What is an Apostille?

Apostille is a certificate, which verifies and confirms the seal and signature of the person

who authenticated the document. Some people call this 'super legalization'. There are

designated authorities in every country who issue Apostille certificates or legalization.

Apostilles are commonly issued for various documents related to adoption cases, for

commercial documents, for official documents related to vital statistics, and for court

records, land records, school documents and patent applications.

US Applicants:

To apostille a degree photocopy, please follow these steps:

  1. Bring your original degree to a notary public/lawyer and have them take a photocopy of it. The notary will then stamp and sign the degree photocopy, certifying it as a “true copy” of the original.
  2. Bring the notarized photocopy to the Secretary of State to obtain the apostille. Most Secretary of State offices can process the apostille on the spot, so do this step in person whenever possible. If not, please use overnight express mail to send your degree and have it sent back to you. For a complete list of S. of State offices, please follow this link:

To apostille your FBI CRC, please follow these steps:

***The Secretary of State offices can no longer apostille federal documents, including FBI CRC’s. Only the Dept. of State has the authority to apostille the FBI CRC’s but their processing time is currently 4-5 weeks. For most applicants who have confirmed positions in Korea, this is too long.

  1. The FBI should authenticate your FBI CRC before it is sent back to you. You need to request the authentication at the time that you order your CRC. If this is not done, you will not be able to get the apostille.
  2. Once you receive your authenticated FBI CRC back, you can send it to US Legalization – this is a company that specializes in apostille process and can do it in one day (+shipping time). This reduces the time you would have to wait for the Dept. of State to do it dramatically. Please see the accompanying attachment on US Legalization for more information.

UK Applicants:

The FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) can process apostilles for both your CRC and degree photocopy. Please follow this link for more information:

To apostille your diploma, please follow these steps:

  1. Bring your original diploma to a notary public/lawyer and have them take a photocopy of it. The notary will then stamp and sign the diploma photocopy, certifying it as a “true copy” of the original
  2. Send the notarized photocopy to the FCO to obtain your apostille.

To apostille your CRC, please follow these steps:

  1. If your CRC (Disclosure Scotland or Subject Access Search) is signed already by the issuing authority, it does not need to be notarized. If it is not signed, you must have it notarized. (Please follow the same procedure as for your degree).
  2. Send the CRC to the FCO to obtain your apostille.