U.S. Authentication/Legalization

1. Understanding Your Need: Call us to discuss your authentication needs. This service is for documents being presented in countries that are not signers of the Apostille Convention (Hague 1961). You will receive an itemized Good Faith Estimate for your entire authentication transaction. 
2. Notarized Documents: Documents that originate in a US state must go through the Department of State for that state to obtain an authentication certificate prior to being presented at the U.S. Department of State. We request that a document image of any state/notarized document be forwarded to us first to validate the notarization and its origination. 
3. Translations: If your document is in a foreign language, it must be accompanied by a certified (notarized) translation for the U.S. Department of State to issue an Authentication Certificate. The notary does not need to know the foreign language, but the translator obviously needs to be fluent in the foreign language and in English and must attest to that fact on a Translation Affidavit. 
4. Order Form: If everything is in order, you can download our Authentication Order Form from this page and fill it out on your computer. Your good faith quote will be based on the number of documents, their origination, expediency needs (service type), translation needs, legalization requirements, shipping needs, etc. If the receiving country requires legalization in addition to authentication, please indicate so on the form, next to each document description. 
5. Payment: We take credit/debit cards and checks drawn on U.S. banks and money orders in USD. Some foreign credit cards are accepted if they display the Visa or Mastercard logo. We cannot process your order until payment is received. Discounts are available for multiple documents in a single transaction. If documents will be arriving from various agencies, schools, offices, courts, states, etc., we hold payment until all documents comprising the transaction have been received in our office, unless specified otherwise (e.g., for expediency reasons). 
6. Status: We will notify you by email when your documents arrive at our office, as they pass process milestones, and when they are return shipped to you with tracking numbers. Itemized invoices are included with all transactions. 

U.S. Authentications are issued by the U.S. Department of State, in Washington, D.C. We provide two (2) service types depending on your expediency requirements: 

SERVICE TYPES: Standard Service is the most cost-effective, but takes the longest. We use the agency’s “walk-up” service for Expedited Service. 

TURNAROUND TIMES (business days): These are approximate based on shipping method and whether mailed in or presented at the counter (walk-up). State documents must go through the Department of State for the state the document originates in before being forwarded to the U.S. State Department, whereas federal documents are only presented at the U.S. State Department for Authentication. 

FEES: Fees are dependent on the service type since we use couriers to hand-deliver documents to the agency for Expedite Service. The more documents to be authenticated, the lower the per-document cost. 

Some countries have very specific and extensive requirements, which must be met before the document is even considered by an embassy/consulate. Depending on the country and type of document, requirements might include: copies of IDs/passports of all parties to the transaction (including any witnesses), names, addresses, phone numbers, and relationships of all parties to the transaction, names and addresses of parents for principal and agent, special notarization requirements (e.g. notarized signatures on each page of a power of attorney with witnesses), contact information of representative or agent in destination country, resident addresses in the U.S. and destination country, contact information of all parties involved, medical clearances and/or physician statements attesting to competency of principal (POAs), copy of principal’s foreign passport, and attested letters from accredited educational institutions, etc. These requirements can and do change. Depending on how extensive the requirements are for a country, we might decline to process such requests. 

Legalization of educational documents can also depend on the acceptable accreditation of the university. Some accreditations are not acceptable in certain countries, and documents issued by those educational institutions cannot be legalized for presentation into those countries. 

Most embassies are centralized in Washington, D.C., but others are regional and address the needs of those who reside in specific states in the U.S. Others require advocates/representatives who will do legalizations on your behalf. Some countries don’t even require documents to go through the U.S. Department of State, but once authenticated at the state level and then are forwarded directly to their regional consulate. 

Again, because the requirements of each country vary so widely, please contact us for a Good Faith Estimate for your specific situation and document type. 

Please call us with questions or to drop off your documents for authentication. From within the United States: (321) 591-9658 or outside the U.S. at: +1.321.591.9658.