Mail-in requests sent to the California Secretary of State in Sacramento are currently taking roughly four to eight weeks from the date the office receives your package, and that window moves with volume.1California Secretary of State. Current Processing Dates If you can’t wait, the Sacramento public counter offers same-day apostille service for an extra $6 per signature on top of the standard $20 fee.2California Secretary of State. Request an Apostille The Sacramento apostille processing time you actually experience depends on which route you choose and, for mail requests, on where the office’s queue stands the week your envelope arrives.
Check the Receipt Date the Office Is Currently Working On
Instead of posting a fixed turnaround estimate, the Secretary of State publishes the exact receipt date Sacramento is processing right now. If the page reads “03/06/2026,” the office is handling requests that arrived on March 6, 2026, and anything mailed after that date is still waiting.1California Secretary of State. Current Processing Dates Check it before you mail so you know what the current backlog actually is, and check it again a few weeks after you ship so you can tell when your request is coming up.
Expect no confirmation that your package arrived and no status updates while it sits in the queue. Your documents come back in the self-addressed envelope you included, and that return envelope is your only signal that the work is done.2California Secretary of State. Request an Apostille Shipping your original submission with a trackable service like FedEx or UPS at least tells you the office received it.
Same-Day Service at the Sacramento Counter
The Sacramento office has a public counter on the 3rd floor at 1500 11th Street that processes apostilles the same day you walk in. You take a number, a clerk reviews your documents at the counter, and you leave with the apostille attached. This bypasses the mail queue entirely.2California Secretary of State. Request an Apostille
The cost of skipping the wait is a $6 special handling fee for each different public official’s signature being authenticated, on top of the $20 apostille fee. One notarized document at the counter runs $26; the same document by mail is $20.
Arrive early. The counter can get busy, and the clerk reviews every submission on the spot before accepting it, so a late-afternoon arrival with a complicated package risks being told to come back the next day. Bring the complete submission with you rather than planning to fix anything there.
The Los Angeles Counter as an Alternative
If Sacramento isn’t practical, the Los Angeles office at 300 South Spring Street, Room 12513 also provides same-day apostille service at the same $6 special handling fee. It’s open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., excluding state holidays, first-come first-served with no appointments. The LA office does not accept mail requests, so it’s an in-person option only.3California Secretary of State. Los Angeles Office It accepts Visa, Mastercard, checks, and money orders, but not cash.
How to Keep a Mail Request From Being Sent Back
The slowest version of the Sacramento apostille processing time is the one where your package gets rejected and you start over. The office does not hold incomplete requests, does not call you to fix problems, and does not email about missing pieces. A package missing anything required comes back to you unprocessed, and your place in the queue is gone.
Mail your submission to the Notary Public Section at 1500 11th Street, 2nd Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814. Courier shipments use the same street address.2California Secretary of State. Request an Apostille Three things need to be in the envelope:
- The original document, signed by a California public official or properly notarized by a California notary. Photocopies are not accepted.
- A cover sheet. Use the official Apostille Mail Request Cover Sheet from the Secretary of State’s website, or your own sheet listing the destination country, your return address, and a phone number and email. The destination country cannot be the United States or a U.S. territory, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.4California Secretary of State. Apostille Frequently Asked Questions
- A self-addressed return envelope. If you want tracking on the trip back, include prepaid postage for a trackable service; otherwise the office returns documents by regular USPS mail with no tracking.2California Secretary of State. Request an Apostille
- Payment of $20 per apostille, by check or money order payable to the Secretary of State, written in blue or black ink with your complete address. Credit cards are not accepted for mail submissions.
One specific document problem is worth flagging because it quietly adds weeks. If your birth or death certificate was signed by a Health Officer, Local Registrar, or Registrar of Vital Records rather than a county clerk or county recorder, the Secretary of State may not be able to apostille it directly. You’ll need the county clerk in the issuing county to certify it first, or you’ll need a new certified copy from the county recorder or the California Department of Public Health. Catching this before you mail avoids a full round trip.
The notarial certificate itself must be in English, though the underlying document can be in any language.4California Secretary of State. Apostille Frequently Asked Questions The notary’s signature, seal, commission expiration date, and date of notarization all need to be present and legible. A missing seal or an undated certificate is an automatic bounce.
When Sacramento Isn’t the Right Office
Sending the wrong document to Sacramento costs you weeks because the office returns it without processing rather than forwarding it. Two situations to watch for:
Federal documents go to Washington, not Sacramento. Anything signed by a federal official, a U.S. consular officer, a federal judge, or a military notary, including FBI background checks, must be authenticated by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Authentications.5U.S. Department of State. Preparing a Document for an Apostille Certificate That office processes requests by mail only, and as of early 2026 turnaround is running roughly 10 to 12 weeks plus USPS transit each way.
Out-of-state documents go to the state they came from. California can only apostille documents bearing a California official’s signature or a California notary’s seal. A document notarized in Nevada has to go through Nevada’s Secretary of State.
Also confirm the destination country before you file. Apostilles only work in countries that have joined the Hague Apostille Convention, currently over 120 nations.6HCCH. Apostille Section For non-member countries you need a longer authentication and legalization chain through the U.S. Department of State and the destination country’s embassy or consulate, each with its own fees and timelines. If your receiving institution also requires a certified translation, ask them whether it should happen before or after the apostille, because getting the sequence wrong usually means paying for a step twice.