FBI Background Check, Apostille and Translation for Spain
What the FBI check and the State Department apostille cost, how long each takes by their published figures, and the order that avoids paying twice.
Reviewed September 2026; fees and timings revised October 2026. This is a document chain, not three independent errands. The sequence matters because an apostille authenticates the document that came before it, and the translation must cover both. Do them in the wrong order and you pay for the same document twice.
The single most expensive mistake has a simple cause. An FBI Identity History Summary is a federal document, so its apostille comes from the U.S. Department of State. People send it to their state Secretary of State, because that is where birth and marriage certificates go, and it comes back unapostilled weeks later.
Which authority apostilles which document
| Document | Issued by | Apostilled by |
|---|---|---|
| FBI Identity History Summary | FBI, a federal agency | U.S. Department of State, Office of Authentications |
| Birth certificate | A state or county | That state’s Secretary of State |
| Marriage certificate | A state or county | That state’s Secretary of State |
| University diploma | A private or state institution | Usually the state, after notarisation |
A household preparing a move usually needs both routes at once: the background check going to Washington, the birth and marriage certificates going to one or more state capitals. They move at different speeds and neither waits for the other, so start them in parallel and track them separately.
Getting the FBI summary
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| What it is | Your Identity History Summary, or proof that no record exists |
| Legal basis | U.S. Department of Justice Order 556-73 |
| Fee | $18, the same whether you apply by mail or electronically |
| Fingerprints | Required. They can be submitted electronically at a participating U.S. Post Office |
| Turnaround | Requests are processed in the order received, with no priority handling for an individual request. Electronic submission is processed faster than a mailed card. The FBI does not say by how much. |
That last row is the planning constraint, and it has one lever. The FBI does not prioritise individual requests, but it says electronic submission is processed faster than a mailed fingerprint card. Everything downstream of this document — the apostille, the translation, the consular appointment — inherits its timing, which is why this is the first thing to start and the thing to start earliest.
Three ways to submit fingerprints
| Route | What it is | What the FBI says | Cost beyond the $18 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailed fingerprint card | A paper fingerprint card sent to the FBI | Processed in the order received | The cost of having the prints taken, and postage |
| Electronic, at a participating U.S. Post Office | Fingerprints captured and transmitted electronically | Electronic submissions are processed faster than a mailed card | Additional fees may apply |
| FBI-approved channeler | A private business under contract with the FBI that submits the request for you | The FBI publishes the approved list for Departmental Order submissions and describes channelers as expediters | Set by the channeler |
The FBI charges $18 for the check whether you apply by mail or electronically. It does not say how much faster electronic submission is, so this page does not either. If you use a channeler, ask for its fee and its expected return time in writing before you pay.
What each step costs and how long it takes, by published figures
| Step | Official fee | Published time |
|---|---|---|
| FBI Identity History Summary | $18 | Not quantified. Electronic submission is faster than mail |
| Apostille by mail | $20 per document, non-refundable | Within 5 weeks of receipt in Washington |
| Apostille by walk-in | $20 per document | 7 business days |
| Sworn translation | Set by the translator | Ask the translator before you book |
Mail or walk-in at the Department of State
- By mail: the Department states five weeks from receipt, counted from arrival at its Washington office, not from delivery to the postal facility. Payment is by check or money order.
- Walk-in: seven business days, but you have to be in Washington. One request per day, up to 15 documents per customer or company, weekday mornings Monday to Thursday, card payment only.
- Anything shorter: the Department limits emergency appointments to documented family emergencies abroad. A move is not one.
The $20 you lose if the document is wrong
The fee is charged per document, cannot be refunded, and applies whether you receive an apostille or a correspondence letter explaining why you did not. A document that comes back costs $20 and, by mail, up to five weeks. Check the FBI summary before it leaves your hands: the name matches your passport, and it is the original, not a copy.
The chain, in the only order that works
- Request the FBI Identity History Summary. Submit electronically and get the fingerprints in early. Keep the receipt and the submission date.
- Receive it and check it immediately. Names, dates and the FBI watermark. An error found now costs weeks; found later, it costs the whole chain.
- Apostille it at the Department of State. Federal document, federal authority, form DS-4194. Do not send it to a state office.
- Then translate. The sworn translation must cover the apostille as well as the summary, because a translation of the document alone leaves the authentication unreadable to the office receiving it.
- Assemble and check against the consulate’s live checklist. The office handling your file is the one whose list governs. Do this last, and do it again shortly before the appointment.
Step 4 is where the order becomes non-negotiable. If you translate before the apostille arrives, you will be paying a sworn translator a second time.
The translation has to be a sworn one
Spain does not accept an ordinary translation of a legal document, however good it is. It requires a traductor-intérprete jurado, a translator sworn by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which publishes the official directory of who holds that appointment. A bilingual friend, a translation agency without a sworn translator, or a machine translation with a stamp on it are all the same thing to the office receiving your file: not a sworn translation.
- Choose the translator from the Ministry’s published directory, not from a search result.
- Send the apostilled document, complete, including the apostille page.
- Ask what the translator needs and how long they take before you commit to an appointment date.
- Keep the sworn translation with the original. They travel together from here on.
Freshness is a real constraint, and it is not standard
Consulates commonly require a background check to be recent, and the permitted age of the document varies between offices and between procedures. We are not going to publish a number here, because the only one that matters is on the live checklist of the consulate responsible for your address.
The practical consequence is a squeeze. Start the chain too late and the documents are not ready. Start it far too early and the FBI summary may be considered stale by the time the appointment arrives. Read the requirement first, then work backwards from your target appointment date, and keep the slowest link — the FBI summary — as the thing everything else is scheduled around.
If your move slips by several months, re-read that requirement before assuming the pack is still good.
Working backwards from your appointment
This is an illustration, not a prediction. The translator’s time is whatever they quote and the margins are ours; only the five weeks is a published figure.
| Counting back from the appointment | Step |
|---|---|
| 1 week | Sworn translation delivered (assume a one-week quote) |
| 2 weeks | Apostille back in hand |
| 7 weeks | Package mailed to the Department (five published weeks, counted from arrival) |
| 8 weeks | FBI result in hand, with a week of margin for mailing |
| Earlier, by the FBI’s own time | Fingerprints submitted |
Where this goes wrong
- Sending the FBI check to a state Secretary of State. The most common failure, and it costs weeks.
- Translating before apostilling. The translation must include the apostille. Doing it early means doing it twice.
- Using a translator who is not on the Ministry’s list. The file is rejected on a formality that had nothing to do with the translation’s quality.
- Assuming the FBI will prioritise you. It does not, although electronic submission is faster than a mailed card. Plan around the slower case.
- Not checking the summary on arrival. A misspelled name found at the consulate restarts everything.
- Treating one consulate’s checklist as universal. Requirements differ by office. Use yours.
Run the whole household as one register
A single applicant has one chain. A couple with children has several, running at different speeds through different offices, and the file is only as ready as its slowest document. Track them in one place with the same columns for each:
| Column | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|
| Document and person | Two adults means two FBI summaries, not one family one |
| Issuing authority | Determines which apostille route it takes |
| Date requested | The only way to know whether a delay is normal |
| Date received | Starts any freshness window |
| Apostille status | Requested, in transit, received |
| Translation status | Cannot start until the apostille is back |
Order the slow items first and the short-validity items last. The FBI summary is slow, and the only official lever on it is electronic submission, so it leads. Anything with a short freshness window should be started only once you can see the appointment date.
Keep the originals, and keep them intact
Do not remove staples, separate an apostille from the document it authenticates, or laminate anything. An apostille is attached to a specific document and the pair is what has legal effect; separating them destroys that. Scan everything on arrival for your own records, but submit what you were given, in the state you were given it.
Keep the scans somewhere you can reach from another country on a borrowed device, because at some point you will need to read a date off a document that is in a folder on another continent.
Do you need a service?
You do not need one to get a valid apostille. The procedure is public: form DS-4194, $20 per document, sent to the Office of Authentications. What a service sells is the legwork, and it adds its own fee to the Department’s $20. Weigh that against your lead time, not against the cost of a single document.
Sources for the facts on this page
Consulted 2 September 2026; the apostille fee and timings and the electronic and channeler routes were added on 13 October 2026. Fees and procedures change; open the live pages before acting.
- FBI — Identity History Summary Checks: the $18 fee, the fingerprint requirement, DOJ Order 556-73, and that requests are processed in the order received without individual priority, and electronic submission is processed faster than a mailed card.
- FBI — List of FBI-approved channelers for Departmental Order submissions: the private businesses approved to submit requests on your behalf.
- U.S. Department of State — Office of Authentications: that federal documents including FBI records are apostilled by the Department of State, while state-issued documents go to the state Secretary of State.
- U.S. Department of State — Request authentication services: the $20 fee per document, the five-week mail time, the seven-business-day walk-in service and its limits.
- Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores — sworn translator and interpreter directory (in Spanish): the official list of translators whose translations Spain accepts.
This page sets out the chain and the published rules. It does not tell you which documents your specific procedure requires, and no page can. That is what the responsible consulate’s checklist is for.
Find the office that governs your file in the guide to the consulate responsible for your state, slot the chain into the move timeline alongside your other time-limited documents, and store the finished pack in your document vault.
Common questions
Who apostilles an FBI background check?
The US Department of State, Office of Authentications, because the FBI is a federal agency. Sending it to a state Secretary of State is the most common and most expensive error in the chain.
How much does the FBI Identity History Summary cost?
Eighteen dollars, the same whether you apply by mail or electronically. Fingerprints are required and can be submitted electronically at participating US Post Office locations.
Can I speed up the FBI background check?
The FBI does not prioritise individual requests, but it says electronic submission, at a participating US Post Office or through an FBI-approved channeler, is processed faster than a mailed fingerprint card. It does not say by how much. A channeler charges its own fee on top of the FBI fee of $18.
Should I translate the document before or after the apostille?
After. The sworn translation must cover the apostille as well as the summary, so translating first means paying a sworn translator twice.
Can any translator do the translation for Spain?
No. Spain requires a traductor-interprete jurado sworn by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which publishes the official directory of who holds that appointment.
How much does the State Department charge for an apostille?
Twenty dollars per document, non-refundable, charged even if the document comes back with a correspondence letter instead of an apostille.
How long does the State Department take to apostille a document?
It states five weeks from receipt for requests by mail and seven business days for walk-in requests.
Can I walk in for an apostille?
Yes, in Washington, on weekday mornings Monday to Thursday, one request a day and up to 15 documents per customer or company, paying by card.
What is an FBI-approved channeler?
A private business under contract with the FBI that submits fingerprint-based requests on your behalf. The FBI publishes the approved list for Departmental Order submissions.
Official sources
Sources recorded for this page. Check the linked authority for current requirements; review dates are shown for each source.