Foreign countries require that any document issued by a U.S. Federal Agency must be Authenticated or Apostille in order to be accepted in a foreign jurisdiction. Included in this requirement are documents signed or notarized overseas by an American Consular Officer or a military public notary.
Authenticating a document verifies the document’s source so foreign institutions can be assured that the documents are genuine.
A federally issued document must be Authenticated or Apostille by the US Department of State (USDOS) in Washington, DC. It must be an original document and have the seal and authorized signature of the issuing department.
The most common US Federal Agencies that issue documents that may be used overseas are the following:
- Department of Agriculture – USDA
- Food and Drug Administration – FDA
- Department of Health and Human Services – HHS
- Department of Justice – DOJ
-FBI Background Check – (original or PDF if obtained online)
-U.S. Federal Court Documents, including the Petition for Name Change, must be first authenticated by the U.S. Department of Justice - Embassy Authentication (Legalization)
- Department of Treasury – TRE-
- Patent and Trademark Office – USPTO
- Department of Homeland Security – DHS (Certificate of Naturalization…etc.)
- Environmental Protection Agency – EPA
- Social Security Administration – SSA
- Internal Revenue Services – IRS (Form 6166)
- Department of Transportation – DOT
- Federal Aviation Administration – FAA
- National Archives and Records Administration – NARA
Authentication of US federal documents with our company Roca Authentications, LLC
Roca Authentications, LLC has many years of experience authenticating documents and can personally handle the above-mentioned steps on your behalf here in Washington, D.C. Please send us an email or call our office for additional information.