A certificate attached to a notarial certificate (which is attached to a legal document, such as a power of attorney or contract) or a public document (for example, a birth or marriage certificate) that certifies:

Before a legal document issued in one country can be recognized in another country, that document must be legalized or authenticated. For countries that are signatories to the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (the Hague Convention), this legalization process has been simplified. Under the Hague Convention, signatory countries have agreed to recognize public documents (including notarial certificates) issued by other signatory countries if those documents are apostilled. For non-signatories, legalization of documents is more complicated and requires that the document be authenticated by a consular official.

To obtain an apostille in the US for an agreement:

For more information on these issues, see Practice Note, Notarizations, Apostilles, and Legalization and US Document Authentication Checklist: Apostilles and Legalizations.