My husband and I along with our 4 children and 2 grandparents are moving forward with the Portugal GV. Seven of us require FBI background checks. While monument visa gets rave reviews, I would like to be able to get these FBI background checks apostille from the State department more cheaply by doing it myself. Has anyone successfully filled out form ds 4194? I would like to see an example as they repeatedly state that any form that is not filled out correctly will be rejected.
As a point of information for anyone currently doing this, you can go to the FBI website and request the background check ($18) and then mail in fingerprints ($0) or have them taken digitally at the Post Office ($50). I tried this first and the post office near me that does this never had staff to take the prints. It was much easier for me to do it by starting with an approved channeler. I used nationalbackgroundchecks.com and they charge $50 for the background check and $20 to capture your fingerprints digitally. The fingerprint capture was easy and on a walk-in basis with many locations at UPS and PakMail stores.
I’ve successfully obtained the Apostille with the US State Department on my own (twice!). It was pretty easy to fill out the form except that their fillable pdf form is kind of clunky. Think it took about 4-6 weeks to receive it. Happy to send a copy if you can message me.
Note that the State Department will only Apostille an official FBI background check (and this is what you’ll want for your application). A background check by another entity isn’t going to help you. I’ve done mine through the one and only Post Office in all of San Diego County that does it. It’s definitely the way to go if you can do it as you get the results almost instantaneously.
I did this myself as well and concur with Calpoidog’s sentiments/comments above. It’s weird how it filled in all of the rows with the same Document Type even though I was only sending a single document. I shipped mine out on 11/30 and had them back by 12/14. I did not retain a copy of how i filled out the form.
I did it myself too three times and it was pretty quick. I had the same issues as the other two before me. Just ignore. It takes a few weeks to get into their system and then had back within a week. I had them send it back via priority mail and set it up to text when it mailed. I have copies of the forms, but cannot share as it has personal information.
I just had biometrics, and need to get my FBI background check apostilled. On initial submission, I paid a company to handle the apostilling of multiple documents; this time I’d like to send the FBI doc to the State Department on my own.
The FBI background check arrived to me in a sealed envelope from NationalBackgroundCheck.com. Should I open the envelope before sending it to the State Department, or keep it sealed?
I’ve done it on my own a couple of times. You can open the envelope. I’ve utilized the US Postal service each time for FBI background check and I am emailed the results and just print that off and send to State Dept.
No notarization by state necessary (and since its a Federal document, don’t know how they could do it anyway). Country of use is Portugal.
You don’t need both. State issued documents need a state apostille and federal issued ones need a federal apostille. But I don’t recall any state ones being necessary for the GV.