Apostilles for an Austrian residence application, explained
Austria may not recognize official documents from your home country unless it carries an apostille. For a non-EU applicant that means your birth and marriage certificates, plus your police clearance, all need one before MA35 will accept them. The apostille itself is simple once you see the structure. What costs people time is sending a document to the wrong authority, or sending the wrong document to the authority, and that happens because US documents split into two streams that look alike.
What an apostille is
An apostille is a certificate attached to a public document confirming that the signature and seal on it are genuine. Under the 1961 Hague Convention, which both Austria and the United States, among others, have signed, a document carrying a valid apostille from the issuing country needs no further legalisation to be used in the other.1 So a properly apostilled US document is ready for use in Austria with nothing else added.
Whether your home country uses apostilles at all is the first thing to settle. Vienna publishes a country-by-country list, and for the United States and its dependent territories it says, simply, "Apostille."2 The list covers other countries too, so if you also hold documents from elsewhere, find that country on the list before assuming the same process applies. If a document comes from a country that isn't a Hague member, the chain is longer and different, and that case is outside what this page covers.
The fork that catches people: state versus federal
US documents do not all go to the same place. The authority that can apostille a document is decided by who issued it, and US documents fall into two streams.
A document issued by a US state, such as a birth or marriage certificate or a notarised affidavit, is apostilled by that state. A document issued by the federal government, most importantly the FBI Identity History Summary that Austria asks for as a police clearance, is apostilled by the US Department of State in Washington.3
The mistake that wastes the most time is crossing those wires: a state office cannot apostille an FBI document, and the federal office cannot apostille your state birth certificate. The document decides the authority, not your preference. Identify the issuer first and you have already answered the routing question. If you are ever unsure which stream a document is in, confirm it before you mail anything; this is not a step to guess on.
Where each document goes
Federal documents go to the US Department of State, Office of Authentications, by mail or limited in-person drop-off.3 The FBI Identity History Summary is the federal document most applicants need. You can request it directly from the FBI for $18, or pay an FBI-approved channeler more to turn it around faster, and the electronic request route is quicker than mail.4
State documents go to that state's competent authority. In Florida for instance, that is the Department of State, Division of Corporations, in Tallahassee.5 Two Florida details are worth knowing in advance. The fee is $10 per document for most records (notarised or state-official documents), but $20 per document for anything certified by a Clerk of the Circuit Court, and Florida marriage certificates are Clerk-of-Court records, so they sit in the $20 tier.5 Payment is by check or money order drawn on a US bank only, with no cash and no cards accepted.5
If your documents were issued by a state other than Florida, they go to that state's authority, not to Florida's office and not to the federal one.
Vital records carry one extra catch. A birth, death, or marriage certificate has to be a certified copy signed by the State Registrar to be apostilled. A copy from a local health department, even an official-looking one, will not be accepted, so order the proper certified copy first if you do not already have it.5 This is also why you generally cannot apostille the framed keepsake original; you apostille a fresh certified copy instead.
How long it takes
Florida's own guidance says to allow at least five business days for a mailed request, but in practice the commercial mail-in queue in 2026 has been running several weeks rather than several days.5 Budget weeks, not days and do it as far in advance as you can.
For federal documents, the Department of State's processing time has been quoted in two ranges far enough apart that I will not put a number on it here. Check the current processing time on the Department of State's authentications page when you are ready to send, and plan from that figure rather than from anything you read on a forum.3 Whichever way it falls, start the police-clearance and apostille step early.
A few things from my own file
These are my experience rather than rules, so take them as that.
My wife's Florida marriage certificate was apostilled in Florida, by mail, as far as I remember. Because it was already in English, no translation was needed for it. Documents that are not in English or German usually do need a certified translation, which is a separate step on top of the apostille.
People ask whether an apostille expires. On our certificate, neither the document nor the apostille carried any expiry or freshness wording, and it was accepted as it was. So in our case, no. I would still confirm it for your own document type, because some offices apply their own freshness expectations to things like police clearances regardless of what the apostille itself says.
And the FBI clearance did carry its own federal apostille. There is no shortcut where a raw printout or a watermark stands in for the apostille; if Austria asks for the document, assume that it asks for it apostilled.
Figures verified June 2026.
Official sources
- City of Vienna — "Authentication of foreign documents: country list (apostille / legalisation)" (wien.gv.at); list updated 10 March 2026 ↩
- US Department of State — "Office of Authentications: apostille requests and processing times" (travel.state.gov) ↩ ↩ ↩
- FBI — "Identity History Summary Checks" ($18 per request) (fbi.gov) ↩
- Florida Department of State — "Apostilles and notarial certificates: fees and requirements" (dos.fl.gov); fees verified June 2026 ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
The law behind this
- Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents — between member states, an apostille issued by the document's country of origin replaces consular legalisation; both Austria and the USA are parties (hcch.net) ↩