Certified from the state, or notarized by an officer
Corporate document apostille
Corporate documents are apostilled by the state that issued or notarized them: public filings (articles, good standing) by the state of registration, private documents (resolutions, POAs, agreements) by the state where they were notarized. Only IRS and USPTO records go federal. $99 standard per document, plus state fees; multi-document packages are quoted as one order.
What these documents are
Two families, handled differently:
Public filings, held by the Secretary of State where the entity is registered: articles of incorporation or organization, certificate of formation, certificate of good standing (certificate of existence, certificate of status), amendments, and annual reports. You order certified copies from that office. They arrive signed by the Secretary of State or a deputy, and go straight to apostille.
Private documents, created by the company: board resolutions, bylaws, operating agreements, incumbency or officer certificates, commercial contracts, distribution agreements, invoices, certificates of origin, and corporate powers of attorney. These have no government signature, so an officer signs them before a notary, and the notary's signature is what gets apostilled.
Do they need notarization first?
Public filings: no. Certified copies are already authenticated by the state. Private documents: yes. An authorized officer signs in front of a notary, with a complete notarial certificate.
State or federal?
State. Public filings: the state of registration. Private documents: the state where the notarization happened. A Delaware corporation with a Texas office often has a two-state package. Federal comes in only for things like IRS Form 6166 (tax residency certification) or USPTO records, which go through the US Department of State.
What you need to provide
- Certified copies of public filings from the Secretary of State, dated recently. Foreign banks and registries often require a good-standing certificate less than 30 to 90 days old.
- Originals of notarized private documents with a complete notary block.
- The destination country and the receiving party's exact list. Foreign counsel usually supplies one; send it to us and we work from it.
- Whether any document needs to be bound with others (some countries require a resolution and the bylaws it references to be apostilled as one document).
What happens
- Quote request with the entity's state, the list of documents, and the destination. We sort each document into certified versus notarized and state A versus state B, and quote the whole package.
- You mail the set, tracked.
- We submit each document to its correct Secretary of State, in parallel where they differ.
- The set returns to us and ships as one package to you or to foreign counsel.
Common mistakes
- A stale good-standing certificate. Order it last, right before submission.
- Resolutions signed but not notarized. No signature for the state to verify.
- Notarized by a notary in a different state than expected, so the document goes to a state nobody planned for. Not a problem, as long as we know.
- Sending the whole package to one state when it belongs to two.
- Non-Hague destination. UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt need legalization, with stricter format rules.
How to start
Request a quote with the entity's state of registration, the list of documents (or foreign counsel's letter), and the destination country. Packages are quoted as one total.
Price: $99 standard per document · three-document bundle $549 · larger sets quoted individually. State fees and shipping separate.
Background reading: our affiliated company's guide.
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Start My ApostilleFrequently asked questions
Which corporate documents are certified and which are notarized?
Documents on file with the Secretary of State (articles of incorporation, certificate of formation, certificate of good standing, amendments) come as certified copies from that office and go straight to apostille. Documents the company creates internally (resolutions, bylaws, operating agreements, officer certificates, commercial agreements, corporate POAs) must be signed by an officer before a notary first.
Can we get the whole package done together?
Yes, and it is usually cheaper. A typical foreign-subsidiary or bank-account package is three to six documents from the same state; the three-document bundle covers the common case and we price larger sets individually.
Our company is a Delaware entity but our office is in Texas. Which state?
Certified copies from the Delaware Secretary of State are apostilled by Delaware. Documents notarized in Texas are apostilled by Texas. A package often involves two states, and we route each document to the right one.
What about non-Hague markets like the UAE or Qatar?
Those need embassy legalization. Gulf embassies in particular have strict format requirements for corporate documents; we handle that chain regularly. Mainland China joined the Hague Convention in November 2023, so corporate documents for China now take an apostille.