So now that we established that you do need an apostille on the documents which you will be using outside of the united States, lets examine some of the documents that you might need a long the way.

Here we will discuss the Certificate of Good standing.

So what is? Why do you need one? And what does Good standing means?

The answer to those and many similar question is that the Certificate of Good standing is an official document which shows the legal standing of your company or a corporation (there’s also similar document for individuals but that’s not the subject of this discussion). The Certificate is needed when the legal entity plans to administer an action in the foreign country like opening a Representative Office, Bank Account or registering their products (Or perhaps renewing their registrations and so forth in case the entity already has a presence in that particular country).

Certificate of Good standing shows the foreign authorities that the company/corporation is in fact in good standing (it better be) in the State of it’s origin and pays all required taxes and complies to the rules and regulations of that State. In case when the company is not in the Good standing, the foreign authorities might prohibit any actions by the company/corporation due to the fact that it raises concern that the entity often does not comply with the set rules and so forth.

Getting an apostille on such Certificate is a quite simple procedure, with only two steps involved. First you will need to request an official Certificate from the body of Government which deals with the matter. In Alaska it’s the same division where you filled Articles of Incorporation/Formation etc. Then you will need to get the Certificate apostilled. (Note: Keep i mind that Apostille is only accepted by countries which signed the appropriate convention) Otherwise there are more steps involved.

For Non-Hague Convention countries you will need to call the Embassy/Consulate which has jurisdiction over Alaska, verify which level of legalization that country requires(State or Federal) and whether or not the document has to be translated prior to being submitted to the appropriate authority.