Documentation Processing: Documents for foreign adoption will be required to be notarized, certified at the county level (dependent on state) and authenticated/ apostilled by the Secretary of State in which the document was originated. Some countries do require that documents are also legalized by their embassy in the US prior to sending the documents overseas.

Apostille: A simplified and standardized form that is used for the purpose of providing a certification of certain public documents relating to adoption, including notarized documents, that is used in countries that participate in a Hague Convention. This simplified form contains standardized numbered fields of certain common and essential types of information, which allows the data to be understood by all participating countries regardless of the official language of the issuing country. The completed apostille form certifies the authenticity of the signature on the documents, the capacity in which the person signing the documents has acted, and identifies the seal and/or stamp that the document bears. Documents needed for inter-country adoptions require the attachment of an apostille, rather than authentication forms, if the foreign country is a participant in the Hague Convention.