Washington DC Apostille Guide: ONCA, $15 per Document, Same-Day at 899 North Capitol

Washington, D.C. is not a state and has no Secretary of State. Documents issued in the District are authenticated by the Office of Notary Commissions and Authentications (ONCA) at 899 North Capitol Street NE, for $15 per document. Walk-in service is same-day; mail-in comes back in five business days.

1. What a DC apostille is, and why the District has no Secretary of State

The first thing to unlearn is that Washington, D.C. is not Washington State. Washington State's Secretary of State sits in Olympia and authenticates Washington State records. The District of Columbia is a federal district with its own apparatus. Neither office will touch the other's paperwork, and mailing a DC birth certificate to Olympia simply gets it returned.

The office that handles authentication here is the Office of Notary Commissions and Authentications (ONCA), part of the Office of the Secretary. It has two jobs: commissioning DC notaries, and authenticating documents for use abroad. The certificate it issues is signed off as by Secretary of the District of Columbia — the title on the form is not "Secretary of State", and that is not an error.

The legal basis is the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961, in force since 24 January 1965. As of HCCH's 30 June 2026 update there are 130 contracting parties. Mainland China has applied the Convention since 7 November 2023, so a DC document heading to Beijing needs an apostille and nothing further — no consular legalisation on top.

One inconsistency worth knowing before you take a day off work: the service page's main block lists general hours as 8:15 AM – 4:45 PM, while the contact panel at the bottom of the same page says 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM. The walk-in window of 9:00 to 1:00 is stated consistently everywhere, so plan around that and call ahead for anything else.

2. The three certificates ONCA issues, and which one your destination requires

ONCA does not issue one product. It issues three, and the destination decides which. As the office puts it: "ONCA provides three (3) authentication document types which are issued depending on the country in which the document will be used."

If you are unsure, you do not have to guess. The office says: "Unsure of what type of authentication document is required? ONCA verifies requirements based on the country where the document will be used." The request form has a literal "Not Sure" checkbox next to Apostille, Department Head and Foreign Certification, and a "Country of Use" column. Tick Not Sure, write the country, and let the counter staff pick. That is faster and cheaper than submitting the wrong certificate and starting over.

3. What ONCA will authenticate, and what it will not

The accepted list is short — two categories, quoted from the office's own page:

• Documents notarized by a DC Notary Public.
• Certified documents issued and/or signed by a DC government agency.

The rejected list is longer, and each line is a trip you can avoid:

• Documents notarized outside DC — go to the Secretary of State in the jurisdiction where that notary is commissioned. A Virginia or Maryland notary stamp is not a DC document.
• Federal documents, including citizenship documents, FBI background checks and FBI Clearance Letters — those go to the US Department of State's Authentication Office.
• Documents for use in Guam and Puerto Rico — US territories, so no authentication is required at all.
• Documents from jurisdictions outside DC — authenticated where they were issued.
• Photocopies of birth, death or marriage certificates issued in another state, and documents issued by the DC Superior Court Clerk, are not authenticated as copies. A certified document from the appropriate DC agency is what they want.

And the sentence that catches the most people: "ONCA does not notarize documents." The office authenticates signatures, it does not witness them. If your power of attorney, affidavit or translation is not yet notarized, you need a DC-commissioned notary first — many banks in the District notarize for their own customers. Turning up at the counter with an unnotarized document wastes the trip.

Where the certified copy comes from

ONCA attaches the certificate to the document you hand it. It does not produce the document. That certified copy is a separate errand, at a separate office, with a separate fee:

Two timing realities hide in that table. Remote ordering through VitalChek adds an application fee on top of the certificate fee — $6 by mail, $15.95 by phone or online. And archived records, which have to be pulled from off-site storage, take two to three weeks. The apostille itself is five business days; the certified copy is what actually sets your calendar.

For marriage records there is one ordering quirk worth repeating verbatim, because it costs people weeks: "Please do not make payments until being directed to do so." Submit the request, wait for a Marriage Bureau representative to send the payment link, then pay. Paying early does not speed anything up; it just creates a payment nobody can match to a file.

4. Fees and processing time

The fee structure is unusually flat: $15 per document, identical at the mail-in center and the walk-in center, no per-page charge, no per-signature charge, and no expedite tier to buy. What changes between the two channels is time, not price.

Checks and money orders must be payable to "DC Treasurer", drawn on a US financial institution, in US dollars, and for the exact amount. A foreign-issued draft, a rounded-up amount, or a payee written as "DC Secretary of State" all get the package returned. Cards are the path of least resistance: American Express, MasterCard and Visa are accepted at the counter.

5. Walk-in, step by step: the nine-document rule

The walk-in center is the fastest route in the country for DC documents, but it is sized for individuals, not law firms. The official guide puts it plainly: "We look forward to providing same-day services at the ONCA Walk-In Customer Service Center if you are requesting authentication of 9 documents or less." Turn up with a banker's box and you will be redirected to the mail-in process.

1. Fill in the Authentication Request Form before you arrive. It asks for the document name, the number of documents, the country of use, the name on the document, and which certificate you want. Bring the printed form with the documents.
2. Bring originals, not photocopies. Either a document signed by a DC notary, or a certified record issued by a DC agency. The certificate is attached to the document, so the document has to be the real thing.
3. Go between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM, Monday to Friday. No appointment. Avoid federal holidays — the office closes and so does everything around it.
4. Pay at the counter. $15 per document, card or check. You leave with the authenticated documents in hand.

Two details that surprise people, both from the office's own walk-in guide: ID is not required to authenticate documents, and third parties may submit documents on your behalf. You do not have to be the person named on the birth certificate, and you do not have to be the person who notarized it. That is why "I have a friend in DC" is a workable plan rather than a fantasy.

Parking is the practical annoyance. There is limited street parking in front of the building and an attached paid garage, with rates running roughly $9 to $15 depending on how long you stay. Budget for the garage and arrive before noon; the window closes at 1:00 sharp and the queue is whatever it is that day.

6. Mail-in, step by step: the four-item envelope

Mail-in is not "put the document in an envelope". It is a sequenced process, and the first step happens before you mail anything:

1. Submit the ONCA Mail In Services Request Notification Form online. This must be done before mailing. It is how the office knows a package is coming and where the status emails go.
2. Prepare the documents — DC-notarized, or DC agency certified records.
3. Create the return envelope. Self-addressed and stamped. FedEx and USPS are preferred because both pick up from ONCA daily. DHL and UPS are allowed, but you must arrange the pickup yourself once you are notified the request is complete.
4. Complete the hard-copy Mail In Authentication Service Request Form and include it in the package. This is a separate document from the online notification.
5. Include payment only if you are paying by check or money order. If you are paying by card, do not send anything — the payment link arrives later.

The payment sequence is the part overseas applicants get wrong. Credit card is the preferred method, but the link is emailed only after the documents have been reviewed — the guide is explicit that the payment link is sent after review of the submitted documents. So the order is: notify, mail, wait for review, receive link, pay, wait for return mail. Nothing is payable up front by card.

You get three emails to the address on the notification form: when the request is received, when it is assigned to a team member, and when it is completed and placed in outgoing mail. If none arrives, email notary@dc.gov rather than resending the package.

One shortcut worth knowing: if you still have to order the document itself — a DC birth certificate, for example — the issuing office can send it straight to ONCA. Note it on the online notification form and have the provider address it to "ATTN: ONCA Stakeholder Engagement and Solutions Analyst" at the 899 North Capitol Street address. That removes one round of shipping, which for an international applicant is the difference between three weeks and six.

Mail everything to: DC Office of Notary Commissions and Authentications (ONCA), 899 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 8100, Washington, DC 20002. Note that the mail-in guide reproduces this address twice, once as NE and once as NW. NE is correct — the building is on North Capitol Street NE, and it is the version used in the service page, the contact panel and the walk-in guide.

7. Mail or walk-in: which one actually fits

The honest summary: walk-in if someone can physically be at 899 North Capitol between 9 and 1 with the paperwork. Mail-in for everyone else, with five business days of processing on top of however long the postal round trip takes.

8. The step most people miss: a Foreign Certificate is not a finish line

This is the one DC-specific trap that costs the most time, and it is printed on the office's own page in plain English: "Once ONCA issues the Foreign Certificate, then the customer must have it authenticated by the US Department of State."

Read that twice. If your destination is not a Hague Convention country, the DC certificate is step one of two. People collect the Foreign Certificate, assume the job is done, ship it, and get it rejected — then repeat the whole mailing cycle. The State Department stage is a separate application, a separate address and a separate fee, and it sits in a different queue with its own lead time.

The decision rule is a single question asked before you submit, not after: is the destination a party to the Hague Convention? If yes, ask for an Apostille and it travels directly. If no, plan for Foreign Certificate plus federal authentication from the start, and budget the extra weeks.

There is a middle option that gets overlooked: the Department Head Certificate, which ONCA describes as being for "both Hague Convention and non-Hague Convention countries". When the receiving authority's requirement is ambiguous, or when a document may end up being used in more than one country, that certificate is sometimes the safer single choice. Ask the recipient what they will accept, in writing, before you pay for anything.

9. Where overseas applicants get stuck

Four walls, in the order you hit them:

• Nobody will notarize for you. ONCA authenticates, it does not notarize. If the document was signed in another country, a DC notary cannot fix that after the fact — the signature has to be witnessed in front of a DC-commissioned notary, or by a US consular officer abroad.
• The payment instrument has to be American. Checks and money orders must come from a US financial institution, in US dollars, payable to "DC Treasurer". A dollar draft from a foreign bank is the single most common reason a mailed file bounces.
• The return envelope needs a US address and US postage. ONCA does not pay for return shipping and does not ship collect. If you have no US address, this is the step that stops the file — not the apostille itself.
• The counter window is four hours long, Eastern time. 9:00 to 1:00. Between time zones, holidays and the nine-document cap, "I will just fly over and do it" often turns into two days in Washington for fifteen minutes of work.

There is a fifth, quieter wall: the certificate is physically bound to your document. Once attached, it is not a detachable cover sheet you can set aside while you scan, copy or translate. Plan the copies you need before the authentication is applied, not after.

10. Cost breakdown, and when to use a service

The $15 is one line in a longer invoice, and each line is paid to a different party. No one can collect the others on their behalf.

If three or more of the following describe you, doing it yourself usually costs more in calendar time than a service costs in money:

• The documents are in DC and you are not, with nobody local to carry them in.
• The document still needs notarizing, and you cannot get in front of a DC-commissioned notary.
• Your only payment option is a draft from a non-US bank.
• The destination is not a Hague country, so a second federal stage is involved.
• The file mixes document types — a birth certificate, a marriage record and a notarized power of attorney at once.
• You want to lower the risk of a rejection, rather than spend weeks re-posting an envelope over one wrong payee line.

11. Common rejection reasons

• The notary was not commissioned in DC. A Maryland or Virginia stamp means the document is not a DC document; it goes to that state's office instead.
• A federal document was sent to ONCA. FBI checks and citizenship documents belong to the State Department, and the DC page says so explicitly.
• A photocopy was sent instead of a certified copy. ONCA does not authenticate photocopies of out-of-state or court-issued records.
• The wrong certificate type was requested. An Apostille for a non-Hague destination is worthless on arrival.
• The check payee or amount was wrong. It must read "DC Treasurer", from a US institution, for the exact amount.
• The return envelope was missing or unstamped. A mailed file with no return envelope cannot come back to you.

The first three account for most of the failures. Running down this list before you submit is cheaper than running it after. Contact us →

12. How to verify authenticity, and what the certificate actually proves

Every DC apostille carries two fixed statements. The first: "This Apostille is not valid for use anywhere within the United States of America, its territories or possessions." The second: "This Apostille only certifies the authenticity of the signature and the capacity of the person who has signed the public document, and where appropriate, the identity of the seal or stamp which the public document bears. This Apostille does not certify the content of the document for which it was issued."

ONCA states the same boundary in its own words: it verifies that the notary, department head or authorised DC official who signed is properly commissioned and legitimate. It does not verify the accuracy of the information in the document, the accreditation of any school, university or financial institution named in it, or the validity of the underlying record. And "the receiving country retains full authority to accept or reject the document based on its own review of the content."

To check a certificate in front of you, look at three places: item 1 should read District of Columbia, item 5 should read Washington, D.C., and item 7 should read Secretary of the District of Columbia. The signature block carries the Secretary's name and a gold foil seal. DC has no public online lookup for apostille numbers, so if you need independent confirmation, contact ONCA directly at notary@dc.gov or (202) 727-3117 rather than trusting a scan.

13. FAQ

Is Washington DC the same as Washington State?

No, and the two offices do not cover each other. Washington State documents go to the Secretary of State in Olympia; District of Columbia documents go to ONCA at 899 North Capitol Street. Sending one to the other just adds a return trip.

Do I need an apostille or consular legalisation for China?

An apostille. Mainland China has applied the Hague Convention since 7 November 2023, so a DC-issued apostille is accepted there without going through a Chinese embassy or consulate. Hong Kong and Macao have applied it far longer.

Can ONCA notarize my document for me?

No. The office states flatly that it does not notarize documents. Find a DC-commissioned notary first — banks often notarize for their own customers — and bring the notarized document to ONCA afterwards.

Can someone else drop the documents off for me?

Yes. Third parties may submit documents on your behalf, and no ID is required from whoever comes in. The person carrying the file needs the completed request form, the originals and the fee — not your presence.

How many documents can I bring to the counter at once?

Same-day walk-in service is designed for nine documents or less. Above that, use the mail-in center; there is no stated cap on a mailed request.

Can I get an FBI background check authenticated in DC?

Not at ONCA. FBI checks, FBI Clearance Letters and citizenship documents are federal and go to the US Department of State's Authentication Office. A DC Metropolitan Police clearance is different — that is a DC agency record and ONCA can authenticate it.

The certificate is stuck to my document. Can I take it off?

No. Authentication certificates are permanently attached to the document being authenticated. Removing one destroys the certification. Get any scans, copies or translations you need organised around the bound document, not by separating the two.

The official fee is only $15. Why would anyone pay a service?

Because $15 buys one stamp on one document. The certified copy, the notarization, the courier, the translation and — for non-Hague destinations — the federal stage are all separate costs paid to separate parties. A service fee covers the coordination: preparing the file, submitting it, tracking it, getting it back, and absorbing the cost of a redo when a payee line is wrong.

Can I just do this myself?

Yes, and many people should. If you are in DC, the document is already notarized or is a DC certified record, you are under the nine-document cap and you can pay by card, the whole thing takes half an hour. It gets hard when the document is in DC, you are not, the notarization has not happened yet, and the only payment you can produce is a foreign bank draft.

Sources / last verified

All figures and quotations above were checked against the issuing authorities' own published pages on 19 October 2026:

• ONCA service scope, three certificate types, $15 per document, five business days, walk-in hours, payment methods, "DC Treasurer" payee, address and email — os.dc.gov/service/authentications.
• Nine-document walk-in cap, 15–30 minute service, no ID requirement, third-party submission, parking rates, phone (202) 727-3117 — ONCA Walk In Service Center guide (FY25 PDF).
• Mail-in sequence, pay-after-review credit card flow, three status emails, direct-to-ONCA delivery option, permanent attachment of certificates, document source list — ONCA Mail In Service Center Guide, FY26 (dated 4.1.26).
• "ONCA does not notarize documents" — os.dc.gov/service/notary-commissions.
• Birth $23, death $18, VitalChek fees of $6 / $15.95, 2201 Shannon Place SE, walk-up hours, archived records 2–3 weeks — dchealth.dc.gov, Vital Records.
• Marriage certified copy $10, Marriage Bureau Room JM-690 at 500 Indiana Ave NW, 8:30–16:00, "do not make payments until being directed to do so" — dccourts.gov, Marriage page (updated 17 February 2026).
• Hague Convention signed 5 October 1961, in force 24 January 1965, 130 contracting parties, China effective 7 November 2023 — HCCH status table.

Where a figure could not be verified from an official source, it has been left out rather than estimated — including DC corporate certified-copy fees and their filing windows.