United States Department of State 2024

During the 2024 SelectUSA conference, the American World Trade Chamber of Commerce met with representatives from the US Department of State to voice concerns about continued delays to document apostilles.

Many embassies still require the US Department of State apostille to complete legalization of export documents. In the past, the department allowed walk-ins which completed the step within 3 business days. Presently, this stage of the legalization process can take months and requires courier envelopes sent to a central processing point. This has added significantly to the time to complete these documents.

During the discussion, the DOS representative spoke candidly. Presently, a hiring freeze affects much of the federal government and the authentications branch cannot set their own pricing. This means that they will not offer an expedited option and that they will likely have fewer processing staff, leading to more delays.

AWTCC continues to work directly with embassies to seek solutions. AWTCC has worked through solutions with embassies such as Egypt and Iraq to more directly deliver export documents to the embassy.

We also encourage everyone who may need embassy legalization to start the process early and review our pricing and timing guide HERE