Apostilles and the FBI Check for a French Visa

An apostille is all France asks for, and a US state usually issues it

The United States and France are both members of the Hague Apostille Convention. A US birth or marriage certificate therefore needs only an apostille to be accepted in France: no embassy legalization on top.

Who issues the apostille depends on who issued the document. Birth and marriage certificates are state records, so their apostille comes from a designated authority in the state (or DC) that issued them, generally the Secretary of State’s office. The US Department of State’s Office of Authentications apostilles only federal documents, such as the FBI background check and the Consular Report of Birth Abroad; it does not apostille state vital records. The US Embassy in France does not issue or help obtain vital records or apostilles for state-issued documents.

Which documents your category needs

Not every long-stay visa asks for the same papers. The list below is what the documents in this guide are typically tied to; the checklist France-Visas generates for your category and consulate is what governs your own appointment, so confirm against it before ordering anything.

• Birth certificate with apostille: typically required for family-based visas (spouse of a French or EU citizen, parent of a French child) and naturalization-track applications, not for all long-stay visas
• Marriage certificate with apostille, if it applies to you
• FBI Identity History Summary with a State Department apostille: commonly required for work visas, family-reunification and spouse visas, and some long-stay visitor visas, but not for every category
• Academic transcripts and diplomas with apostille, for Talent Passport, work and student visas

Order a long-form certified copy from the state where the event happened

There is no federal vital records office. A birth or marriage certificate is issued only by the state, or in some states the county or city, where the birth or marriage took place. The CDC’s “Where to Write for Vital Records” directory lists every office’s address, fees and forms, and it is the place to start. In a few states the city and state offices are separate (New York City and New York State, for example), and many states issue marriage certificates only at county level.

The certificate must be a certified copy; a hospital “souvenir” copy is not accepted. Many states offer both a short (abstract) certificate and a long-form, full version, and international and apostille uses typically require the long form. New York City’s health department, for instance, requires the long form with a Letter of Exemplification for apostille purposes and stopped accepting short-form certificates for apostille in February 2025. If the order form offers “apostille/authentication” as the purpose, select it, so the office issues the right version and any exemplification letter it requires.

• By mail, directly to the state or county office
• In person at that office
• Online or by phone, through the state’s own portal or VitalChek, the vendor most state and local vital records agencies authorize for card orders; VitalChek adds its own charge of around $8 per order, plus optional expedited shipping, on top of the government fee

Then send it to the state’s apostille office

The apostille is a separate step from ordering the certificate. It comes from the issuing state’s apostille authority, not from the vital records office and not from VitalChek. The sequence is the same everywhere, but the details change from state to state.

1. 1Get the certified copy from the vital records office of the state or DC where the event occurred
2. 2Send that certified copy to the state’s apostille office, usually the Secretary of State, asking for an apostille for use in a Hague Convention country

Where the states differ

The issuing office, any extra certification step, the fee and the turnaround all differ by state, and no complete, current 50-state table is available here. The examples below show the kinds of differences to check for. For your own state, use the National Association of Secretaries of State’s apostille directory and that state’s Secretary of State apostille page; travel.state.gov’s page on preparing a document for an apostille covers the federal rules.

• The apostille office is not always the Secretary of State: in New Jersey it is the Treasury Department’s Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services, after a certified copy from the Office of Vital Statistics
• Illinois accepts certified copies from the county clerk, the local registrar or the Illinois Department of Public Health; Kentucky requires the State Registrar’s signature on vital records
• Texas apostilles vital records only if they were issued within the past 5 years
• New York may require an extra County Clerk certification for locally issued records; records issued directly by the state Department of Health do not need it
• State apostille fees run roughly $20–40 per document, though costs and turnaround vary by state

The FBI check is federal, so its apostille is too

The criminal background check for US citizens is the FBI Identity History Summary. Because it is a federal document, its apostille comes from the US Department of State’s Office of Authentications, not from a state. Two steps, then: get the report, then get it apostilled. The apostille is usually the longer of the two.

Timing matters here more than anywhere else in the file. Consulates commonly want the FBI report and its apostille to be less than 3 months old at submission, and some accept up to 6 months. Confirm the window with your consulate, and plan the order so the report is not too old by your appointment.

• The FBI fee for the Identity History Summary is $18
• Requesting it directly from the FBI by mail takes several weeks; using an FBI-approved channeler service is typically faster
• The Office of Authentications processes submissions in about 10–12 business days; do-it-yourself mail-in requests on Form DS-4194 are running closer to 5–8 weeks in 2026
• Start the apostille step 6–8 weeks before your visa appointment

Mind the age of your documents

Some French offices want the underlying certificate to have been issued recently. Consular and civil-status forms have asked for a birth or marriage certificate less than 6 months old at filing, but the exact window is set by the receiving French office or consulate, not by one national rule. Confirm the accepted age with the consulate or office handling your file before you order.

No French translations for the first visa application

For your first long-stay visa application at a US consulate, English-language documents are accepted as they are: France-Visas asks for a translation only of documents in a language other than English or French. A US birth certificate, marriage certificate or FBI report in English does not need a sworn translation for the TLScontact appointment, unless the checklist for your category adds one.

Sworn translations come later. After arrival, the prefecture (for a residence permit or renewal) and offices such as the CPAM ask for civil-status documents in French, translated by a sworn translator (traducteur assermenté) registered with a French Court of Appeal. Budget for them then, and confirm the list with your prefecture or on service-public.fr when you reach that step.