| Competent authority | Global Affairs Canada, Authentication Services (Ottawa) |
| Government fee | No government fee (free) |
| Typical processing | ≈ 25 business days + mail |
| Submission | Mail only, no in-person or expedited service |
What to know
- Global Affairs Canada is free but slow (about 25 business days, plus mail both ways) and offers no rush option whatsoever.
- Documents from the five designated provinces (QC, ON, BC, AB, SK) must go to their own provincial authority, GAC will not process them. Sending to the wrong authority is the single most common cause of lost weeks; our routing check prevents it.
- RCMP criminal record checks for use abroad are a very frequent request, we handle the full chain: record check guidance, apostille at GAC, worldwide return shipping.
Doing it yourself: what the authority asks for
Everything below is published by the authority itself. We keep it here, up to date, because you are entitled to know exactly what it would take to skip us.
- Authority
- Global Affairs Canada, Authentication Services Section (Ottawa)
Federal documents (RCMP checks, federal corporations, Health Canada, IRCC) and documents from Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut - Form
- Online request on the GAC apostille portal (apostille-gac.powerappsportals.com)
- Send to
- Global Affairs Canada
Authentication Services Section
2421 Lancaster Road
Ottawa ON K1B 4L5 - Fee
- No government fee
- Payment
- None. The federal service is free.
- Return
- Include a self-addressed stamped envelope, or a prepaid courier label or envelope. Waybills billed to an account number are refused. Without one, documents come back by untracked regular mail.
- Counter
- Drop-off Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., except statutory holidays
- Processing
- About 25 business days, plus 5 to 10 business days of mail each way
On August 26, 2026 GAC reported it was processing requests received 25 business days earlier (90% of recent files). - Before
- GAC does not process documents issued in Québec, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta or Saskatchewan. Those go to their own provincial authority.
Does your document need a notary first?
This is the question that decides your cost and your timeline. Get it wrong and the submission comes back weeks later, unprocessed.
Goes straight to the authority
Public documents already carry an official signature the authority can verify. No notary, no extra fee, no extra weeks.
- RCMP certified criminal record checks — the fingerprint-based federal check, the single most requested document we handle
- Passports, citizenship certificates and permanent resident documents
- Federal corporate records from Corporations Canada
- Civil status and other documents issued in Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut
Needs notarization first
Private documents carry no official signature, so a notary certifies the signer first and the apostille goes on that certification.
- Private documents from the eight provinces and territories without their own authority — notarize locally first, then send here
- Medical certificates, powers of attorney and declarations from those regions
- Certified copies of passports and identity documents
The federal and other provinces rejections we see most
- A name-based police check instead of the fingerprint-based RCMP certified check — many consulates reject the former outright
- Provincial documents sent here by mistake when that province has its own authority
- Laminated documents, and staples removed from multi-page checks
Two rules hold everywhere: never laminate a document, and never remove a staple from a multi-page one. Both are irreversible, and both are refused on sight. If you need a copy, photograph it flat.
Not in federal and other provinces? It changes nothing.
The authority is decided by where the document was issued or notarized — never by where you live. People send us documents from Vancouver, Dubai and São Paulo, and the routing is identical.
- We prepare the request, pay the fee and submit on your behalf
- Nothing travels by ordinary mail — a prepaid tracked return envelope goes with every submission
- A PDF scan reaches you the day the document returns to us
- Originals ship anywhere in the world, tracked
Don’t have the document yet? We can order it from the issuing office on your behalf — see document retrieval from abroad.
Fixed written quote before anything moves.
Documents from different provinces travel separately
A common file — a birth certificate from one province, a degree from another, an RCMP check from Ottawa — is three submissions to three authorities, on three different timelines. They do not share a queue and they do not come back together. We run them in parallel so nothing waits on anything else.
Other authorities: Québec · Ontario · British Columbia · Alberta · Saskatchewan
How much does an apostille cost for federal documents and documents from other provinces and territories?
How long does an apostille take for federal documents and documents from other provinces and territories?
Who issues apostilles for federal documents and documents from other provinces and territories?
How are documents submitted to this authority?
Have a Federal & other provinces document?
Upload a scan, we'll confirm the routing, screen it for refusal risks and send a fixed quote within one business day.
Free pre-check