notary to leave the seal clear of text and signatures so it photographs cleanly.

Education records: diplomas and transcripts

School records, including diplomas, are an eligible category. There are two working routes. The registrar’s office signs and seals an official transcript or a letter attesting to the degree, and a California notary notarizes the registrar’s signature. Or the graduate signs a sworn statement before a notary attaching a copy of the diploma. Which one is acceptable depends entirely on the foreign ministry, employer, or licensing board receiving it — ask them first, because redoing an education apostille means going back to the registrar.

Business, corporate, and court documents

Corporate filings — articles of incorporation, amendments, mergers, statements of information, certificates of status — are eligible when obtained as certified copies from the Secretary of State’s business filings unit. Because those already bear an official state signature, they generally do not need notarization first. Documents the company generates itself, such as distributor agreements, board resolutions, certificates of free sale, or manufacturer declarations, need an officer’s signature notarized by a California notary before filing.

How does mailing it to Sacramento compare with filing in person?

Both routes end with the same certificate. What differs is queue position and the cost of a mistake. A mailed request joins a batch and is reviewed days or weeks after it arrives, so a defect — wrong copy type, unreadable notary seal, missing destination country — is discovered at the far end of the queue and the whole cycle restarts. A filing presented at the public counter is screened while the person filing it is standing there, which means a fixable problem gets fixed the same morning rather than triggering a return envelope.

That is the entire reason we file in person in Sacramento rather than posting documents in.

Processing times move with the Secretary of State’s workload and with seasonal peaks, so check the currently posted figures at sos.ca.gov before you commit to a visa appointment, a closing date, or a flight. Confirm public counter locations and hours there too — counter availability has changed over the years, and you do not want to drive to Los Angeles on an assumption.

How does our California apostille service work?

1. Tell us the document and the country. The destination determines whether California issues an apostille or a certification, and it belongs on the request from the start. Send a photo or scan of the document first so we can check the signature and seal before anything ships.
2. Get the right original in hand. Certified vital record, certified court copy, notarized original, registrar-signed transcript, or certified corporate filing — whichever the route requires. If you need us to obtain a certified copy for you, say so at this stage rather than after the fact.
3. Ship the original to us with tracking. Wet-ink originals only. Photocopies, scans, and printouts of PDFs cannot be apostilled because there is no authenticated signature on them.
4. We file at the Sacramento counter. The document is presented in person to the California Secretary of State, screened, and processed. The state’s filing fee is covered by our flat price — there is no separate government-fee surcharge to pay.
5. Apostille attached, document returned. The numbered certificate is affixed to your document with the state seal and sent back to you by tracked delivery, with a scan when the certificate is released so you can confirm the spelling of names before it travels.

What does a California apostille cost?

$120 per apostille, all-inclusive. One flat figure per document, with the state’s filing fee already inside it — no per-page charges, no separate government-fee line, no handling surcharge added at the end.

The word “per apostille” is doing real work there. Each document gets its own certificate, because each apostille authenticates one specific signature on one specific record. A birth certificate and a marriage certificate are two apostilles. Three notarized powers of attorney signed on three separate notarial certificates are three apostilles. A single multi-page agreement notarized once is normally one.

Common reasons a California apostille request is rejected

These are the failures we see most often. Every one of them is preventable before the document leaves your hands.

• The document was not issued in California. The Secretary of State authenticates only California-issued documents signed by a California notary or listed California official. Out-of-state records must go to the state that issued them.
• It is a federal document. FBI Identity History Summaries, Social Security letters, IRS transcripts, and USDA certificates carry federal signatures and belong to the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C.
• It is an informational or uncertified copy. Vital records marked informational, hospital keepsake certificates, and plain photocopies have no authenticated official signature to certify.
• The notary seal is illegible or overlapped. A stamp printed over signature lines, cut off at the page edge, or too faint to read leaves the reviewer unable to match it to the signature file.
• The notarial certificate uses the wrong wording. Acknowledgment and jurat language copied from an out-of-state form, or from a superseded California template, gets bounced.
• The notary’s commission had expired on the signing date. The commission must have been valid when the notarization occurred, not merely when you filed.
• The court certification chain is incomplete. Some counties require the county clerk to certify the court clerk’s signature before the state will act on a divorce judgment or other court record.
• No destination country was given, or it was wrong. The country decides apostille versus certification. A certificate issued for the wrong country usually has to be redone from scratch.
• The apostille was detached after issue. Removing the staple to scan or photocopy the document separates the certificate from what it certifies, and the receiving authority may refuse it.
• Names do not match the identity document. A middle name on the apostilled record that is missing from the passport is a frequent cause of refusal abroad, even when the apostille itself is flawless.

What about FBI background checks and other federal documents?

Nothing federal is apostilled in Sacramento. An FBI Identity History Summary is signed by a federal official, so authentication happens at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Authentications — see the Department of State’s apostille requirements. This trips up Californians constantly, because the report is often ordered through a fingerprinting vendor with a California storefront, which makes it feel like a California document.

Reports obtained through approved FBI channelers follow the same federal path. We handle them routinely — including results from Biometrics4ALL, First Advantage Biometrics (PrintScan), Telos ID / IDVetting, and National Credit Reporting / National Background Information. Federal benefit letters follow the same logic; see our walkthrough on apostilling a Social Security benefit letter for a residency application.

When do you need an apostille, and when do you need something else?

You need an apostille when a foreign authority in a Hague Convention country asks for a U.S. public document to be authenticated: dual citizenship files, foreign marriage registrations, overseas work permits, teaching contracts, adoption dossiers, foreign property transactions, company registrations abroad, and residency visas.

If the destination is not a party to the Convention, California issues a certification rather than an apostille, and that certification then has to be legalized by the destination country’s embassy or consulate in the United States. Because countries join the Convention regularly, verify status on the HCCH status table rather than relying on a list you saw last year. Requirements also vary by receiving authority, and that authority always has the final say on whether it accepts what you hand it — including on translation, which California does not perform or certify.

Your next step

Photograph the whole page of your document — including the seal, the signature block, and any notarial certificate — and send it to us before you mail anything. We will tell you which authority it belongs to, whether the copy you hold is the right one, and what the sequence looks like. If it is a California document, it goes to the Sacramento counter at $120 per apostille, all-inclusive. If it is not, we will tell you where it actually needs to go instead of letting you discover it three weeks later in a return envelope.