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The one errand you can’t hand to your assistant

Not because it’s difficult. Because Canada has six competent authorities, and which one owns your document is decided by where it was issued, not where you live. Guess wrong and you lose weeks, not an afternoon. We hold the entire file, from routing to the notary to the returned original.

One point of contactFixed written quoteNotary coordinatedReturned worldwide
The real cost

It was never about the fee

For most of our clients the government fee is a rounding error. What it actually costs is calendar, and the calendar is the part nobody warns you about.

Six queues, no shortcut

Québec, Ontario, BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan each run their own authority. Everything else, and every federal document, goes to Global Affairs Canada — which is free, mail-only, and offers no expedited service at any price.

Everything happens on their hours

Fingerprinting is in person. Registrars don’t email. Submissions travel by mail. Every step lands inside a business day you had already committed to something else.

Documents expire while you travel

Most consulates treat criminal record and medical certificates as valid for 90 days. Sequence them wrongly and the first one dies waiting for the second. You then pay for both again.

Delegating it doesn’t remove it

Handing this to an assistant means they first have to learn the routing rules, the Québec notary chain and the refusal triggers. The work doesn’t disappear. It just moves desks and comes back with questions.

Where this usually comes up

The situations that bring people here

Almost nobody wakes up wanting an apostille. It arrives attached to something that actually matters, usually with a deadline set by someone else.

Selling or managing property abroad

You can’t fly to Lisbon, Madrid or Casablanca to sign, so a power of attorney does it for you — and it is worthless abroad without the right authentication. In Québec, that means the notary, then the Chambre des notaires, then the Ministère de la Justice.

An estate that crosses a border

A foreign bank, notary or land registry needs the death certificate and often the marriage and birth certificates authenticated before anything is released. This tends to arrive at the worst possible moment, and we try to make it the part you don’t have to think about.

Residency or retirement abroad

Spain’s non-lucrative visa and Portugal’s D7 both hinge on an RCMP check apostilled by Global Affairs Canada, and Spain adds a medical certificate that must be notarized before it can be apostilled at all.

Citizenship for children or grandchildren

Italian, Portuguese, Irish and Lebanese files all run on long-form civil status records, correctly authenticated, sometimes generations deep. In Québec it is the copie d’acte, never the small-format certificate — the single most common rejection we see.

Directorships and corporate files

Articles, resolutions, incumbency certificates and signing authorities, apostilled to a closing date somebody else controls. We handle batches and we don’t bill you per page to make one trip.

Medical and capacity certificates

A physician isn’t a public official, so their letter can’t be apostilled directly. A notary attests the signature first. It’s a small detail that quietly adds three bodies and several weeks to a file.

What changes

What actually leaves your desk

You send scans and tell us the destination. After that, the list below stops being your problem.

  • Confirming which of the six authorities owns each document
  • Ordering fresh certified copies from registrars, including the Directeur de l’état civil
  • Booking and coordinating a notary — remotely by video in Québec, where the rules allow it
  • Running the Chambre des notaires or Barreau du Québec step before the apostille
  • Paying government fees at cost and keeping every receipt
  • Sequencing documents so nothing expires waiting for something else
  • Tracking each checkpoint, and contacting you only when a decision is genuinely yours
  • Returning the originals, tracked, anywhere in the world
Free pre-check

One fixed price in writing before anything is submitted.

How we work around you

You are not the only person who can move the file

Most of our clients introduce us once and then step back. We work directly with an executive assistant, a lawyer, a notary, an accountant or a family office, and we keep one named contact on our side so nobody re-explains the file.

Being abroad doesn’t stop anything

You don’t need to be in Canada, and you should never ship originals internationally. In most cases we order a fresh certified copy delivered straight into the apostille stream and send the finished original to you.

Discretion is the default

Documents move between us, the notary and the authority, and nowhere else. We don’t publish client names, we don’t use files as case studies, and we don’t ask why you need something authenticated.

The number we quote is the number you pay

Service fee, government fees at cost and shipping at cost, itemized separately so you can compare us line by line. No invented bank fees, no markup on postage.

What we can’t do, said plainly. Nobody can buy government processing speed, and any service that tells you otherwise is selling you something that isn’t theirs to sell. Global Affairs Canada has no expedited tier at any price. What we can compress is everything around the queue: the routing decision, the notary, the sequencing, the return leg — and those are usually where the weeks are actually lost.
Common questions
I don’t know which documents I need. Can you tell me?
We can tell you which Canadian authority each document belongs to and what will get it refused. We can’t tell you what a foreign consulate or lawyer will require — that’s their list, and we’d rather you get it from them in writing than take our guess. Send us the list and we build the file around it.
Can my assistant handle this with you directly?
Yes, and most of the time that’s exactly what happens. Introduce us once, name who can approve a quote on your behalf, and we work with them from there.
I’m travelling for the next two months. Does that delay things?
Usually not. The slow parts are queues, not your signature. If something genuinely needs you — a notarial act, for instance — many Québec notaries can now receive it remotely by video, and we schedule around your time zone.
How fast can this realistically be?
It depends entirely on which authority owns your document and whether a notary step comes first. Québec runs roughly 10 business days, Global Affairs Canada roughly 20 plus mail each way, and a Québec notarial act adds the Chambre des notaires before either. We give you a realistic range in writing rather than an optimistic one.
Is this a different service from your standard one?
Same service, same people, same authorities. This page simply describes what full handling looks like when you’d rather not touch the process. Our Full Service tier covers it, and pricing is public.

See full pricing

Send us the list. We’ll take it from there.

Tell us what you need authenticated and where it’s going. We confirm the routing, flag anything that would be refused, and send one fixed all-in price within one business day. No deposit, no obligation.

Start a free pre-check