US Authentication

If the destination country is NOT listed on the right sidebar of the Apostille page, you'll need to use the Authentication process described here for non-Apostille countries. For documents which originate in a US state, generally speaking, they will need to be processed at both the state and federal levels as well as the desination county's Embassy or regional Consualte.

Some counties only require state authentication, followed by legalization at their Consulate. Other countries require authentication at the state and federal levels and legalization through their Embassy. Federal documents only need to be authenticated at the federal level before being presented to a Consulate or Embassy for legalization. The legalization certificate is typically placed on the backside of the federal certificate

Some non-Apostille countries also have supplemental or supportive document requirements to accompany those documents being legalized which could include: copies of passports, clearance certificates, sponsor letters, medical clearances, etc.. Note that these requirement are VERY fluid. They can change depending on the consul assigned to the Consulate or Embassy. Fees charged by an Embassy on Consulate for legalization services can change abruptly and turnaround times for processing your document can change without public notice (posting to their website).

Services Provided

The Process

• Understanding Your Need: Call us to discuss your authentication needs. This service is for documents being presented in countries which are not signers of the Apostille Convention (Hague 1961).You will receive an itemized Good Faith Estimate for your entire authentication transaction.
• Notarized Documents: Documents which originate in Florida must go through the FL Department of State for certification issuance prior to being presented at the US Department of State. We request that a document image of any notarized document be forwarded to us first to validate the notarization. Documents which do not have statutory notarizations are returned by the state agency.
• Translations: If your document is in a foreign language, it must be accompanied by a certified (notarized) translation for the US 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.
• 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.
• Payment: PayPal is no longer available. We take credit/debit cards and checks drawn on US banks and money orders in $US. Some foreign credit cards are accepted if they display the Visa or Mastercard logo. We can not 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 (eg for expediency reasons).
• 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.

Service Types

US Authentications are issued by the US Department of State, in Washington DC. Since COVID, the US Dept of State has not resumed expedite service. We provide two (2) service types depending on your expediency requirements:

eff: 03Aug2023	Authentication Service Fees
	STANDARD SERVICE	EXPEDITE SERVICE
Nr Documents (FL & Fed authentication) 1 2	Approx Turnaround 83 - 98 days $212.00 $295.00	Approx Turnaround 90 - 105 days $N/A $N/A
Nr Documents (Fed authentication only) 1 2	Approx Turnaround 70 - 85 days $129.00 $183.00	Approx Turnaround 70 - 85 days $N/A $N/A

SERVICE TYPES: Standard Service is the most cost effective, but takes the longest. We use the agency's "Walk Up" service for Expedite.

TURNAROUND TIMES: (Business days) These are approximate based on shipping method and whether mailed in or presented at the counter (walk-up). FL documents must go throught the FL Dept of State before being forwarded to the US State Department whereas Federal documents are only presented at the US 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.

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Legalization Services

Some documents will require embassy legalization prior to presentation in the destination country. Processes, requirements and fees vary widely between the countries and are document type dependent. Most countries differentiate fees based on whether the document is being used in a private or corporate transaction.

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 (eg 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 parites 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.

Legalization of educational documents can also be depended on acceptable accreditation of the university. Some accreditations are not acceptable in certain countries and documents issued by those educational institutions can not be legalized in those countries.

Most Embassy's 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/repressentatives which will do legalizations on your behalf. Some countries don't even require documents go through the U.S. Department of State, but once authenticated at the state level, go directly to their Embassy for legalization.

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.