Public Services

Notaries

The American Citizen Unit (ACS) can perform the following notarial services for U.S. Citizens and Haitian Nationals:

Oath or Affidavit:  An oath or affidavit is a written statement or declaration sworn to or affirmed before a consular officer. Please provide ACS with your identification (i.e. passport, ID card, drivers licence etc).

Acknowledgment: An acknowledgment is a consular officer’s declaration that a person has appeared before him, bearing a document, which the person freely signed and understood. The document must be signed in front of the Consular Officer. Assistance is not provided in filling out the document to be acknowledged. Acknowledgments are used on such documents as deeds, mortgages, contracts for sale of land, and powers of attorney.  Some acknowledgments may require signatures of witnesses. It is the responsibility of the person requesting the acknowledgment to secure the presence of the witnesses.  The bearer of the document, and any witnesses, must have adequate identification.

Certification of True Copies: A Certified True Copy is the certification of a copy of a document as a true and correct duplicate “word for word and figure for figure.”  Copies of local diplomas and transcripts, prepared for students leaving to study in the U.S., generally do not need to be certified. Most American schools have a transcript evaluation service to determine the authenticity of foreign diplomas and transcripts and provide course equivalencies with detailed information.

Authentication of Signatures: An authentication is a verification of the signature of a notary public or a local government official on a document.  Authentication can only be done in regard to those notaries or officials whose signatures are on file at the ACS Unit.   If a notary or government official is not on file with ACS, the signature can be authenticated by the Director of Judicial Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ACS will then authenticate the Director’s signature.  A list of signatures currently on file at ACS can be found here.

The fee for a notarization is US $30.  Additional notarizations of the same document are US$20 per document. The fee for an authentication is US $30.  Additional authentications of the same document are US $30 per document.  The fee for a certified copy is US $30.