What is the new process for getting a police clearance from your home country?

Seems like a whole system of certifying and recertifying the same document, but I can't seem to get a clear line on it.

Anyone been through this recently?

For clarity, i already have the police clearance.. Just trying to get the Chinese authorities to accept it.

The police clearance must be less than 6 months old. I believe they also need to be 'Authenticated' , along with all of your other certificates, back home. I am not sure what the process for authentication is, you could Google it. As the process was yet a further pain in the bum and would prove costly to do everything again, and I only have 2 working years left before I am too old, I decided to just retire instead.

Normally the Chinese consulate's website fr your specific home country contain information related to legalizing documents to be used in China.

In short, local (city level) notarized document must be legalized first in Foreign Ministry of your country, and then in the foreign consulate for the country where you want to use it.

I did this in Texas 2017 November.

1. Local police history check from previous residence city, signed by police. They needed to know my date of birth and Social Security number. As it happens I committed no crime there :)
2. That document (signature) was notarized and signed locally.
3. Took to Secretary of State, Austin TX. They prepare "Apostile' which means they recognize the above notary.
4. Two pages are stapled together and must remain so.
5. Took above to Chinese Consulate in Houston. They put a certificate and seal on the Apostile page. There is also a form to fill out. At extra cost they did same-day service but such may not be available everywhere&always.
6. These two pages are what Chinese officials here want to see.

If your US state of (prior) residence does not have consulate, I suppose you'd go to the closest one.

I could only do this by returning to US, but others might find a way to avoid that.

That is what I have been told.. I was hoping to find a way to do this without having to fly to New Zealand to have the Chinese embassy there stamp the document.

Don't know if NZ = US in this regard. Have you contacted that Embassy and explained your situation?

@Schaefer: "They prepare "Apostile' which means they recognize the above notary."

A word about apostille.

Apostille is a document limited to "Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents".

China is not part of this convention.

Chinese authorities are therefore not allowed to accept documents that are verified only by apostille.

In case of true apostille, you can get it in your come country by local authority, and then use that document directly in any foreign country which is part of the Hague convention (which China is not).

This is why foreign documents to be used in China need to be legalized by Chinese consulate abroad, in the country where the documents originate from.

I don't know if @Schaefer was using wrong term or if the terminology in USA is just generally "off", but the stamp from Secretary of State should have been a normal legalization stamp - not apostille.

For me, Texas Apostile (that's what they call it) was a necessary step before getting Houston Chinese Consulate to provide their documentation and seal.

Only described procedure I followed, which may not apply in NZ or other countries. But which may be of value for US readers drawn to this thread title.

It seems not germane to this discussion whether or not I am 'off'.

Whether I or USA are 'off'.
:)

!

Only speculation that US expats outnumber Kiwis here. But we'll all soldier on, and benefit from information called for by the first post. If we can keep this friendly, other posters might feel unafraid to add their experiences.