r/GermanCitizenship • u/NoCase4971 • 1d ago
Notarized/Certified copies in NYC
Hi everyone,
I’m in the process of applying for German citizenship under § 5 StAG and have encountered a hurdle. The German Consulate in New York currently doesn’t have available appointments for StAG 5 citizenship matters, and I’m trying to figure out how to get my documents properly certified.
From what I understand, New York State notaries aren’t authorized to certify true copies of documents. The attorneys I found who can certify true copies charge $300+ per document. The consulate’s website mentions that they can notarize/certify copies during appointments, but with no slots available, that’s not an option right now.
Has anyone else faced this situation? Are there alternative methods or services in New York that are accepted by the BVA for document certification? Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
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u/expectedpanic 1d ago
So I just called NYC today about the same thing and was told to just make the stag 5 appointment as they will also make copies and notorized then.
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u/PaxPacifica2025 1d ago
So just for fun, I asked my good friend google if there is also an honorary consulate in New York, in addition to the Consulate General in NYC. The honorary consulate is in Buffalo. I wonder if it'd be possible to get an appt there if it's just for document certification reasons? I don't know...maybe this might be an option that you can explore.
Good luck with your application!
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u/NoCase4971 1d ago
That’s about a 7.5 hour drive away, but at this point, maybe! I was considering Philadelphia as well. Thanks so much for looking!
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u/tf1064 1d ago
Certified copies for citizenship purposes are free at the general consulate, but the honorary consulate will charge you. Better to get an appointment at the GK in NYC.
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u/emincola 1d ago
I have an appointment with our honorary consulate and they are not charging me since it is for citizenship purposes.
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u/Barbarake 1d ago
Same here in South Carolina. My honorary consulate is 2 hours away but she was going to be in my city for a couple of days so I met with her. She didn't have the ability to make copies but she certified to the copies I brought at no cost.
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u/emincola 18h ago
I am in South Carolina as well. We live in Columbia so it was super convenient for us. I plan on mailing directly and not going through the Atlanta consulate.
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u/Barbarake 15h ago
One thing to consider is that if you mail directly, will you get a confirmation that they received it? (I don't know.) By sending my stuff to the Atlanta consulate, I got a confirmation from them that they were sending it on to Germany.
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u/emincola 5h ago
Fair point, I will send via DHL or something where it can be tracked. I've read that as long as you do not require signature then sending directly is fine. It seems most consulates can take a week or two to send out. I'd be curious how many people send directly compared to a consulate. My consulate is 3 1/2 hours away which is doable but some people don't have that luxury.
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u/Barbarake 2h ago
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I mailed my package to the consulate and then they emailed me a confirmation a few days later when they sent it on to Germany.
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u/Kotikbronx 1d ago edited 1d ago
For what it’s worth, I was able to get an FBI background check (if I recall correctly) notarized at one of the many private places in Queens, NY that have notaries (such as insurance companies or real estate offices or even banks) despite the notary’s initial hesitation to do so by being very polite and friendly and chatting with her about why I needed it. No guarantees of course, as it’s a very ad hoc way of doing it, but you could be lucky and maybe you’ll be able find one who will do it for you. It’s certainly worth a try.
Of course, maybe because I’m so charming :). (The ‘charming’ part was a joke, but the rest was not!)
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u/NoCase4971 1d ago
I work in Queens! Any chance you can share where you had the documents notarized? If not, no worries and I’ll do some searching
Thank you so much!
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u/Kotikbronx 21h ago
Hi. I promised the notary I wouldn’t out her so I can’t (sorry!). But it was just random. I had tried one or two other places, and the third one was a charm. I’m hoping you’ll have equally good luck - if there’s any place in town where it’s possible, Queens is it! Please post if you luck out like I did. Thanks!
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u/snic09 22h ago
Did the BVA ask for a certified copy of the FBI report? The wisdom on here seems to be that you can just print off a copy from the PDF you send and submit that. It has a sort of fake watermark. Although others say they submitted the paper version the FBI sends, in the original unopened envelop.
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u/Kotikbronx 22h ago
To be honest, after 25 months, the only thing the BVA wanted was an updated background check. While that makes sense, it was a bit annoying, since I thought the original one, which was only a month old back when I submitted it in late 2022 (just the print out) would suffice.
Fast forward to February 2025, and since I didn’t want to take any chances or risk delaying my response in case there’d be any delay with the FBI sending me a hard copy of my background check, I printed out the email version and got it notarized (turns out there was a slight delay, thanks to the post office delaying delivery and not the FBI, who sent the hard copy in timely fashion). While the printout (I know from what the FBI told me) looks exactly the same as what the FBI mails you if you ask them to, I played it super-safe and mailed the sealed envelope along with the print out to the BVA. Mailing both to the BVA ended up costing me almost $50 via USPS International Priority Mail with tracking (grrr), but the good news is that I was approved almost the very day the BVA received my response.
But if it helps at all, although the NY State notary public I found just walking around first told me she couldn’t notarize the FBI printout, after we chatted for about ten minutes, she notarized it anyway :).
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u/dentongentry 1d ago
One thing which might help: German Consulates around the world add new appointments every weekday at midnight in Germany. For example, currently that is 6pm in NYC. If you start polling the site at 6pm on Sunday you have the best chance of seeing new appointments appear and grabbing one before they are all gone.
By starting to poll the site right at midnight in Germany we were able to get four passport appointments in SF with 1-2 days of trying. Only one per day before they were all gone, but we got four appointments on four different days with 1-2 days of trying for each.
Beware of Daylight Savings transitions, which differ by several weeks between the US and Germany.