APOSTILLE FOR SOUTH KOREA

All US documents intended for use in South Korea, must be properly apostilled. This of course is old news for most of us. However, there are several documents, which we think require a special review: (a) Criminal Background Checks and (b) Diplomas, transcripts and educational certificates.

Until recently it was possible to apostille a background check issued by your local law enforcement agency for use in South Korea. Although it is still possible, yet such procedure is now futile. Recent changes to the criminal history record checks by the South Korean authorities mandate that all background checks not only should be apostilled, but they must be issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (the FBI). Therefore, even though you might have a state police report apostilled, it may no longer be acceptable in South Korea. This of course complicates the procedure a little bit, as the FBI Background Checks tend to take much more time to obtain and then they must be apostilled by the Federal government, before they may be presented to the authorities in South Korea.

Diplomas, transcripts and educational certificates, may be apostilled either as original documents or photocopies thereof. Which procedure one must undertake depends solely on the authorities to whom the documents shall be presented. Thus it is mandatory to contact the authorities beforehand and confirm their requirements of apostilled diplomas, transcripts and other educational certificates. We have already covered the authentication of diplomas and transcripts in our earlier articles which may be found here. How to get an FBI Background Check apostilled?

Well first of all, you will need to get the document in the first place. Both topics of the retrieval of FBI CBC and the apostille for it were previously covered in our posts. FBI CBC information is available here and authentication | apostille for FBI Background Check is available here.