Massachusetts Apostille Application Form: How to Complete It

The Massachusetts apostille application form is the written request that tells the Secretary of the Commonwealth who you are, which documents you are submitting, which country will receive them, how you are paying the $6 per document state fee and where the finished documents should be returned. Get any one of those fields wrong and the packet comes back unprocessed. This page walks through the state’s request form field by field, then through our own online application, so you can assemble a packet that is accepted the first time, whether you submit it yourself in Boston, mail it, or hand the whole job to us.

Hire Mobile Notary is a service of Neighborhood Parcel at 1215 Main St, Suite 115, Tewksbury, MA 01876. Hanson Webb has been a Massachusetts Notary Public since 2007 and has completed 1,190+ signings. Call (978) 424-4629 or (978) 851-0199, or start with the online form and we will reply with a quote. For the full service description, pricing and document rules, see our Massachusetts apostille service page.

The state’s request form asks for five things: the requester’s name and contact details, the destination country, a list of the documents enclosed, payment of the $6 per document fee, and return mailing instructions. Below is what the state expects in each field and the mistakes that cause returns.

1. Requester information

Your full name, mailing address, daytime telephone number and, where offered, an email address. This is the person the state will contact if there is a problem and the person to whom the documents are returned unless you specify otherwise. If you are submitting on behalf of someone else (a parent, an employer, a client), put your own name here as the requester and the document owner’s name in the document description. The state does not require a power of attorney or authorization letter to submit someone else’s public record or notarized document.

2. Country of destination

The single most important field. Write the full name of the country where the document will be used, not the region or the city. “Spain,” not “Europe”; “United Arab Emirates,” not “Dubai.” If documents in the same packet are going to different countries, list each document with its country. The state cannot issue one apostille “for all countries,” and a certificate issued for the wrong country will be rejected by the receiving party.

This field also determines the type of certificate. For a Hague Convention member the state issues an apostille; for a non-member it issues a certification that then goes to the U.S. Department of State and the destination country’s embassy. The fee is $6 either way. If you are unsure whether your country is a member, check hcch.net or ask us; Canada and China joined recently, and older lists are wrong.

3. Documents enclosed

List each document by type and, where useful, by the name of the person it concerns: “Birth certificate, Maria Lopez, certified copy from City of Lowell,” “Power of attorney, John Smith, notarized October 2, 2026,” “Diploma certification, University of Massachusetts Lowell.” Give the number of documents. The state processes and charges per document, and a packet whose count does not match its fee is returned.

What counts as one document: a single certified vital record is one; a multi-page notarized affidavit with one notarial certificate is one; a diploma with its notarized registrar statement is one. Two separate notarized documents stapled together are two, and each needs its own apostille.

4. Fees

$6 per document, by check or money order payable to “Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Cash and credit cards are not accepted. Write the destination country on the memo line of the check. A single check may cover several documents as long as the amount matches the count. Personal checks are accepted; a bounced check voids the apostille.

5. Return shipping

For mailed requests, enclose a prepaid, self-addressed return envelope. Use a trackable service; the state does not insure your documents and will not reimburse a lost original. If the documents should be returned to someone other than the requester (a lawyer, a consulate, a family member abroad), address the envelope accordingly and say so on the form. International return envelopes must carry the correct postage or a prepaid international courier label; the state will not add postage.

For in-person requests you collect the documents at the counter, with up to four documents processed while you wait. Larger in-person submissions may be held for pickup or mailed back.

In person at One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, up to four documents are processed the same day while you wait. By mail to the same address, the state’s published window is about 10 business days from receipt, plus shipping each way. Through our service, we submit in person for clients with deadlines and by mail when time allows, and we handle the form, the fee and the return.

Most of our clients never travel to Boston or to Tewksbury. They complete the online application, ship the documents to us or have us pick them up during a mobile visit, and receive the apostilled originals by insured courier.

Requests come back unprocessed when the destination country is missing or wrong, when the fee or payment type is wrong, when the document is not a Massachusetts document, or when the notarization cannot be verified. All of these are visible before submission, which is why we check every page.

1. No destination country, or the wrong one. The state will not guess. A certificate issued for Italy is useless in Spain.
2. Cash, card or a check for the wrong amount. Only a check or money order to “Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” at $6 per document, is accepted.
3. Document issued outside Massachusetts. A Rhode Island birth certificate must be apostilled in Rhode Island. An FBI report must go to the U.S. Department of State.
4. Photocopy instead of original. A scan of a notarized affidavit, a hospital birth record, a wallet-size abstract or an attorney’s copy of a court order cannot be authenticated.
5. Notary name does not match the commission. Initials, a missing middle name, a married name not updated with the Secretary, or an illegible signature with no printed name beneath it.
6. Incomplete notarial certificate. A blank venue, a missing date or expiration, or no statement of how the signer was identified.
7. Expired or lapsed commission on the notarization date. The certificate must be dated within the notary’s term.
8. Missing or unpaid return envelope. Mailed requests without a prepaid return envelope are held.
9. Disassembled documents. Staples removed from a certified copy, pages reordered, or a notarized document separated from its certificate.
10. Translation stapled to the original without its own notarization. A translator’s statement must be notarized as a separate act or removed before submission.

If a document we did not notarize fails one of these checks, we tell you whether it can be fixed with a new certified copy or a corrected certificate, or whether the fastest route is to re-sign it before Hanson. For a power of attorney or an affidavit, re-execution usually takes a single appointment; see power of attorney notarization for what to bring.

We process any Massachusetts public record or Massachusetts-notarized private document, plus federal documents through the Department of State. The most common requests are birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates, diplomas and transcripts, powers of attorney, court documents, corporate documents, notarized affidavits and background checks.

• Vital records. Certified copies from the Registry of Vital Records or the city or town clerk. No notarization. We can help you order the right copy if you do not have one.
• Court documents. Certified copies from the clerk of the Probate and Family Court, District Court or Superior Court. No notarization.
• Diplomas and transcripts. Registrar certification notarized by a Massachusetts notary. We can meet the registrar at the school for the notarization.
• Powers of attorney, affidavits, consent letters, single status declarations. Notarized by a Massachusetts notary with a complete certificate. If your document requires witnesses under the law of the receiving country, you arrange your own witnesses and bring them to the signing; we do not provide them.
• Corporate documents. Certificates of Good Standing and filed articles from the Corporations Division need no notarization; resolutions, bylaws, invoices and certificates of origin are signed by an officer before a notary. See business and corporate notary services.
• Background checks. A notarized Massachusetts CORI goes through the Secretary of the Commonwealth; an FBI Identity History Summary goes through the Department of State.

A notary cannot give legal advice or tell you whether a document will achieve a particular result abroad. For that, ask the receiving institution or an attorney in the destination country. What we can do is make sure the application, the packet and the notarization are right so the state accepts them.