Apostille In Bay Area
Bay Area Live Scan offers fingerprinting services both in-office and mobile for your convenience.
Apostille Steps:
- Step 1: Call us or visit us to go over the type of documents you need the apostille or authentication.
- Step 2: Bring in your documents or mail them to our office.
- Step 3: We process your apostille
- Step 4: You pick up your apostille or we can mail it to you. We make it that easy to get an apostille in Santa Clara County.
Documents must comply with the following guidelines:
- Documents need to be signed by state registrars of the Department of Health Services (D.H.S.), by county clerks or have authorized signatures for the superior court documents.
- Birth certificates signed by a Medical Doctor (MD) or “health officer” are not accepted and in this case you need to request a new copy.
- Submit only the original documents or certified copy, copies are not accepted.
- In case of divorce decrees, agreements and certificates of no marriage record, you need to have the documents certified by the court and signed by the clerk of the court and you also need an affixed court certified copy seal.
- Divorce documents that are not stamped as FILED and sealed by the superior court are not accepted for apostille.
- When presenting for apostille any type of notarized documents such as letters, certificates of origin, declarations, affidavits, statements, powers of attorney, these should contain an acknowledgement statement either printed or stapled to the document (see sample of acknowledgement).
- School diplomas transcripts and school records must be notarized by the school registrar before requesting apostille.
- Bar codes present on some documents bear no effect for apostille purposes and documents are acceptable as they are.
Other Services You Might Need
In some cases, before you can process an apostille you may need to do the following to you document: Get it notarized by a notary public
- Get it translated
- Get a signature authenticated
If you do need any of these services before the apostille, we will let you know, and can also perform the service in most cases.
Apostille Services
Understanding Our Services
The Secretary of State only authenticates signatures on documents issued in the State of California signed by a notary public or the following public officials and their deputies:
- County Clerks or Recorders
- Court Administrators of the Superior Court
- Executive Clerks of the Superior Court
- Executive Officers of the Superior Court stamp
- Judges of the Superior Court
- State Officials
Vital Records
Are you in need of an original copy of a birth, marriage, or death certificate? Regardless of which state you need the document from, we can obtaining it for you. Need to have it apostilled as well? Let your service agent know at the time of ordering, to ensure we obtain a copy suitable for apostilling.
Make An Appointment
Fill out our contact form and a technician will respond with 24 hours to set up your appointment.
Let us visit you!
We have technicians available to meet you upon request.
Mobile Or In Office
Have one of our technicians visit you at your location or visit us!