Apostille Fact Sheet 8.2023
Apostille or Authentication Certificates FACT SHEET Notary Public Division 8/2023 Apostille (pronounced “ah-po-steel”) is a French word meaning certification. An official certificate from a government that makes a document from one country acceptable in another. Apostilles and authentication certificates validate the seal and signature of a notary on a document so that it can be accepted in a foreign country. Apostilles are used when public documents are being transferred between countries that are a party to the Hague Apostille Convention of 1961. This international treaty streamlined the cumbersome, traditional procedure for authenticating documents. An apostille is issued by your Secretary of State or Office of the Lieutenant Governor. The single apostille is the only certification needed. Once prepared and verified, the apostille is attached and sent along with the notarized documents. Notaries cannot issue apostilles. This all happens after the notarization and requires no action on the part of the notary. …
Download the original document · Plain text (TXT) · Browse the archive · How this archive works
Original source: https://ltg.gov.vi/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Apostille-Fact-Sheet-8.2023.pdf
SHA-256 17b10af437e8c15fd39d6cf428f888c0a8bf90c1bb9ef2b279e0772fa5480bbd
Re-using this document
A public record of the Government of the Virgin Islands, published by the agency itself. No copyright is asserted on it and 17 U.S.C. § 105 does not reach territorial government, so it publishes as a territorial public record.
Our description, tagging, arrangement, extracted text and machine transcripts are released under CC0 1.0. We assert nothing about the document itself.
Archive identifier LF-17b10af437e8
Document text
Apostille or Authentication Certificates FACT SHEET Notary Public Division 8/2023 Apostille (pronounced “ah-po-steel”) is a French word meaning certification. An official certificate from a government that makes a document from one country acceptable in another. Apostilles and authentication certificates validate the seal and signature of a notary on a document so that it can be accepted in a foreign country. Apostilles are used when public documents are being transferred between countries that are a party to the Hague Apostille Convention of 1961. This international treaty streamlined the cumbersome, traditional procedure for authenticating documents. An apostille is issued by your Secretary of State or Office of the Lieutenant Governor. The single apostille is the only certification needed. Once prepared and verified, the apostille is attached and sent along with the notarized documents. Notaries cannot issue apostilles. This all happens after the notarization and requires no action on the part of the notary. Authentication Certificates are used for destination nations that are not part of the Hague Convention. The United States Virgin Islands cannot apostille or issue notarial certification for any document(s) that is/are issued by anyone other than a Virgin Islands notary or elected or appointed official. Certified true copies of Spanish and French documents must be translated and certified by a translator into English. All documents must also be notarized by a U.S. Virgin Islands notary public. The following documents SHOULD NOT be notarized by a notary public • A birth certificate, death certificate and marriage certificate bearing the signature of the state registrar or the Office of Vital Records & Statistics Division. • Documents certified by a Clerk of the Court such as a marriage license or a divorce document bearing the stamp and seal of the clerk. • University and school transcripts that have the signature of the school registrar or issuing official notarized at the time of issuance. All transcripts must be submitted without a broken seal. • Vehicle Titles that are certified by the Department of Motor Vehicles. • Original certified copies of documents filed with the Division of Corporations or original Certificates of Status bearing the signature of the Lieutenant Governor.