Non criminal record
Expats services
Apostille is a French word that means official certification. It is the name of a special certificate issued by the Secretary of State of Washington, DC or the US State Department to prove the legitimacy of the FBI background report.
The FBI report is accompanied by the apostille to verify that the report is authentic and acceptable in one of the Hague Apostille member states.
First of all, your clean criminal record report should generally be within 3 months, in some countries it is 6 months or less than 30 days.
For example, the FBI report should not be more than three months old, otherwise the US State Department or the state will reject the certification request.
The Hague certification depends on the document type and country/region. It is usually available within 3 working days to 30 days. Note: Eastern European countries Hague certification time is slightly longer, generally about 30 days, individual documents can be expedited.
The embassy and consulate certification usually takes 5-15 days to complete.
If the destination country where you are required to provide documents is not a member of the Apostille Convention, you need to be certified by the embassy or consulate. For the list of Hague countries, please click on the Hague certification introduction above.