Diploma or Transcript Authentication for Lebanon

Lebanon's embassy lists school, college and university certificates among the documents it legalizes. Florida degrees are used in Lebanon for jobs, for professional syndicate membership and for degree recognition by the education ministry. In Florida, a public school or university diploma or transcript must be notarized by the registrar or issuing official at issuance, with a complete notarial certificate, before it can be authenticated.

Public schools and universities: a diploma copy or transcript signed by the registrar or an issuing official before a Florida notary, with a complete notarial certificate (a jurat or a representative acknowledgment). Private schools: a printed transcript with a notarized statement that it is a true copy; we ask for the school's custodian to sign it. A framed original with printed signatures, or a transcript in a sealed envelope, can't be apostilled.

Ask the registrar's office for the record “notarized for apostille” and released to you unsealed; many Florida registrars have a dedicated request with its own form, fee and processing time. An outside notary can't make a public school record apostille-ready, because Florida notaries may not attest copies of public school records. The school's fees are not included in our $220.

State fee for this document: $10 — included in our price. Full details on the diploma or transcript page.

After we return your document with its Florida authentication certificate, it goes to the U.S. Department of State for authentication, which Lebanon's embassy requires for documents such as powers of attorney and life certificates. Next, the Embassy of Lebanon in Washington, D.C., whose jurisdiction includes Florida, legalizes it. Ask the office in Lebanon whether the document also needs to be certified by Lebanon'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.

Florida falls under the Embassy of Lebanon in Washington, D.C., according to its published jurisdiction list; there is also an Honorary Consulate of Lebanon in Tampa. The embassy legalizes documents and registers births, marriages, divorces and deaths of Lebanese citizens. In Lebanon, documents go to the personal status registry, religious and civil courts, the land registry, notaries, banks and pension funds.

Lebanon's embassy translates Lebanese documents into English but doesn't publish a rule for translating U.S. documents into Arabic. Lebanese courts, registries and notaries generally work in Arabic and may require a translation, often made in Lebanon. Ask the receiving office. If it accepts a Florida translation, the translator certifies it, a different notary notarizes it, and it is authenticated in Florida with the original.

The embassy's published pages don't set a document-age rule for most documents. Lebanese registries and courts may want recent certified copies, so order fresh Florida records and ask the receiving office how recent they must be.

Consular office serving Florida: Embassy of Lebanon, Washington, D.C. (its jurisdiction includes Florida).

$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 Lebanon 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).