Apostilled Documents from outside of U.S.
Posted by LetsSeeWhatWeHave123@reddit | expats | View on Reddit | 9 comments
We are American citizens, already outside of the U.S., exploring extended visa options for Bosnia.
Our Bosnian attorney said the following documents are required. Based on our research, this is what we’ve learned:
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Certificate of residence: It seems that the U.S. does not issue one official document. The closest option is a notarized affidavit confirming our address in Texas, possibly supported by documents like a lease or utility bill. This would likely need to be apostilled at the state level.
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Certificate of no criminal record: The most accepted option appears to be an FBI background check. This requires fingerprint submission and would also need to be apostilled.
Both processes can be started online, but they seem difficult to complete while we are already overseas, especially for fingerprinting and apostille.
Has anyone had any experience with this in the past?
Any and all guidance would be appreciated! Thank you in advance for your help!
nomad_lifestyle@reddit
Not sure if this will be of help for you but here are another options:
- If you have lived in any other country for more than 6 months, you can get police report from that country
- Certificate of residence: bank statement with address may work for it.
katmndoo@reddit
For residence, your attorney should be able to tell you exactly what IS documents are acceptable rather than naming something that does not exist in the U.S.
You are not the first US citizen to request a visa from Bosnia.
atropear@reddit
For residence, what about your driver's license history?
ultimomono@reddit
For the FBI clearance letter and State Department Apostille, I recommend using an expediter in DC. I have used Brigitte at http://www.expressauthentication.com
No relation to this company at all, they just did it for my family multiple times, extremely competently
Union_Biker@reddit
Can a US consulate take your fingerprints and send them to the FBI?
ultimomono@reddit
US consulates do NOT do this. But they may be able to refer the OP to a location in the country where they are that can do it. Here in Spain, it's the policía científica that does it
bassqu@reddit
I think there might be services that help you with this online. However, I have never used one.
The process can be quite painful as the FBI will require fingerprints for the background check and they don’t accept them from just anyone.
In the past, I have found it easier to do the fingerprints in the US, mail them to the FBI, have the FBI return the results to a family member, and then have the family member submit for the state department for apostille service.
Super painful, slow, and stressful.
terdles1121@reddit
The FBI has a specific finger printing form FD-258 that you need to use for mail in finger printing. You can find it on their website. All you need is someone local with the capabilities to do finger printing and you can send it in via DHL/FedEx/UPS or whatever carrier is in your country.
The accompanying documents just need to be accurate with your info.
It is a long process (snail mail, waiting mail to be processed), but not because they wont accept it from anyone, they accept it from you.
It becomes easier if you can use someone's address in the US.
glirette@reddit
Greg here with Notary Geek with an authoritative answer for you.
Regarding 1) above for "notarized" documents yes you can do this all online. That is what we do. It gets Apostilled at the state level, the state of the notary.
An Apostille is issued by the competent authority over the public official that signed the document. In the case of a United States non federal notary, that is the state of the notary as the notary is the public official.
In the case of the DOJ criminal history report aka FBI background check it's the federal government. Going the federal government route you will indeed need fingerprints taken. There is a concept known as "FBI Channelers" and these mainly are only in the United States, I am unsure about any overseas options for them. Short of an FBI Channelers you need to send in the manual fingerprint card.
Once the DOJ criminal report is issued, it gets Apostilled at the federal level which is a 10 day turnaround if it is walked in , in person. Walking it in really is a pain if you don't go through a service that does this because they have to go there and pick it up in D.C. early in the morning prior to them closing the doors. A true pain!
Manually sending it in goes through Virginia where they scan it for anthrax due to the scare dating back to 2001 then it's transported to the same D.C. location. This process end to end can take months to complete which is why the painful method for the 10 day is worth it.
If you were willing to go a different route on the criminal background report you could do it at the state level. If you only lived in Texas for example. You might opt to only do a Texas state level report. Each state makes arrests, then forwards the data on to the FBI so the FBI handles the persons nationwide arrest and conviction history which is very poorly maintained, awful not working process and always has been. Also very unreliable system but it's the best one the United States has.
You could obtain the same fingerprint cards destined for the federal government but instead get background from Texas. In this case Texas is where the Apostille would come from. It depends on who is receiving this on what they will accept.
I've seen younger people especially contact their local police departments where they lived, get a letter and have that Apostilled. The FBI federal route is not the only way but certainly the most common.