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Marcia, each document you submit in support of your residency application (birth and marriage certificates, proof of income, police background check, etc) must go through an “authentication” process. Briefly, it is as follows:
First, you must provide a true, original copy of the document issued by the pertinent authority. For your birth certificate, for example, that’s usually the Vital Records section of the state department of public health. So, keep it simple and get a new birth certificate from whatever state you were born in.
Next, **that** state’s Office of the Great Seal must authenticate the document. That is, they must certify that the birth certificate in this example is genuine and issued by their department of health. The Office of the Great Seal is typically housed in each state’s Department of State.
Once the Office of the Great Seal has done its job, the Costa Rican consulate which serves **that state** must authenticate that the authentication done by the Office of the Great Seal is valid.
Now, once you’ve gone through all this with everyone’s birth and marriage certificates (if appropriate), police reports and income verifications, you’re ready to talk about actually making and submitting an application.
It’s important to understand that regardless of where you live now, the documents must be authenticated where they are generated. So if you were born in (say) North Carolina, you must get a birth certificate from the N.C. Department of Public Health, have it authenticated by the N.C. Office of the Great Seal, and submit it to the Costa Rican Consulate in Atlanta, which serves North Carolina, for their authentication. All this is regardless of the fact that you now live in New Mexico or wherever. Same for your marriage license, income proofs, etc.
Office of the Great Seal is usually the Secretary of State’s office. For your birth certificate, it is “certified” and when you request your documents you must state that you want them certified. Costa Rica is not a signatory to the Hague Convention of 1964 which set the standard for the authentication of documents to be used internationally. For all documents in every other country but Costa Rica, they affix an Apostille to the certified document stating that the document was certified by an approved notary. However, having said that, I did in fact get documents such as my police report and marriage application and license Apostilled, although technically they only needed to be authenticated, which is actually the same damn thing. It’s a lot of semantics in this process. And when you send your documents to the appropriate Secretary of States office you must specify what you are using the documents for and for which country they will be submitted. it is really best to get on the website for the Secretary of State’s office in the state you will have documents issued to see what their costs are and what you must specify in your request. Buckle up. This process is not for the faint-hearted, which is why you should consider hiring someone to help you do it.
http://www.costarica-embassy.org is not up to date either. The text I provided it the recently passed legislation, by which all other entities must now abide.
Luv that computerized translation. I’d get a real translation if possible. As I said, perhaps the CR Consulate has an updated list of requirements in English they can fax you.
Example: “will have to designate a resident proxy in Costa Rica”…
Actually, it says you need an “apoderado” – Power of Attorney.
What about getting income “authenticated” (social security), how much of a problem is that to get done?
Takes about 5 minutes at the US Embassy in San Jose. They write the letter for immigration verifying that you have X amount coming in.
What about the Letter of Good Behavior (clear criminal record) from my local police department? Do they authenticate it or can I have that done in Costa Rica also?
Feliz Navidad MaravillaSometimes, but not always, the police department can notarize it. In my case, the report had to be sent to the main office for notarization, and then I had to take it to the Secretary of State’s office. The police letters are only valid for 90 days, so that should be your last document to get so it doesn’t expire before you get your packet of paperwork filed with immigration.
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