Apostille process of documents is a certification process of documents when they are intended for submission in a country which is a signatory to the Hague Convention. Basically, certain countries have agreed that they do not require the documents to be certified by their own embassies or consulates and are accept the documents once they are certified by the respective state or Federal Authorities.
All documents which are issued by the state governments such as Marriage and Birth certificates, Background checks, personal documents such as Diplomas or Power of Attorney’s are accepted once they are certified by the Secretary of State.
Documents issued by the Federal agencies such as FBI Criminal Background checks, IRS documents, Patent documents, Certificate to Foreign Governments, etc are certified by the US Department of State.