NOTARY · APOSTILLE · SIGNING

Apostille — All 50 States

Hague apostilles run state by state — yours is routed to the capital that issued it

In Short

Foreign authorities do not take a U.S. document at face value; they ask for an apostille, the standardized certificate created by the 1961 Hague Convention. The rule that drives everything else is simple to state and easy to get wrong: the certificate comes from the same state that produced the document. A birth record from Ohio is apostilled in Columbus, never in Annapolis — and each Secretary of State runs its own counter, its own forms and its own queue.

RL Notary runs that errand for paperwork from every one of the fifty states. Before anything ships, the document gets whatever groundwork its state demands — a fresh notarization, and for Maryland records the certification of the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the county of commission — then it is filed with the correct capital and tracked home to you. For destinations outside the Hague Convention, the route continues past the state seal to embassy legalization, and that longer chain is handled the same way.

What Is Included

Vital records, powers of attorney, diplomas and transcripts
Company filings, contracts and paperwork for doing business overseas
Every state of issue covered — Maryland files go to Annapolis, the rest to their own capitals
Notarization and Circuit Court clerk certification arranged up front
Embassy legalization mapped out for non-Hague destinations

At a Glance

Monday–Sunday · 7:00 AM – 12:00 AM
Maryland Coverage
English · Russian · Hebrew · Spanish
You approve a written, itemized figure before anyone drives anywhere. No figure changes afterwards.

☎ (202) 899-0067

Apostille Timeline

Document review

We confirm your document is apostille-ready — the right original or certified copy, notarized and clerk-certified where required.

Certification steps

Maryland documents are certified by the Clerk of the Circuit Court for the county of commission when the chain requires it.

Secretary of State filing

The document is filed with the issuing state's Secretary of State — for Maryland, in Annapolis — and tracked while it is processed.

Return to you

The apostilled document comes back by tracked delivery, ready for the authority abroad that asked for it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which papers usually travel with an apostille?

Anything a foreign government, school or employer must trust: birth, marriage and death records, powers of attorney, university diplomas and transcripts, corporate documents, adoption files and court orders.

How long will my apostille take?

The honest answer is: it follows the issuing state's backlog plus transit time. At booking you get the current working estimate for your state and document type, in writing, before you decide.

My document was never notarized — does that stop the process?

Not at all. A large share of apostille files begin with a notarization, and Maryland files typically add the Clerk of the Circuit Court certification before the Secretary of State in Annapolis will act. Both steps are folded into your engagement.