Filed in person at the Florida Department of State

Florida Apostille Processing Time.

Start Online Order (850) 900-3443
5–7
Business Days
Our service, filed in person at FL DOS.
5–7
Weeks (State Mail-In)
Florida's standard mail-in queue.
$220
Per Document
State fee and shipping included.
In Person
Hand-Filed
We walk to the FL DOS counter.

How long does a Florida apostille actually take?

The honest answer depends on how you file. The Florida Department of State in Tallahassee is the only authority that can issue an apostille on a Florida-issued document, and they offer two paths: mail-in and in-person at the counter.

By mail, the state's current processing time runs about 5–7 weeks from when they receive your document, plus mailing time on both ends — call it two months door to door, and longer during peak periods. If anything is wrong with your submission, it's returned unprocessed and you start over, adding another 5–7 weeks.

Filed in person at the counter, the same apostille is issued in days, not weeks. That's the difference our service is built around: our Tallahassee team walks documents to the FL DOS apostille counter in person, so every order is completed in 5–7 business days from the moment we receive it — whether you ordered online, or dropped off by appointment in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa or Clearwater.

Prices & timing

At a glance

Price
$220 per document
Turnaround
5–7 business days, filed in person
Two documents
$380
Three or more
$160 each
International return
+$100 flat
Online notarization
+$40 ($10 + $30 platform fee)

Mail-in vs. our in-person filing.

State Mail-In: 5–7 Weeks

You mail your document to FL DOS, it joins the processing queue, gets apostilled, and is mailed back. 5–7 weeks at the counter plus shipping each way. A rejection restarts the clock.

Our Service: 5–7 Business Days

We receive your document, review it before filing, and hand-deliver it to the FL DOS apostille counter in person. Finished apostille back to you in 5–7 business days — the same official document, far faster.

What Drives the Difference

In-person filing skips the mail-in queue entirely. Pre-filing document review catches the issues — wrong copy type, missing notarization, expired records — that cause the rejections and restarts that stretch DIY timelines into months.

What can slow an apostille down.

Four things add days or weeks to a Florida apostille — and all four can be avoided before you send anything.

— Factor One —
01

Wrong Document Version

The most common delay. The state needs a certified copy it can verify — not a souvenir certificate, a photocopy or a notarized copy of a public record. Read more →

— Factor Two —
02

Incomplete Notarization

Diplomas, powers of attorney and affidavits need a complete Florida notarial certificate. A bare stamp means a rejection. Read more →

— Factor Three —
03

Federal Documents

FBI checks and other federal records aren't apostilled by Florida — the U.S. Department of State authenticates them, on its own timeline. Read more →

— Factor Four —
04

Records Too Old

Some countries only accept records issued in the last 3–6 months. Check the rule, then order a fresh copy. Read more →

Common questions.

Filed in person at the Florida Department of State counter, the apostille is completed in 5–7 business days from when we receive your document. By mail, the state's standard processing time is about 5–7 weeks plus shipping each way.
Florida does not offer a guaranteed same-day apostille for mail-in requests. The fastest reliable route is in-person filing at the FL DOS counter, which our service uses to complete orders in 5–7 business days. If you have an unusually tight deadline, call us at (850) 900-3443 and we'll tell you honestly what's possible.
Mail-in requests join a processing queue at the Florida Department of State and are handled in order, then mailed back. The queue time plus shipping each way is what stretches the timeline. In-person filing skips the mail-in queue entirely.
Submitting the wrong document version — a hospital souvenir birth certificate instead of a certified copy, an un-notarized diploma, or a plain photocopy. These get rejected and returned, restarting the clock. We review every document before filing to catch these issues first.
No. FBI background checks are federal documents apostilled by the U.S. Department of State, not Florida — a separate process with its own timeline. We apostille Florida-issued documents, including the state-level FDLE background check.
They're counted from the day we receive your documents. FedEx transit to us and back usually adds a business day or two each way inside the U.S., so most customers have the apostille in hand 7–10 business days after they ship.
It depends on the document: a county health department can print a birth certificate the same day, the Bureau of Vital Statistics takes a few business days plus mail, a clerk's certified copy takes days (instantly if the clerk e-certifies), and FDLE allows 5–7 business days plus mail. Order the copy first, then send it to us.
The state doesn't sell an expedited mail-in lane. The time you can save is the mail queue and the rejections: filed in person and checked first, ours come back in 5–7 business days. About same-day apostilles →

More from My Florida Apostille.

Skip the form. We file every order.

$220 per document — form completion, state filing fee, in-person filing, return shipping all included. 5–7 business days.

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