One office issues it and stamps it
A criminal record check is a sheet from the national register showing what, if anything, is held against your name. The register desk sits inside the prosecutor's office at the court, so you ask there and you collect there. This page shows how you get an apostille on a criminal record check taken from that register, and what a reader abroad will look for.
That shared address keeps the road short. The sheet is a judicial paper, so the same Procura della Repubblica that printed it can add the apostille. An apostille is a page the state attaches to say a signature and seal are genuine. Ask at the window whether both jobs can be handled in one visit, and take your ID either way.
The right desk, and the right town
You apostille a criminal record check in Italy at the Procura della Repubblica, since the courts run the register. Papers born in a town hall or another state body belong somewhere else: those go to the Prefettura, the Prefecture, which deals with administrative files. Turning up at the wrong one of the two is the classic wasted morning.
You can apostille a criminal record check in Messina when the sheet was printed by the office here and carries its seal. Say at the counter that the paper is bound for another country, so the clerk knows what to add. Where you collected the sheet in another town, the court there holds the matching sample signature.
Order it late, not early
This sheet is a snapshot of one day. Employers, consulates and licence bodies know as much, so most of them set a window and turn away anything older. Ask what window your reader works to before you order. Then run the sheet, the duty stamp and any turned copy as one job, instead of ordering the sheet well ahead of the rest.
Bring more than you think you need to the window. Photo ID, your tax number, and your date and place of birth in the exact form your passport uses. People born outside Italy are asked for more detail, and a small gap sends you home for it. A wasted trip here costs you a day you may not have.
What the route costs
The apostille cost for a criminal record check in Messina begins with the marca da bollo, a duty stamp of €16 per document, and some cases are exempt from it. The register office may also charge for printing the sheet. Name the use at the window, ask what is owed on your file, and keep the receipts with your copy.
Who asks for it
The request nearly always comes from abroad: an employer running checks, a visa or residence desk, an adoption authority, a body licensing care or teaching work, or a citizenship office. Several of them want a second paper about charges still open. Read their list closely, and put any unclear line back to them in writing before you order.
Older forms call for the legalisation of a criminal record check in Messina. That phrase belongs to the consular chain used before the Hague scheme took over. Among the member states one apostille answers it, and no consulate stamp is added afterwards. Many readers also want the sheet put into their own language, so ask which language that is.