Divorce Decree Apostille for Chile

A Florida divorce has no effect on a Chilean civil record until Chile's Corte Suprema grants exequatur, its recognition of foreign judgments. Until then, a Chilean who divorced in Florida still appears married in the Registro Civil and can't remarry in Chile. The exequatur file needs the complete final judgment certified by the Clerk of Court, wet-ink or official e-certification, with the Florida apostille and a Spanish translation. The state fee for Clerk-certified records is $20, but our price is the same. Ask your Chilean lawyer which pages the court wants before ordering copies.

A complete copy of the final judgment of dissolution of marriage, certified by the Clerk of Court with an original wet-ink certification or the clerk's official e-certification. The state fee is $20 ($10 apostille + $10 certificate of incumbency), already in our price. If the receiving country accepts the one-page dissolution certificate instead, it must be signed by the State Registrar or a Clerk of the County Court and certified in 2014 or later.

Request a certified copy of the final judgment from the clerk of the county where the divorce was granted, online, by mail or at the courthouse; Florida law sets the clerk's certification fee at $2 plus copy charges, usually $1 per page. The dissolution certificate (divorces from June 6, 1927 on) can be ordered from the Bureau of Vital Statistics or through VitalChek. These fees are not included in our $220.

State fee for this document: $20 — included in our price. Full details on the divorce decree apostille page.

The Servicio Nacional de Migraciones handles residence applications, which can be filed online from outside Chile. The Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación registers births and marriages abroad and handles posesión efectiva for estates without a will. Foreign judgments, including divorces, need exequatur from the Corte Suprema. The Universidad de Chile revalidates U.S. degrees, and the Servicio de Impuestos Internos issues the RUT that foreign owners and companies need.

Our general rule for translations is certified by the translator, notarized by a separate notary and apostilled in Florida, but Chile often needs less or something different. Migraciones requires an official translation only for documents in a language other than Spanish or English. The Registro Civil instead wants a certified Spanish translation from Chile's Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the relevant consulate; the Ministry's service translates the apostilled original and can deliver it online. Translate after the apostille, and only when the receiving office asks.

For work-based residence, Migraciones requires the criminal-record certificate to be issued no more than 60 days before you apply, so order it last and apostille it immediately. For other documents, ask the receiving office; a freshly certified vital record also avoids the pre-2014 signature problem.

Consular office serving Florida: Consulate General of Chile in Miami.

$220 per document, $380 for two and $160 each for three or more — the state fee, request form, in-person filing in Tallahassee and FedEx shipping inside the U.S. are included. Shipping the finished apostille to Chile is a flat $100 per order.

Not included: whatever the issuing office charges for the certified copy or certificate, and notarization (online notarization is $40 for the first document — $10 notarization fee + $30 technology platform fee — and $20 for each additional one).