Blog › Apostille vs. legalization: which one do you need?
Apostille vs. legalization: which one do you need?
The short answer depends on one question: is your destination country a party to the Apostille Convention, and does its authority accept the apostille?
Apostille
If both the U.S. and the destination country are parties to the Convention, one apostille from the U.S. issuing office is normally enough.
Legalization (consular)
If the destination country is not a party, or it does not accept apostilles for that type of document, you usually need a chain of certifications. Our data for Cuba, for example, follows this path: state certification first, then the U.S. Department of State, then the Cuban consulate. Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs
How to check
- Look up the destination country on the status table.
- Check the authority that will receive your document, because some accept only specific forms.
- On our destination pages you can see the result for each country, with the date we last checked it.