State Notary Agent®
The Florida Notary Public Directory
An apostille is a certificate that authenticates the origin of a public document so it will be recognised in another country. It exists under the Hague Apostille Convention.
Critically, an apostille does not certify that the contents of the document are true. It certifies that the signature, seal, or stamp on the document — typically a notary's — is genuine.
For Florida documents, the sequence is generally:
If the destination country is not a party to the Hague Convention, you need authentication and consular legalisation instead, which involves the destination country's embassy or consulate and takes longer.
Many mobile notaries offer apostille courier services — handling the notarization and the submission. That is a service fee, entirely separate from the $10 statutory cap on the notarial act.
An apostille is a certificate that authenticates the origin of a public document so it will be recognised in another country under the Hague Apostille Convention. It certifies that a signature or seal is genuine, not that the document's contents are true.
The document is generally notarized by a Florida notary or issued as a certified copy by a Florida agency, then submitted to the Florida Department of State, which attaches the apostille.
Notarization verifies the identity of the person signing. An apostille authenticates the notary's signature and seal so the document is recognised abroad. An apostille is applied after notarization, not instead of it.
You need authentication and consular legalisation instead, which involves the destination country's embassy or consulate and generally takes longer.
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