Answers before you send anything

A federal document is issued by a U.S. government agency or a federal court — the FBI, IRS, SSA, USCIS, the Department of Defense, a U.S. District Court. Those authenticate through the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. Documents issued by a state — birth certificates, marriage licenses, state court records, diplomas — go through that state's Secretary of State instead. Send us the document details and we will tell you which route yours takes.

Where you obtained the document matters less than which authority issued it. An FBI background check requested from a Florida address is still a federal document, because the FBI issued it. A Florida birth certificate is a state document, because Florida issued it. If a federal agency's name is on the document, it almost certainly authenticates federally.

It depends entirely on the destination country. If the country is a member of the 1961 Hague Convention, an apostille from the U.S. Department of State is sufficient on its own. If it is not a member — the UAE, Qatar, Vietnam, Egypt and Taiwan among others — the document needs Department of State authentication first, followed by legalization at that country's embassy or consulate. Tell us where the document is going and we will confirm the correct path.

The Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 is an international treaty that replaced the slow chain of embassy legalizations with a single certificate: the apostille. Among member countries, an apostille issued by one member is accepted in all the others, no embassy step required. More than 120 countries are members. For any country that has not joined, the older legalization process still applies.

Processing time at the Office of Authentications is set by the Department of State and moves with their workload, so we do not publish a fixed turnaround we cannot control. What we do control is everything on either side of it: documents reviewed before submission, tracked shipping both directions, and status updates while your file is in Washington. We give you a current estimate when you place the order.

Pricing depends on the document type, the number of documents, the destination country, and whether embassy legalization or certified translation is involved. Send us the details and you will get a flat quote covering government fees, our service and return shipping — no line items added later.

For some documents, yes. We can retrieve FBI background checks, DD-214 and military records from the National Personnel Records Center, Consular Reports of Birth Abroad, NARA records, USCIS immigration files and I-94 travel records. Others — IRS forms, SSA letters, court documents — must be requested by you directly from the issuing agency, and we will tell you exactly how.

Yes. We can obtain your FBI Identity History Summary through an approved channel, including guidance on fingerprinting and FD-258 card submission, and then carry the completed report straight through to apostille. Ordering both together avoids a second round trip and a second wait.

No — and be cautious of anyone who says otherwise. Federal law restricts reproduction of naturalization and citizenship certificates. The correct procedure runs through USCIS, and we handle these documents under that procedure rather than by copying the certificate. Bring us the certificate and we will walk you through what is actually permitted.

Yes, nationwide. Because federal documents authenticate in Washington, D.C. rather than in your home state, where you live makes no difference to the process. Clients across all 50 states ship documents to our West Palm Beach office and we return the completed apostille with tracking, to them or directly to a recipient overseas.

No. Our Connecticut Avenue office in Washington is a headquarters and processing location, not a walk-in counter. If you want to hand documents to a person, our West Palm Beach office is the public one. Everyone else ships to us or drops off in Florida.

It depends on the document. Many federal records must be authenticated in their original, agency-issued form, and a plain photocopy will be rejected. Some require a certified copy from the issuing agency. Tell us which document you have and we will confirm exactly what the Department of State needs before you send anything.