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How valuable is your time? How bad do you want your visa with the least amount of hassle? Bite the bullet, pay the fees and kick back and enjoy life. FWIW.

Rexriver wrote:

Bite the bullet, pay the fees and kick back and enjoy life.

Easy for Rex to say.

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A visa company telling new arrivals that 'absolutely everything total cost' is X and leaving out potentially expensive (multiple) apostilles .. is somewhere between bait-and-switch and outright falsehood in calculating X.

I paid a few hundred dollars for apostille(s) for myself only in 2014.  However, the pricing at $150 per apostille is reasonable, to say the least, compared to 2014 pricing.

IMO an arriving Expat should negotiate for a discount on apostilles if requiring multiple apostilles .. as the work involved at the North America end does not increase by up to 100 percent per document per applicant when dependent(s) are involved.

cccmedia in Quiito

When I got married in Ecuador, I had to get 2 documents apostilled. I don't remember the documents, or how much I paid, but it was SIGNIFICANTLY less. I had them apostilled by the Pennsylvania State government. This was during the pandemic, so I had to drop them off in a drop-box with the check. I wanted to do it in person (I drove 2 hours to Harrisburg) only to find out the office was closed to the public, otherwise I would have had it done on the spot.

Your time & effort vs money you want to spend is accurate. I chose to have GringoVisas do the apostilles for me, especially when my lawyer in Ecuador handing the marrage arrangements (actually my wife's cousin) scolded me that I should have done it differently, & the possibility existed that the documents wouldn;t be accepted (they were, fortunately). This time I paid the money for the peace of mind.

Damon.

Comparing the cost of obtaining an apostille while in the States to paying for it to be done while in Ecuador .. is apples-to-oranges.

Maybe the attitude of Damon's wife was exaggerated above.  A well-intentioned Expat does not deserve a scolding when attempting to navigate visa waters during a pandemic .. when rules have changed and half of Ecuador's non-essential work force was out of the office.

cccmedia in Quito

cccmedia wrote:

Comparing the cost of obtaining an apostille while in the States to paying for it to be done while in Ecuador .. is apples-to-oranges.

Maybe the attitude of Damon's wife was exaggerated above.

To be fair, it was her cousin the lawyer.

Damon.

I did a little research on the web and had no problem getting documents and getting them apostilled at a very reasonable cost.  I never paid $150 or let alone $900 for an apostille!  Coming from the US, I had to get documents from two states due to moving in the last five years.  It was not a problem or a big cost.  Order early and time things right by knowing how "old" a document can be and it is not difficult. 
A fun fact - in Michigan, it costs $1 to apostille a birth certificate at the license bureau.  If by mail, pay shipping.

The cost of obtaining some apostilles while outside the USA (for USA citizens) can be far more expensive than doing it before relocating to South America.

Although it can be tricky knowing exactlly what documents are needed,.. when I was in the USA years ago and about to embark on the process, I asked my Quito attorney via email to tell me what documents were necessary for the relevant visa.

I did not get all my apostilles before leaving the USA due to timing issues.  In Ecuador, obtaining an inexpensive apostille from the State Department in Washington caused a delay when D.C. didn't process my request timely. 

cccmedia in Quito

This is highway robbery.