Alberta is one of the easier provinces to deal with. The fee is low, the instructions are public, and Official Documents and Appointments in Edmonton turns most files around in 7 to 10 business days. Yet a steady share of the Alberta files that reach us are second attempts: the first envelope came back unopened, or opened with a polite note and no apostille. Almost every time, the reason was something on the request form or in the envelope, not the document itself.
Here is the form, field by field, and the envelope around it.
Where the form lives, and what it is for
The Apostille Request Form is a one-page PDF published by Alberta Justice, file name jus-apostille-request-form.pdf, linked from the alberta.ca page Document authentication for other jurisdictions and countries. Download it fresh each time: the office updates it without changing the link.
It is a cover sheet. Its job is to tell the clerk who you are, how to reach you, where the documents are going and what is in the envelope. The office will also accept your own cover letter with the same information, but the form is faster to process because the clerk knows where to look.
The fields, and what belongs in each
Your name. The person submitting, not necessarily the person named on the document. If you are sending your mother's birth certificate, your name goes here, hers appears in the document list.
Telephone and email. Both. The office does not give status updates, but it does call or write when something is missing, and that call is the difference between a two-week file and a six-week one. Use a number that answers, with a voicemail that says your name.
Return address. Written in full, legibly, exactly as it should appear on the return envelope: unit number, street, city, province, postal code, country. If the documents are going back to someone else (a lawyer, a relative, a service like ours), that address goes here, and your own stays in the contact lines above.
Country where the document will be used. One country per form. The apostille certificate itself does not name the destination, but the office uses this to confirm the country is a Hague Convention member and to catch files that actually need consular legalization. If the same documents are going to two countries, say so in a note; you will usually need two apostilled originals.
List of documents. One line per document, described the way the document describes itself: "Birth certificate, Alberta Vital Statistics, registration no. …", "Bachelor of Commerce degree, University of Alberta, 2019", "Power of attorney notarized by J. Smith, Notary Public, October 2, 2026". The count on this list must match the number of documents in the envelope and the number of documents paid for.
Pay first, online, and print the receipt
The fee is $25 per document, and it is paid before you mail anything, on the Alberta eServices portal (the Certificates of Apostille service). One payment covers the whole submission: five documents, $125. Cash, cheques and card details written on the form are not accepted.
When the payment goes through, eServices emails you a receipt. Print it and put it in the envelope. A file that arrives without the printed receipt waits until the office can match a payment to it, and with no status updates you will not know that it is waiting.
What goes in the envelope, and in what order
- The Apostille Request Form, or your cover letter.
- The printed eServices receipt.
- The documents, in the same order as your list.
- Your prepaid return shipping (see below).
Documents over ten pages must be printed double-sided. Do not staple the form to the documents, and never remove a staple from a notarized document: the notary's seal, signature and the pages they certify must stay together.
Mail or courier everything to:
Official Documents and Appointments #111, 9833 109 Street Edmonton, Alberta T5K 2E8
There is no public counter. The office closed in-person submissions, and there is no rush, walk-in or while-you-wait service at any price.
The return trip is where most envelopes go wrong
Official Documents and Appointments returns documents the way you told it to, and it is strict about how.
- By courier: include a prepaid electronic waybill, generated online by the courier, with the office as sender and you as recipient. Handwritten waybills are not accepted: if you include one, your documents come back by regular Canada Post, without notice, and without tracking.
- By Canada Post: include a prepaid Priority or Xpresspost envelope with the return address filled in legibly and in full. Keep the tracking number before you seal the outer envelope; it is your only way to know when the apostille is on its way.
- To an address outside Canada: a prepaid electronic courier waybill is required. A Canada Post envelope will not do.
- Nothing prepaid: the documents go back by regular mail, and you still need to include a self-addressed envelope.
The four things that get a file returned
- A laminated or wallet-size Vital Statistics certificate. The office cannot apostille either. Order a new full-size original from any Alberta registry agent; the polymer birth certificates issued since February 1, 2008 are accepted as they are.
- A private document that was never notarized. A power of attorney, a certificate of life, a corporate resolution or an export document must first be notarized by an Alberta notary public who signs, seals and dates the copy. The apostille certifies the notary's signature, so without it there is nothing to certify.
- An education record without a wet signature and embossed seal. Transcripts and degrees must be certified by an official of the institution as an official record or true copy, with an original signature and the institution's embossed seal. Printouts and PDFs are not accepted.
- A criminal record check from the RCMP. RCMP certificates are federal documents and go to Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa, not to Edmonton. A police check issued by a municipal service can be notarized and apostilled in Alberta.
Divorce certificates, a special case
A certificate of divorce is accepted only when the clerk of the court originally signed it and sealed it with an impressed court seal. A photocopy, even a notarized one, is not enough for this document. If yours lacks the seal, ask the court that granted the divorce for a sealed certificate before sending anything to Edmonton.
What a complete file looks like in days
From an Alberta address: Xpresspost to Edmonton, 1 to 2 business days. Processing, 7 to 10 business days from receipt. Xpresspost back, 1 to 2 business days. About three weeks door to door, with no way to compress it, because the office offers no urgent service.
From abroad, add the courier time on each end, or avoid it altogether by having the finished documents returned to someone in Canada who forwards them, or to a service that ships them on by DHL Express.
If you would rather not fill anything in
We prepare Alberta files every week: the form, the eServices payment, the electronic return waybill and the refusal check on the documents themselves before anything is mailed. Our fee is $139 per submission, whatever the number of documents, plus the $25 Alberta fee per document and shipping. If your destination needs the apostilled documents translated, the translation is coordinated in the same file. Send scans and the destination country to the free pre-check, or write to us on WhatsApp from anywhere, and you will know within the hour whether your documents will pass.
For the full picture of the Alberta authority, see the Alberta apostille page, and for current timelines across all six Canadian authorities, processing times.