Legalization

US documents Legalization from the local SOS offices in all 50 States, US State Department authentication authentications, and from the embassy/ consulate of destination country in Washington DC.

Apostille and document legalization explained.

People may get confused between these two terms, as the term legalization means to authenticate your document, and the purpose of the apostille is to authenticate documents as well.

You may also think that legalization is one of the legal practices to obtain the apostille.

Even though those terms are somehow similar; however, they are different, here we’re going to explain the difference between both of them.

So, what is the core distinction between apostille and legalization?

As you presumably realize, apostille and legalization are processes aim to authenticate the use of legal documents abroad in foreign countries.

You may get your document apostilled or legalized depending upon the foreign country where you intend to use your document. Therefore, Legal procedures change accordingly.

First and foremost, to legalize your document, you need to figure out the particular specifications required by the country’s embassy where you want to use your legal documents.

The general steps go like this:

  • Authenticate document from the Secretary of State in which document were issued
  • Authenticate the legal document from the US Department of State.
  • Obtain embassy legalization.

Besides, certain embassies may require an additional requirement.

Legal procedures of the legalization process are somehow time-consuming; and demands much effort to obtain the authentication.

Consequently, in 1961, a group of countries agreed to unify the legalization process, which means instead of having different legal procedures in each country with different requirements, you only need a single seal to use your document abroad.

They aimed to facilitate the use of documents abroad by creating a stamp called the apostille stamp, which means in French “to certify.” This stamp became recognizable by all countries taking part in the Hague Convention.

At the current moment, there are 191 participating countries in the Hague Convention, the remaning countries require legalization from the embassy.

What are the requirements to get the apostille stamp?

  • Notarized document from Notary Public of the state from which the documents were issued.
  • Authorization from the State county where the documents were issued may be required in some states.
  • Get the document apostilled from the Secretary of State.

Now, as we know the difference between both of them,

How to get your document apostilled/legalized?

One Day Apostille provides several apostille and legalization services to ensure that everything is completed for you as fast as possible.

Even if you wish to do all the procedures yourself, we advised you to use our legal courier services, as you can benefit from using FedEx and UPS overnight shipping services at the lowest rates in the United States.

As an example, the regular rate of using FedEx overnight services is $14; however, if you used One Day apostille courier services, the service will cost you only $10.

Additionally, you can benefit from a totally free of charge review of your legal document; specialists in the document legalization services will advise you what you need exactly to certify your legal document in order to prevent any rejection from the embassy in case of missing any requirement.

No one refuses a free service. You can contact us to review your legal document via this email address: support@onedayapostille.com.

Last but not least, if you wish to deliver your document without bearing any concern in mind about the legal procedures.

We recommend the delivery of urgent documents using the most expedited apostille and legalization services through One Day Apostille.

We grantee the fastest delivery of your documents with nominal prices.

Non Participating Hague Convention Countries