State of California Apostille Process, Two Common Rejection Reasons

As a translation and apostille service, we see a lot of documents from all fifty states that are in need of state apostilles, authentications or legalizations. One of our most common requests are birth certificates from California, which can be complicated. I will explain what works and what doesn’t work in order to obtain a California apostille on a birth, marriage or death certificate.

First, we are always glad to help; however, if you are in Los Angeles or Sacramento, you can always go in person and get apostilles on your own. In LA, the California Secretary of State has a dropbox for apostilles services at the State Building on Spring Street. In Sacramento, the office is on 11th Street and in persons submissions are possible again this year; however, we always recommend calling the secretary of state to confirm details before going in person.

If you are not near one of these locations or prefer that we handle the apostille process for you, you can click and order on our website, and we will provide a FedEx label you can easily ship the original documents to us. In 2022, State of California apostille services take about two to three weeks with our expedited service using FedEx shipping.

Okay, here is the most important part: before you order a CA apostille, there are two important items to consider in order to avoid an apostille rejection and having to start the process over.

First, the signature at the bottom of your document. It must be a California state registrar, county clerk, county recorder or an officer from the State Department of Health. If it is from a Health Officer, a doctor or some other type of local official, it will be returned without the apostilled after a few weeks, and you will need to start over.

Second, only original documents from California can be apostilled. This may seem like common knowledge, but the secretary of state tells me the second most common reason for apostille rejection occurs when customers send in documents issued out of the state or even out of the country, federal documents (such as FBI background checks and passports), or just copies of documents.

Other issues may cause rejection too, such as the date of issue of the document and the validity of certain signatures. When in doubt, it’s best to call the state to confirm.

Summary: Only original certificates issued by a California state official or county clerk/recorder can be apostilled. The best and easiest way to get it done is to order a new copy of your document from the state from VitalChek.com and then have it apostilled.

Quick note: Notarized documents, state background checks and other items can be apostilled in many cases, but that is a topic for another day.
Always feel free to call, email or comment below with questions. Like always, our goal is to simply and streamline the translation and apostille process.

Thanks, have a great day!

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