Death Certificate Authentication for Haiti

When a family member dies in Florida, the death certificate is the starting point for settling property in Haiti: Haitian notaries and courts use it to open the estate, establish heirs and transfer land. Families also need it to close accounts or stop pensions in Haiti. Order a certified copy from the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics or a county health department, ideally one with the cause of death excluded if the Haitian office does not need it, and authenticate it before anyone travels.

A certified copy signed by the State Registrar and certified in 2014 or later. The year of death doesn't matter; the certification date does. Copies with or without the cause of death can both be apostilled, but photocopies and notarized copies cannot.

Order through VitalChek (vitalchek.com), by mail or in person at the Bureau of Vital Statistics, or at the county health department for deaths from 2009 on. The version without the cause of death is available to anyone 18 or older; the version with the cause of death is restricted to eligible requesters. These fees are not included in our $220.

State fee for this document: $10 — included in our price. Full details on the death certificate page.

After we return your document with its Florida authentication certificate, it goes to the U.S. Department of State for authentication; Haiti's embassy says its consular service will only legalize documents already authenticated by the U.S. Department of State. The last U.S. step is legalization by Haiti's Embassy in Washington, D.C. or one of its Consulates General, including those in Miami and Orlando. Ask the office in Haiti receiving your document whether it also needs a stamp from Haiti's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We don't handle, arrange or refer anyone for these steps.

We don't handle or arrange the U.S. Department of State or embassy steps. See how non-Hague authentication works.

In Florida, Haiti is represented by its Consulates General in Miami and Orlando; the Embassy of Haiti in Washington, D.C. also legalizes U.S. documents. In Haiti, Florida documents typically go to civil-status officers (officiers de l'état civil), Haitian notaries (notaires) who handle property sales and estates, the courts, and schools or employers.

Haiti's official languages are French and Haitian Creole. Many Haitian offices work with documents in French, so ask the notary, court or registry receiving your English document whether it needs a French translation. If you translate in Florida, the translator certifies the translation and signs before a different notary, and the translation is authenticated in Florida along with the original, so it carries its own certificate.

We could not find a published Haitian rule on document age. Haitian notaries and registries may still ask for recent certified copies, so order fresh Florida records rather than reusing old ones, and ask the receiving office how recent they must be.

Consular office serving Florida: Consulate General of Haiti in Miami (Haiti also has a Consulate General in Orlando).

$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 authentication to Haiti 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).