Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of documents from the United States Virgin Islands by apostille.
As an insular area of the United States of America the US Virgin Islands acceded to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents in 1981. Therefore, no diplomatic authentication or consular legalization of documents is needed for successful legal communication with other member states of the Convention. The documents only need to be attested by an apostille certificate with an "apostille" stamp on it by the issuing state's authorities in order to be valid in the state of destination.
The apostille is a stamp of rectangular shape. It should be filled in in the official language of the issuing authority. The heading "Apostille (Convention de la Haye du 5 octobre 1961)" written in French is a necessary requirement for the apostille's validity.
Responsible for issuing the apostille are the following institutions:
- The United States Department of State is responsible for documents issued by federal authorities.
- Court documents are legalized by the Secretary of the District Court of the Virgin Islands.
- The Governor legalizes documents that are issued by local authorities.
Documents issued by the United States Virgin Islands authorities, published in English can be apostillized.
The process of legalizing documents in the US Virgin Islands includes verification by an authorized official of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor of the origin and authenticity of the document. After passing this procedure, the applicant, as a rule, is issued a special certificate - an apostille.
The following documents can be authenticated by apostille:
- Certificates of civil status (certificates of birth, death, marriage and divorce)
- Education documents (school reports, certificates, diplomas)
- Trade register excerpts
- Court decisions
- Notarially certified copies of documents
- Notarially certified translations
- Further notarial documents (authorizations, last will, declarations)
- Commercial documents legalized by a state registration body (articles of incorporation, registration certificates, tax registrations etc.)
Requirements for the documents:
The apostille can be exclusively issued for the original document. Therefore, the underlying document must be presented in good condition, with all stamps and signatures clear and readable. Furthermore, it should not contain alien markings or labels.
Additional services
In addition to the legalization of your documents, we can provide you with high-quality translations.
Should you require company information for use in court, it needs to be legalized as well. We can therefore provide you with extracts from the commercial register of the United States Virgin Islands including the apostille certification and translation into the language of the document's state of destination.
On average, processing the documents takes up to 14 days.
