AMERICAN CITIZEN SERVICES
NOTARIAL SERVICES
Notary Public
The Consular Officer acts as a U.S. notary public for documents to be used in the U.S. Some documents to be used in the U.S. can be signed before a foreign authority competent to notarize or legalize signatures.
If you need to sign a document in the presence of a notary public, and a U.S. notary public is NOT required, you can look in the Swedish yellow pages under "notarius publicus" to find the notarial official nearest you. For those cases in which the requester in the U.S. requires that the document(s) be signed in the presence of a U.S. consular officer or a U.S. notary public, the Embassy is open between 9 and 11 am, Monday through Friday. Please bring a photo identification along with the fee of $30.00 for each notarial. Personal checks and postal money orders ("postanvisning") are not accepted. No appointment is necessary.
Apostille - Authentications
Both the United States and Sweden are currently signatory parties to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents. For more information please see http://www.hcch.net.
Swedish documents
The Government of Sweden has chosen Swedish notaries public as their officials, who are designated to certify the authenticity of Swedish public documents, seals and signatures. Under the Convention, the standard certification provided to authenticate documents is called an apostille.
We suggest that you look in the yellow pages under "notarius publicus" to find the officer nearest you to authenticate Swedish documents for use in the U.S. or another foreign country.
American documents
Authentication (certification) of U.S. documents destined for use in countries signatures to the Hague Convention (such as Sweden), should be certified by one of the officials in the jurisdiction in which the document has been executed. There are three levels of U.S authorities competent to issue an Apostille certificate depending on what jurisdiction executed the documents:
1) State, territories and Other jurisdiction:
Each state and other jurisdiction in the U.S has an office that can issue an Apostille certificate. For listings of competent office in individual states and other jurisdictions, please visit http://travel.state.gov/law/hague_foreign_docs.html
2) Federal Executive and Administrative Agencies:
Authentications Office, Department of State, 518 23rd Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20520, phone number (202) 647-5002
3) U.S. Courts:
Clerks and Deputy Clerks of the Federal Court System
U.S. Embassies and Consulates in countries participating in the Hague Conventions are thus NOT equipped or authorized to provide Apostille Certificates (certifications and authentications) of U.S. documents. For a list of participating countries to the Hague Convention, please visit http://travel.state.gov/law/hague_foreign_docs.html
