New York Apostille for Documents Used in Türkiye

The New York State Department of State issues apostilles for New York documents. For many of them, though, the Department of State is the second stop, not the first: a County Clerk certification often has to come before it.

When the County Clerk comes first

Birth, death and marriage certificates and certificates of divorce issued by a local or county official, or by a county Department of Health, must first be certified by the County Clerk. A notarized document follows the same pattern with one detail that catches people out: it must be certified by the County Clerk of the county where the notary is certified to notarize, which is not necessarily the county where you signed. Only after that certification does the Department of State add the apostille.

Educational documents take a different route. Contact the school, college or university you attended and ask for a certification by one of its officials stating that the document is an official record or a true copy of the original. That official's signature on the certification must then be notarized by a notary public, which brings the document back to the notarized path above.

You can use the Department of State's apostille service by mail, or walk in at one of its offices in New York City, Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo or Utica.

Translation in Ankara

With the apostille attached, the document comes to our office in Ankara. Translators sworn before a Turkish notary turn it into Turkish, and where the receiving Turkish authority asks for it, a Turkish notary certifies the translation. Whether the document is accepted is up to that authority.

A typical New York sequence for a notarized power of attorney: sign it before a notary, take it to the County Clerk of the notary's county, send it to the Department of State for the apostille, and only then have it translated in Türkiye.