Does USA require apostille for marriage certificate?

[VinnyH 59]

5 hours ago, pushbrk said:

Then to do with what?  What future headache did you have in mind?  No answer tells me you were just making it up out of thin air.  That's not how we help people here.

I'm not the MOST experienced member here, but since 2005, I've never heard of one member EVER needing an Apostille for anything, Immigration or not.  If you have, I'm waiting to read about it.  Fire away.

When my husband (born in the UK) and myself (born in France) started the proceedings to adopt our children here in the United States, the Court asked us for:

 

- my French Birth Certificate, apostilled in France by the General Prosecutor at the Appelate Court of the district I was born

 

- the UK Birth Certificate of my husband (he took care of it but in the UK it is issued by the Foreign Office)

 

- our Marriage Certificate (we were married in France), with the apostille issued by the General Prosecutor at the Appelate Court of the district where we got married

 

- the Divorce Judgement/Decree of my husband (previously married) in the UK

 

I agree that for U.S. Immigration purposes, the USCIS nor DOS do not require apostilles.

 

With that being said, any foreign official Certificates (Birth, Death, Marriage) or foreign Judgements that you think you might use someday in the U.S. for official legal proceedings, you'd better have them authenticated or apostilled if the foreign country is a signatory of The Hague Convention (which the U.S. is also a signatory).

 

I always keep in my cabinet an apostilled version of all my foreign documents. 

[Mike E 11,739]

20 hours ago, devusr said:

 

I called the US Embassy in Nassau Bahamas and they said that if I wanted to use the marriage certificate for the US Government, it has to be apostilled by the Bahamas Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I even mentioned that the document was original issued by Registrar General of Bahamas but they said I still needed to get it apostilled.

Are you asking for  a CR1 visa or an adjustment of status or something  else? Given the forum I will assume CR1.  IME it is best to wait until NVC or the embassy asks for a specific document as part of the visa process before spending the money to obtain it.  
 

Each embassy has its own rules. And those rules change often.  

Edited May 8, 2021 by Mike E

[slammzJD 0]

I had to get my marriage certificate from Croatia apostilled even though the US recognizes marriages from Croatia and Croatia is part of the Hague convention. 

[payxibka 10,045]

55 minutes ago, slammzJD said:

I had to get my marriage certificate from Croatia apostilled even though the US recognizes marriages from Croatia and Croatia is part of the Hague convention. 

Who requested it?

[pushbrk 12,877]

On 5/8/2021 at 2:51 PM, VinnyH said:

When my husband (born in the UK) and myself (born in France) started the proceedings to adopt our children here in the United States, the Court asked us for:

 

- my French Birth Certificate, apostilled in France by the General Prosecutor at the Appelate Court of the district I was born

 

- the UK Birth Certificate of my husband (he took care of it but in the UK it is issued by the Foreign Office)

 

- our Marriage Certificate (we were married in France), with the apostille issued by the General Prosecutor at the Appelate Court of the district where we got married

 

- the Divorce Judgement/Decree of my husband (previously married) in the UK

 

I agree that for U.S. Immigration purposes, the USCIS nor DOS do not require apostilles.

 

With that being said, any foreign official Certificates (Birth, Death, Marriage) or foreign Judgements that you think you might use someday in the U.S. for official legal proceedings, you'd better have them authenticated or apostilled if the foreign country is a signatory of The Hague Convention (which the U.S. is also a signatory).

 

I always keep in my cabinet an apostilled version of all my foreign documents. 

Good example.  Thank you.  An important distinction though is that this is related to a civil court proceeding, so the "jurisdiction" is local, not National.  Not a US requirement, but a local State or County court requirement.

[VinnyH 59]

3 hours ago, slammzJD said:

I had to get my marriage certificate from Croatia apostilled even though the US recognizes marriages from Croatia and Croatia is part of the Hague convention. 

This sentence is misleading as there is no opposition/contradiction between your two assertions ("I had to get my marriage certificate from Croatia apostilled" and "Croatia is part of The Hague Convention").

 

It is precisely because Croatia is part of The Hague Convention that you were able to get an apostille. Otherwise, in order to produce a foreign certificate/judgement that is accepted (i.e. the fact that the official who provided the signature was indeed in his/her capacity/authority to do so), the other way for countries not signatory of The Hague Convention is to go through a procedure called "authentication" performed at the Consulate of the foreign country.

[VinnyH 59]

1 hour ago, pushbrk said:

Good example.  Thank you.  An important distinction though is that this is related to a civil court proceeding, so the "jurisdiction" is local, not National.  Not a US requirement, but a local State or County court requirement.

 

I would be cautious by replying "Yes" and "No"...

Correct in my case. It was for the Essex County Family Court where I reside, in the state of NJ.

 

By the way, it is worth noting that in terms of jurisdiction being local, all the Certificates (Birth, Marriage, Death, Judgement of Divorce/Adoption/Change of Name etc...) are issued at the County/State levels, so the apostille is issued by the highest jurisdiction level, meaning the State, which is why it is the State's Dept. of State who issues apostilles.

 

It is rare to have apostille at the National/Federal level as very few Certificates or Judgement are at the federal level, but some come to mind:

- the Certificate of Naturalization, if the bearer intends to produce it to a foreign administration/Court to justify he/she was naturalized in the U.S.

- a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, equivalent to a Birth Certificate, but because it was issued by the DOS, not a State County

- a judgement issued by a federal court to be produced to a foreign administration/Court for any legal proceeding

- etc...

 

In those cases, it will be necessary to have an apostille issued by the highest U.S. federal jurisdiction, meaning the U.S. Dept. of State.

 

The reciprocal would be true.

 

In the domain of international law, especially business-related, a foreign judgement, if needed to be used in the U.S. before a federal court would need to bear an apostille too.

 

The example I have in mind is for cases where we had a complex financing cross-jurisdiction transaction with SPV (Special Purpose Vehicles) involved with assets registered in foreign jurisdictions (think of planes/aircraft), when you want to assert your claim on an asset in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, by producing a foreign judgement of bankruptcy, the federal court would require an apostille on the foreign judgement. This happens as well for intellectual property disputes (patents) cases, which are governed at the federal level.

 

Therefore, I would be more cautious and say that each administration sets up their own rules. The fact that the USCIS and the DOS do not require them in order to consider that the official who put the signature as being valid does not necessarily mean that other federal agencies/administrations/courts will not require it.

 

Of course, the fact that we have a local and federal system makes things even more complicated! 😊

 

VinnyH

Edited May 9, 2021 by VinnyH

[payxibka 10,045]

1 minute ago, VinnyH said:

 

Yes and No.

Correct in my case. It was for the Essex County Family Court where I reside, in the state of NJ.

 

By the way, it is worth noting that in terms of jurisdiction being local, all the Certificates (Birth, Marriage, Death, Judgement of Divorce/Adoption/Change of Name etc...) are issued at the County/State levels, so the apostille is issued by the highest jurisdiction level, meaning the State, which is why it is the State's Dept. of State who issues apostilles.

 

It is rare to have apostille at the National/Federal level as very few Certificates or Judgement are at the federal level, but some come to mind:

- the Certificate of Naturalization, if the bearer intends to produce it to a foreign administration/Court to justify he/she was naturalized

- a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, equivalent to a Birth Certificate

- a judgement issued by a federal court to be produced to a foreign administration/Court for any legal proceeding

- etc...

 

In those cases, it will be necessary to have an apostille issued by the highest U.S. federal jurisdiction, meaning the U.S. Dept. of State.

 

The reciprocal, I guess, would be true.

 

In the domain of international law, especially business-related, a foreign judgement, if needed to be used in the U.S. before a federal court would need to bear an apostille too.

 

The example I have in mind is for cases where we had a complex financing cross-jurisdiction transaction with SPV (Special Purpose Vehicles) involved with assets registered in foreign jurisdictions (think of planes/aircraft), when you want to assert your claim on an asset in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, by producing a foreign judgement of bankruptcy, the federal court would require an apostille on the foreign judgement. This happens as well for intellectual property disputes (patents) cases, which are governed at the federal level.

 

Therefore, I would be more cautious and say that each administration sets up their own rules. The fact that the USCIS and the DOS do not require them in order to consider that the official who put the signature as being valid does not necessarily mean that other federal agencies/administrations/courts will not require it.

 

Of course, the fact that we have a local and federal system makes things even more complicated! 😊

 

VinnyH

Since this is a US  immigration website,  everything is slanted with that distinction 

[VinnyH 59]

4 minutes ago, payxibka said:

Since this is a US  immigration website,  everything is slanted with that distinction 

I get it. With that being said, I was challenged on a certain topic and provided clarification. No need to sound hostile about that in reminding which website we are on. I don't think I am out of topic.

 

Once again, we are all in agreement that USCIS and DOS do not require an apostille on foreign official documents. I was reminding that this is not true for USCIS and DOS for now, but not for all federal agencies. It is also a matter of policy. Nothing tells you that this might not change in the future.

 

Have a nice evening.

 

 

 

 

 

[payxibka 10,045]

2 minutes ago, VinnyH said:

I get it. With that being said, I was challenged on a certain topic and provided clarification. No need to sound hostile about that in reminding which website we are on. I don't think I am out of topic.

 

Once again, we are all in agreement that USCIS and DOS do not require an apostille on foreign official documents. I was reminding that this is not true for USCIS and DOS for now, but not for all federal agencies. It is also a matter of policy. Nothing tells you that this might not change in the future.

 

Have a nice evening.

 

 

 

 

 

Hostile?  OMG time to relax and take a deep breath 

[Morty 20]

On 5/7/2021 at 8:53 PM, pushbrk said:

Then to do with what?  What future headache did you have in mind?  No answer tells me you were just making it up out of thin air.  That's not how we help people here.

I'm not the MOST experienced member here, but since 2005, I've never heard of one member EVER needing an Apostille for anything, Immigration or not.  If you have, I'm waiting to read about it.  Fire away.

I've 100% needed an apostile, and with that I don't need to make a false claim to be the most knowledgeable person about apostiles. and while searching on this site I saw stories about how people had issues while not living in the country anymore and had to pay someone or a lawyer to handle it for them.

I didn't see anyone say it was mandatory you'll ever need it, it's a nice to have if you're in an easy situation to acquire it and usually earlier on it's easy for many people in certain situations.

 

I know the pandemic has people stressed out.

The mods posted a good article on how we can be more helpful.

 

[payxibka 10,045]

4 minutes ago, Morty said:

I've 100% needed an apostile, and with that I don't need to make a false claim to be the most knowledgeable person about apostiles. 

 

I haven't read any such claim... I read a post where the claimed NOT to be the most experienced. 

 

[Morty 20]

6 minutes ago, payxibka said:

I haven't read any such claim... I read a post where the claimed NOT to be the most experienced. 

 

o sorry I can see how that was confusing, I wasn't trying to make a jab with that specific line, it was more about me not being an expert in this, even though I think it can be worthwhile to have one.

 

but if someone had a recommendation for outside of the process I don't think they have to be interrogated, it's just a recommendation that wouldn't affect any of this c'est la vie

Edited May 10, 2021 by Morty

[pushbrk 12,877]

5 hours ago, Morty said:

o sorry I can see how that was confusing, I wasn't trying to make a jab with that specific line, it was more about me not being an expert in this, even though I think it can be worthwhile to have one.

 

but if someone had a recommendation for outside of the process I don't think they have to be interrogated, it's just a recommendation that wouldn't affect any of this c'est la vie

You say you've definitely needed an Apostille.  Why?  For what purpose?  Educate us.

[Strawberrymermaid 346]

I have not been married long but have not needed apostille here in the US for anything (I-130 paperwork, changing my name, etc).

 

I did need it for Russia though, as they are super strict on documents and to register our marriage there, they required it.