How to Get an Apostille in British Columbia

Apostilles for documents issued or notarized in British Columbia are issued under the BC authentication program, administered by the Order in Council Administration Office in Victoria. The office verifies the signature and seal on your document and attaches the apostille certificate, which member countries of the Convention accept without any further embassy legalization.

Federal documents remain outside the provincial program: RCMP certified criminal record checks and federal corporate documents are apostilled by Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa.

British Columbia is distinctive in that both BC notaries public and practising BC lawyers routinely notarize documents, and the provincial office verifies the signatures of both. Personal documents such as powers of attorney, statutory declarations, consent letters, and notarized copies of diplomas or identification generally need this notarization step before they can be apostilled.

Official government-issued originals — BC birth, marriage, and death certificates from the Vital Statistics Agency, for example — typically do not require notarization, since they already carry an official signature the office can verify.

The apostille route applies only when the destination country is a Convention member. BC documents heading to the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, or Europe can generally use the apostille. Documents going to non-member countries — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Vietnam — must be authenticated and then legalized at the destination country's mission in Canada instead.

Receiving authorities may also apply their own conditions, such as requiring documents issued within a recent window or accompanied by a certified translation. Confirming these requirements before you start is the single best way to avoid repeating the process.

Frequent cases include BC graduates taking teaching positions in Asia who need degrees and police checks certified, families dealing with estates or property abroad through notarized powers of attorney, couples marrying overseas who need birth certificates and single-status declarations, and BC companies certifying corporate records for foreign partners.

Because many of these files involve several documents from different issuers — provincial, federal, institutional — sequencing the notarization, apostille, and translation steps correctly matters as much as any single step. A teacher heading to Korea, for instance, may need a BC-notarized degree copy certified in Victoria while the RCMP police check is certified in Ottawa, with both documents converging on the same visa application.

Visa Jet is a private document support agency, not a government office, and we are not affiliated with the Order in Council Administration Office. We review your documents, confirm whether the apostille or the legalization pathway applies, arrange notarization where needed, and manage everything remotely by email and secure courier — no trip to Victoria required.

Processing times and government fees are set by the authorities involved and vary. To discuss your BC documents, contact info@visajet.ca or +1 819-635-8787.