When sending documents from the United States to the Panama Consulate for authentication, please consider the following:

1. Panama maintains 8 Consulate offices in the United States.

2. ⁠All of the Panama Consulate offices charge $30 per document to be authenticated.

3. ⁠Any of the Panama Consulates will generally be able to authenticate Federal documents such as an FBI report, or a Social Security benefit verification letter.

4. ⁠State-issued documents such as a marriage certificate or a birth certificate should generally be sent for authentication to the Panama Consulate office that covers the particular state (according to the map below).

5. ⁠⁠If a document requires notarization for example, an affidavit, then the notarization should be done in a state that lies within the area covered by the particular Panama Consulate office (according to the map).

6. ⁠The Panama Consulate in Washington, DC is often referred to as a “one-stop shop”, because they can generally authenticate documents from all 50 states (and US territories), so long as the state-issued documents are accompanied by Federal documents.

7. ⁠⁠The other Panama Consulates may process authentications more quickly than the office in Washington, DC. If you aren’t dealing with state-issued docs from different regions, then consider working with the Panama Consulate office that covers the particular state (according to the map). ⁠

8. ⁠Some policies and preferences may vary a bit from one Panama Consulate office to another.

For example, some Consulate offices may require that a document be notarized, and another may not. Or some Consulate offices may require that you obtain a recently issued certified copy of a document (such as a birth certificate), even if a freshly issued copy is not specifically required in Panama.

Ask your attorney for guidance based on other clients’ recent experience. And you can also contact the Panama Consulate directly if you have any doubts.