Apostille in Toronto: the one Canadian city with a same-day counter
If your document was issued in Ontario, the authority that apostilles it is in downtown Toronto: Official Documents Services, 777 Bay Street, lower level. Bring a complete file and you walk out with the apostille in about half an hour. That makes Toronto different from every other city on this site, so this page is honest about it: here is the do-it-yourself route in full, and here are the five situations where a Toronto file still ends up on our desk.
Your Ontario apostille within 48 hours, without a trip to Bay Street
Our partner agent in the Greater Toronto Area files your documents in person at Official Documents Services and collects the apostilles within 48 business hours of receiving them, Monday to Friday. No mail queue. $239 for the first document and $109 for each additional one in the same envelope, plus the Ontario fee at cost.
Everywhere else in Canada, an apostille is a mail-in process. Not here.
Québec, British Columbia and Alberta accept requests by mail or courier only. Global Affairs Canada takes drop-offs but processes them in the same queue as everything else. Ontario is the outlier: ODS keeps a public counter at 777 Bay Street and, if your documents are in order and your form is filled in, the certificate is attached while you wait.
So if you live or work downtown, hold an Ontario document that needs no notary, and have a weekday morning free, you can genuinely do this yourself for the government fee alone. We would rather tell you that than have you pay us to ride the subway for you.
The counter is not a shortcut for everything, though. It only serves Ontario documents. It does not touch an RCMP check, a Québec birth certificate or a degree from McGill, all of which belong to other authorities in other cities. It does not notarize anything. And “complete file” means the right version of the document, the right fee for its category, and a form that matches. Files that fail any of those go home unprocessed.
The rest of this page is built to make either choice work: the full DIY route below, and a plain account of when hiring us is the cheaper decision once your time is counted.
Doing it yourself at 777 Bay Street
Everything below is what ODS itself publishes. If you go in person, bring the completed form, the originals and a payment method; the same package goes in an envelope if you mail it.
Doing it yourself: what the authority asks for
- Authority
- Official Documents Services (ODS), Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery, Toronto
Documents issued in Ontario, and documents notarized by an Ontario notary public - Form
- Authentication Service Request (Ontario form 002-35-5118, EN and FR versions)
- Send to
- Official Documents Services
777 Bay Street, Lower Level
Toronto ON M7A 2J8 - Fee
- $16 per notarized document, $32 per government-issued, court or public post-secondary document
- Payment
- By mail: certified cheque, money order, Visa or Mastercard. In person: cash, Visa, Mastercard, debit, certified cheque or money order.
- Return
- Regular mail unless a prepaid return waybill is included.
- Counter
- Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., except statutory holidays
- Processing
- Within 15 business days by mail; about 30 minutes in person when the file is complete
Published by ODS, page updated June 8, 2026, confirmed unchanged October 23, 2026. - Before
- Ontario public post-secondary diplomas and transcripts issued since January 2019, and Ontario court documents issued since January 2002, are accepted without prior notarization. Other private documents must be notarized by an Ontario notary first.
Go yourself, or send it to us?
Go yourself when
- You are in Toronto on a weekday, and 777 Bay is a reasonable trip.
- Your document is Ontario-issued and public: a ServiceOntario certificate, an Ontario court document, a diploma or transcript from an Ontario public university or college issued since January 2019.
- You have one destination country, and it is a Convention member, so the apostille is the last step.
- You will keep the apostilled original in Canada or carry it abroad yourself.
Send it to us when
- Your file touches more than one authority. A Toronto birth certificate plus an RCMP check is two submissions in two cities (Toronto and Ottawa), on two timelines. We run them in parallel.
- Your document is private and needs an Ontario notary first: a power of attorney, a consent letter, a certified copy of a passport, a company resolution. We coordinate the notary, then the apostille.
- You are abroad and the document is in Toronto with family, a lawyer or a school. We collect it from them and ship the finished set to you, tracked.
- The destination is not a Convention member (Lebanon, Iran, Haiti among common Toronto cases), so the document needs embassy legalization in Ottawa after ODS. That is a second trip we make so you do not.
- Your deadline is days away and you cannot get to Bay Street yourself. Our partner agent files in person and collects the apostille within 48 business hours.
- You want a scan the day it is done, a written all-in price before anything moves, and someone accountable if a question comes back from the receiving country.
Our service fee is published: $139 per submission, whatever the number of documents, and government fees billed at the exact dollar with the receipt.
The same city, three different authorities
The authority follows where the document was issued or notarized, never where you live. Toronto files routinely split across three of them.
| Document | Typical Toronto issuer | Authority | Notary first? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birth, marriage, death certificate | ServiceOntario (Office of the Registrar General) | ODS, Toronto | No |
| Divorce certificate or order | Superior Court of Justice, 393 University Avenue, or the court that granted it | ODS, Toronto | No, if issued since January 2002 |
| Degree, diploma, transcript | University of Toronto, York, Toronto Metropolitan University, OCAD U, Seneca, Humber, George Brown, Centennial | ODS, Toronto | No, if public and issued since January 2019 |
| RCMP certified criminal record check | RCMP, via an accredited fingerprinting company | Global Affairs Canada, Ottawa | No |
| Power of attorney, consent to travel, affidavit | Signed before an Ontario notary | ODS, Toronto | Yes, that is what makes it apostillable |
| Certified copy of a passport or a foreign diploma | Ontario notary public | ODS, Toronto | Yes |
| Federal corporate documents | Corporations Canada | Global Affairs Canada, Ottawa | Usually no |
| Ontario corporate documents | Ontario Business Registry | ODS, Toronto | Often via a notarized copy |
| Québec birth certificate held by a Toronto family | Directeur de l’état civil du Québec | Ministère de la Justice, Montréal | No, but long-form copie d’acte only |
Police checks issued by the Toronto Police Service or a regional force are Ontario documents, but how ODS treats a given signature varies; we confirm the exact route for yours at pre-check rather than guess here.
Common destinations from the GTA
Apostille is enough
India, the Philippines, Italy, Portugal, Pakistan, China, the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, South Korea and Japan are all Convention members. Once ODS or Global Affairs Canada attaches the apostille, the document is ready. Many of them also want a certified translation; we coordinate that before or after, whichever the receiving country requires.
Legalization still required
Lebanon, Iran, Haiti, the United Arab Emirates and several other Gulf and African states are not members. The document is authenticated (by ODS or GAC), then legalized by that country’s embassy or consulate, almost always in Ottawa. Embassy fees vary and are quoted before you commit. See our country pages.
Special cases we see from Toronto
Italian and Portuguese citizenship by descent (long-form records, several generations, several provinces). Teaching contracts in the Gulf and Asia (degree plus criminal record check, two authorities). Spousal visas and marriages abroad (single-status affidavits, which are notarized documents). Each has its own guide.
Where we serve, and what that means here
We are based in Laval, near Montréal, and we handle Toronto files exactly as we handle every other Canadian city: you send the originals to us by tracked courier (we email you a prepaid label), we prepare and submit to ODS, we return the apostilled set to any address in the world. For a Toronto client the round trip adds roughly two to four days of courier time to the ODS figure, which by mail is within 15 business days.
When the deadline is tight, we skip the mail. Our partner agent in the Greater Toronto Area files your documents in person at 777 Bay Street and collects the apostille within 48 business hours of receiving them, Monday to Friday. Counting tracked courier from our office and back, a document that would spend weeks in the mail queue is usually back with you within about a week. The pre-check tells you whether your deadline justifies the difference.
Clients come to us from across the region: Toronto proper (downtown, North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, East York), Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Burlington, Pickering, Ajax, Whitby, Oshawa, Newmarket, Milton and Hamilton. The routing and price are identical from all of them.
Where do I get an apostille in Toronto?
How much does an apostille cost in Toronto?
Can I really get it the same day?
Does my University of Toronto degree need a notary?
I live in Toronto but my birth certificate is from Québec. Where does it go?
My document is going to a country that is not in the Hague Convention. What then?
Do you have an office in Toronto?
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Tell us what you have and where it is going
Send scans of your Toronto documents and the destination country. We confirm the authority for each one, flag anything ODS would send home, and give you a fixed all-in price, in writing. If your case is a simple walk-in, we will say so.
Free pre-check