Ethiopian Police Clearance Certificate From Abroad

You cannot get an Ethiopian police clearance certificate from your own country alone. The Ethiopian Federal Police issues it in Addis Ababa. If you live abroad, you have two choices. You mail a complete file to them, or you send someone to stand in the queue for you.

This guide covers both routes. It also covers what is truly unknown about the cost and the wait, because two agencies will quote you numbers that nobody official has published.

What the document is called

Ethiopia issues a Certificate of Good Conduct.

Visa offices, employers and universities ask for other names. They say "police clearance certificate", or "PCC", or "criminal record check". For Ethiopia, these all mean the same paper.

One office issues it: the Ethiopian Federal Police, Investigations Sector, Forensic Investigation Department. The address is P.O. Box 80358, Addis Ababa.

Step 1: Get your fingerprints taken where you live

People get this step wrong, and a file that is wrong here comes back.

The Federal Police needs an original set of fingerprints. The police where you live must take them. A scan will not do. A photo of a card will not do. Prints you roll yourself will not do.

Go to the police authority where you live. In most countries that is your local police station. Ask which card they issue, and ask them to sign and stamp it. A card carrying no official mark does not show who took the prints, and that is what the Federal Police is checking.

Step 2: Put the file together

The Government of Canada's instruction sheet for applicants abroad lists six things. That sheet is written for Canadian applications, so check your own requesting office before you post anything.

1. The original fingerprint card from step 1.
2. Copies of the pages of your passport.
3. Two passport-size photos.
4. The letter from the office that asked you for the certificate. The instruction sheet treats this as required. Visa offices issue one; if yours has not, ask for it.
5. If you are not an Ethiopian national: copies of the visas or permits that show your legal residence in Ethiopia. That means your old Ethiopian permit. It does not mean the permit for the country you live in now.
6. The fee.

One warning. The national ID card copy sits on the list for people in Ethiopia. It is not on the list above. The two lists are not the same.

Step 3: Choose how the file reaches Addis Ababa

By post. You mail the file yourself. This route costs the least. It is also the slowest. You cannot see where your file is. If an officer has a question, nobody is there to answer it.

Through a representative. Someone in Ethiopia hands in the file and collects the paper. The Federal Police asks that person to bring proof of legal representation. A relative cannot simply ask on your behalf without it.

What that proof must contain is a legal question. We do not answer it. Ask the office, or ask an Ethiopian advocate. Agar does not give legal advice. We do not draft powers of attorney.

Step 4: Make it work in the country that asked for it

A certificate that stays in Ethiopia is no use to a visa office abroad. It has to be authenticated first. Here people lose the most time and money.

Ethiopia is not a member of the Apostille Convention. There is no Ethiopian apostille. If someone offers you one, they are describing a thing that does not exist.

Ethiopian papers take the older and longer route, called legalization.

We can source one chain: the one for a document going to the United States. The Ethiopian Embassy in Washington says an Ethiopian document must first be legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia. The embassy then authenticates it.

We will not draw a general rule from one example. Ask the office that asked you for the certificate what it needs, and in what order. If you are sending it to the United States, that means asking both that office and the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington.

For the United States, note two things about the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington.

First, it stopped taking documents in person on 2 April 2026. All document authentication now runs through the Digital MoFA system online.

Second, its fee is published. It is USD 59 if you hold an Ethiopian passport or an Ethiopian Origin ID Card. It is USD 90 for everyone else. Pay by money order only. The embassy refuses cash, cards and personal cheques.

What it costs and how long it takes

Here an honest guide has to stop short.

The Ethiopian Federal Police does not publish a fee for this certificate. It does not publish a processing time either. Agency websites quote both. They quote them with confidence, and they do not agree with each other.

We will not repeat a number we cannot trace to the office that charges it.

Ask the Forensic Investigation Department for the fee and the wait when you hand in the file. Write down what they tell you. Do not book a flight on a figure from a website. Do not promise an employer a date on one either. That includes ours.

What Agar does here

Document procurement (standard certificate): USD 89.

Our timeline (7 business days) covers our own steps only: from the day your documents reach us to the day we hand in a complete file. The office's own processing time is not published and is not part of it.

Proof on closing: scanned official receipt, scan of the document, geotagged pickup photo.

"Service fee refunded if SLA missed for causes within Agar's control."

We do not promise to make the Federal Police faster. Nobody can. Anyone who says otherwise is selling you something else.

What we sell is the queue, the paperwork and the proof. Someone goes in person. They hand in a complete file. You get a record of what happened, with receipts.

This work sits in our document service. Every fee we charge is on the pricing page. There is no quote to ask for.

Sources

• Government of Canada, IRCC, How to get a police certificate: Ethiopia. Issuing office, address, rules for applicants living outside Ethiopia, and the representative rule. Checked 18 September 2026.
• HCCH, Status table, Convention of 5 October 1961 (Apostille). Ethiopia does not appear among the contracting parties. Checked 18 September 2026.
• Embassy of Ethiopia, Washington DC, Authentication and Legalization. Digital MoFA online only from 2 April 2026. Checked 18 September 2026.
• Embassy of Ethiopia, Washington DC, Documents Authenticating Service Details. The USD 59 and USD 90 fees, money order only. Checked 18 September 2026.

Note: these last two official pages disagree. One says document authentication is online only; the other still describes mailing a money order. Both were checked on the same day. Ask the embassy which applies before you send anything.