Birth registration abroad for foreign parents

Every foreign birth has two offices. The country where the child was born records that the birth happened. Your country records that the child is yours and issues a passport.

The local document has different names: certidão in Brazil, Geburtsurkunde in Germany and Austria, a Civil Registry certificate in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, or Chile, a district-office certificate in Thailand, a justice-department certificate in Vietnam. The order is always hospital papers first, then that office.

The embassy will ask for that local certificate, both parents’ passports, and often a marriage certificate. Some want translations and an apostille. Some want both parents present. The deadline is real. A newborn without a passport cannot leave.

Names must match across every document. A hyphen, a missing middle name, or a transliteration from Thai or Arabic is how a true file gets rejected. Fix the spelling before the certificate is printed if you still can.

We keep the list and the appointments. The registrar and the consul do the legal acts. If the parents are not married, say so at the start. Several countries treat that as a different form, not a detail.