What Is an Apostille? A Plain-English Guide

You ordered a birth certificate, a marriage record, or a diploma. A foreign university, employer, or court asked you to have it “apostilled.” Now you need to know what that word means and what to do next.

This guide explains what an apostille is, what it certifies, which documents get one, and who issues them. It also covers the one question that decides your whole path: apostille or embassy legalization.

What an apostille is

An apostille is a certificate. It is a single printed page, attached to your document, that verifies three things: the signature on the document, the seal or stamp on it, and the official capacity of the person who signed.

The word comes from French. It means a note or annotation added to a document. In practice, an apostille is a standardized form with ten numbered fields, and every member country uses the same ten fields.

An apostille exists because of a treaty. The 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents created it. That treaty replaced a slow, multi-office chain with one certificate. You can read more in our guide to the Hague Apostille Convention.

An apostille only works between countries that both belong to the Convention. As of July 2026, there are 130 contracting parties, according to the HCCH status table. If your document’s destination is one of them, the apostille is all you need.

What an apostille looks like

The apostille has a heading in French: “Apostille (Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961).” That heading is required in French on every apostille worldwide, even one issued in Texas.

Below the heading are ten numbered fields. They record the country of origin, the name of the person who signed the underlying document, the capacity in which that person acted, the seal used, the place and date of the apostille, the issuing authority, the certificate number, and the signature of the apostille official.

The physical form varies. Some states print the apostille on security paper and staple it to your document. Some emboss it. A few now issue electronic apostilles with a verifiable QR code. The format differs; the ten fields do not.

You do not fill out the apostille yourself. The competent authority prints it and attaches it. Your job is to send them the correct underlying document.

What an apostille certifies, and what it does not

This is the point people miss most often.

An apostille verifies the origin of the document. It confirms that a real official, holding a real office, signed and sealed it. It says nothing about whether the facts inside the document are true.

Consider a birth certificate. The apostille confirms that the county registrar’s signature is genuine and that the person was authorized to sign vital records. It does not confirm the baby’s name, the birth date, or the parents. Those facts are the state’s responsibility, not the apostille’s.

The same logic applies to a diploma. An apostille on a notarized diploma copy verifies the notary’s signature. It does not verify that you earned the degree. That is why the underlying certification matters so much, and why the wrong copy type gets rejected. Our guide to certified copies covers that rejection trap in detail.

So an apostille is a certificate about a signature, not a certificate about a fact. Keep that distinction in mind and the whole process makes more sense.

Which documents get an apostille

Most documents people apostille fall into a few groups.

Vital records come first: birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, and divorce decrees. These are issued by a state or county and carry an official signature, so they qualify.

Educational documents come next: diplomas, transcripts, and letters from a school. These usually need a notary or a school official’s certified signature before a state will apostille them.

Legal and business documents follow: powers of attorney, articles of incorporation, affidavits, and single-status letters. Many of these start as notarized documents, and the notary’s commission is what gets apostilled.

Federal documents are their own category: FBI background checks, IRS Form 6166 residency letters, and naturalization certificates. These do not go to any state. More on that below.

If you are unsure which path your specific document takes, our pathway checker walks you through it by document type and destination country.

Who issues an apostille: state versus federal

The United States has no single apostille office. The issuing authority depends on where your document came from.

State-issued documents are apostilled by the issuing state’s competent authority. In most states, that is the Secretary of State. A California birth certificate is apostilled by California. A Texas diploma is apostilled by Texas. You cannot send a California document to Texas for an apostille, and you cannot send it to Washington, DC.

Each state runs its own office, sets its own fee, and sets its own processing time. See, for example, the California apostille hub or the Texas apostille hub for state-specific steps. You can compare state fees with our fee lookup tool.

Federal documents work differently. An FBI background check, an IRS residency letter, or a naturalization certificate is signed by a federal official. No state can verify a federal signature. These go only to the US Department of State Office of Authentications in Washington, DC.

The federal office charges $20 per document. By mail, processing runs about five weeks or longer. Our federal apostille guide covers the mailing steps, and the FBI background check page covers that document specifically.

The table below summarizes the split.

Scope: US apostille issuing authorities by document origin (verified July 2026).

Document type	Example	Issuing authority	Typical fee
State vital record	Birth certificate	Issuing state’s Secretary of State	$1 to $40
State education record	Notarized diploma	Issuing state’s Secretary of State	$1 to $40
Notarized document	Power of attorney	State where notary is commissioned	$1 to $40
Federal record	FBI background check	US Dept. of State, Office of Authentications	$20
Federal tax record	IRS Form 6166	US Dept. of State, Office of Authentications	$20

State fees range widely. Michigan charges as little as $1 per apostille. Connecticut charges $40. Most states sit somewhere between.

Apostille or embassy legalization: the fork in the road

Before you send anything anywhere, answer one question. Is the destination country a member of the Hague Apostille Convention?

If yes, you need an apostille. One certificate, one office, done.

If no, you need a different, longer process: authentication followed by embassy legalization. The document is authenticated by the state or federal authority, then legalized by the destination country’s embassy or consulate in the United States. This chain can involve three or more offices.

The two paths do not overlap. A country either accepts apostilles or it does not. You cannot apostille a document for a non-member country and expect it to work. Our guide to apostille versus authentication walks through both paths side by side.

To check a specific country, use our country checker. It tells you whether the destination accepts an apostille or requires full legalization. For non-member destinations, we have country legalization guides such as the United Arab Emirates legalization page and the Vietnam legalization page.

One timing note on Vietnam. Viet Nam is not yet an apostille country as of July 2026. The Convention enters into force for Viet Nam on September 11, 2026, per the HCCH. Documents sent before that date still need full legalization. Membership is a moving target, which is exactly why you check the current status rather than trusting an old list.

A quick worked example

Say you have a California birth certificate. You are sending it to Mexico for a residency application.

Mexico is a Convention member. So you order a certified copy of the birth certificate from California vital records, send it to the California Secretary of State, pay the state fee, and receive it back with an apostille attached. See the California birth certificate page for the exact steps.

Now say the same birth certificate is going to the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is not a Convention member. So the apostille path is closed. You would authenticate the document and then have it legalized by the UAE embassy. Same document, different destination, completely different process.

The document never changes. The destination decides everything.

Common mistakes to avoid

People often order the wrong copy. An apostille office needs a certified copy from the issuing agency, not a hospital souvenir certificate and not a home photocopy. The certified copies guide explains what counts.

People also send documents to the wrong office. A federal FBI check sent to a state office comes back unprocessed. A state birth certificate sent to Washington, DC comes back the same way.

People forget to check current membership. They read a two-year-old blog post, assume a country accepts apostilles, and lose weeks. Always verify against the HCCH status table or our country checker.

Our methodology page explains how we keep this information current, and our sources page lists the primary references we rely on.

How long an apostille takes

Timing depends entirely on which office issues it.

State offices vary widely. Some Secretaries of State turn around a mailed apostille in a few days. Others take several weeks during busy seasons. Many offer expedited or in-person service for a higher fee. Check your state hub, such as the New York apostille hub or the Florida apostille hub, for current times.

Federal apostilles are slower. The US Department of State Office of Authentications processes mailed requests in about five weeks or more. There is no shortcut for a mailed federal request, so plan ahead if a deadline is fixed. Our guide to apostille processing times breaks down what drives the wait.

Build in buffer time. A visa office or foreign university sets a deadline; the apostille office does not adjust for it. If you have four weeks and the federal office needs five, you have a problem before you start.

How many apostilles you need

You need one apostille per document, not one per shipment.

If you are sending a birth certificate and a marriage certificate to the same country, that is two documents and two apostilles, each with its own fee. A stapled packet does not count as one document. Each underlying official signature needs its own certificate.

This matters for cost. At the federal rate of $20 per document, a family sending five federal documents pays $100 in fees alone. At a state rate, use the fee lookup tool to total it up before you mail.

An apostille does not expire, but the document might

An apostille itself has no expiration date. Once attached, it stays valid.

The catch is the underlying document. Some destinations require the underlying certificate to be recent, often issued within the last six or twelve months. So even a permanent apostille can be refused if the birth certificate under it is years old and the receiving office wants a fresh one.

Order a recent certified copy when your destination cares about issue dates. Our certified copies guide covers how to get the right one.

Sources

• HCCH Apostille Convention status table
• US Department of State, Office of Authentications