Registering overseas births

[femmeaufoyer]

I live in France, DC2 is due December. We will be here for another 2 years and then will return to the UK. I will obviously register the birth here in France but do I also need to register the birth with the UK? How do I do this? Also, we are planning a trip back to the UK in May, will I need to get a French or UK passport for the baby? Confused.....!

no there is no need to register the birth with a British Consulate in France, unless you are working for UK government / Armed Forces and want your children to pass on British citizenship in the same way as if your child is born in the UK, in which case I would hope you would know this already.

Your child might or might not be a British citizen, it depends on whether you or dad is and how you obtained British citizenship. Similarly your child will be French only if they qualify, again as I don't know your personal circumstances, I couldn't comment (well I only know British nationality law anyway, French nationality law I'd look up on google).

Your children will need a national passport or ID card to travel to the UK, don't try and chance it on a birth certificate as 99.9% certainty you will not manage to travel.

PS EU national ID card!

Sorry, I should have said, both me and father are British.

In hong kong you can register the birth at the British embassy and get a British style birth certificate but it's not mandatory. I just did it in case Hk ends up getting fully reabsorbed into china and ceases to be recognised as an independent state- could make getting a replacement bc tricky. Unlikely to happen to France though!!

I think what natation wants to say is that you can pass on british citizenship if you are a citizen otherwise by descent. ie if you or the father are either citizen by birth or naturalised, then your children will be citizens themselves. If you gain citizenship because one of your parents is british, but you were born overseas, then no, you can't pass it on.

And does your child have a British or Chinese passport?

Femmeaufoyer, how you and dad are British citizens will matter for whether your children born in France is a British citizen, it is not automatic that all British citizens who have children born abroad will have British citizenship automatically, but if they don't get it at birth, then they can register for it once you live long enough in the UK as a family later.

British Armed Forces children and diplomat / special ID children of British citizens born abroad are treated differently for passing on citizenship to their children, but they need the proof of status of their parents living abroad, so registering their births with the British Consulates abroad is very very important. Other than this category, I can think of no other reason for needing to do it - perhaps because you want a proof of birth in English? The certificate you pay lots of ££££ for looks virtually identical to a British birth certificate but it's not quite the same thing - you can find examples of them on the internet. It makes no difference whatsoever to the issuing of a British passport and shouldn't hurry the process up. Do be aware that the number of passport issuing centres for British passports around the world has shrunk dramatically in the last 5 years (thanks Blair/Brown/Cameron) and the production of passports has been transferred to UK now I believe and passports are returned abroad by diplomatic bag, meaning it lengthens first passport issues abroad.

natation NZ still issue british passports unless it's been changed last year. The ILs ones said they were issued in Wellington.

Passports "issued" in New Zealand are produced in the UK, see here, the changes are recent and the plan has been in production over the last few years, first reducing the number of issuing posts, then transferring the production to the UK. It is directly to do with MONEY .

ukinnewzealand.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-british-nationals/passports/

I actually don't know what is put in the "issuing" box now, must go and look as we bought one of these UK issued but passed back through an overseas regional centre in the last 12 months. I bet it's just now marked as "IPS" for IDENTITY and PASSPORT SERVICE, not very useful for other world Immigration Services when trying to identify fraudulently issued documents and misuse, about as useful as the Nigerian passports which have digits for their issuing offices instead of place names!

Ah, didn't know issued doesn't equal to 'made in'. I'm fairly certain it says issued in Wellington.

Yeh you might have been one of the last of the genuine issued in that office customers. Just checked our last passport issued through Paris regional centre in December 2011 is indeed marked "IPS" and I know it was actually made in the UK and sent back to Paris. Older Paris issued and produced passports contain "FCO" rather than Paris, so at least show it is issued abroad, whereas the newly issued passports from the UK I believe now all contain "IPS" with no reference to where the passport centre in the UK they are actually issued through. Any IPS employees out there able to confirm?

We had DD in Germany and the whole process here was a bit of a faff...

Once we'd worked out what we had to do and in what order it was OK.

We had to register her birth locally and get a german birth certificate
we could then register her at the british consulate
we could then arrange for her UK passport.

Both DH and I are british citizens but I was born overseas (uk forces) and my birth certificate wasn't enough to register her we needed DHs FULL/LONG birth cetificate not the short one (another complicating matter)

If you go here - ukinfrance.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-british-nationals/living-in-france/consularbirthregistration it tells you what you need to do.

Good luck!

Getting more confused! I've checked the relevant websites and it seems that there is no obligation to register the birth with the British consulate, the baby will automatically be British as we are both British by birth and I won't need to have a registration document to apply for a UK passport. I can get a registration document as notation says for £££ which means that the birth will be noted on all the British birth registeries. But this is not a birth certificate, that will be the French one. It looks like a right faff to get the UK passport though! Complicated paperwork and supporting documentation, which may well be in storage back in the UK!! Oh joy......

Yes femmeayfoyer, there is no obligation to register the birth of a child of a British citizen and in most cases it is of no consequence and no need for proving British citizenship. IF you're British by birth and not descent or naturalisation, then your child born in France will be British by descent and will not pass on British nationality unless he/she has a child born in the UK or who moves to the UK. Exceptions are diplomats/special ID/Armed Forces who are treated as if they are giving birth in the UK - this certificate of registration with a British Consulate shows the status of parents at time of birth so "British by birth" and not descent can continue.

RichManPoorManBeggarmanThief has a good reason for registering - in order to provide a 2nd means of proof of birth for someone in HKG in case China one day decide not to issue copies of that birth.

Doradoo has a complicated reason for needing to do the registration, connected with Armed Forces if I understand correctly.

For the vast majority of cases, you gain nothing from registering the birth at the nearest British consulate. Nationality is NOT the result of this piece of paper. You are correct, the French birth certificate is your means of proving place of birth, not the British Consulate document.

Getting a British passport is not a faff at all really, really it isn't, no more abroad than in the UK. All UK passports are now issued by IPS, no longer FCO. There are upsides and downsides to both the old system and new. It just might take a bit longer from abroad and definitely costs a lot more. Most of our passports are bought in the UK on "visits"! Hubby's latest one couldn't be due to time constraints so it came via Paris via somewhere else in the UK. First passport issues always take longer, renewals should be straightforward - saying that we had 1 turned down for renewal because suddenly someone wanted to see proof of marital status which had already been proved on first issue, stupid person had to be reminded of that!!!! AAAAArrrgh. It was frustrating, given our actual jobs abroad. Also got turned down for a British ID card (shortlived exercise) because high ranking UK civil servant who had countersigned the photo was turned down as a reputable countersignatory which she was rather !!!!!!!!! about given her status, bloody lost our money over that along with 1000ssss of other British citizens, as Cameron halted the issues and IPS swallowed up ££££££ of British citizens' monies in refusing to refund application fees. Rant over.

No - we're not connected anymore - my DF was in the army and I was born overseas when he was in the military.

We decided to register at the consulate just so DD has some form of british birth certificate - and to facilitate other things such as getting passport / NI numers / education etc later on in life - we're already having problems because of 'foreign docs' which cost a lot to be translated when required so felt that one off fee should make things a bit easier (- though not for premium bonds it hasn't but that's a whole other thread in itself)

After digging through the paperwork we have brought it would seem that we don't have a full birth certificate for either myself or my DH. I suppose I need to get copies from the records office in the UK.

At least I've got 4 months before the baby comes, and 9 months before we need a passport for him/ her to travel back on the UK. It could take that long!!

Thanks for all the advice, it's a particularly useful tip to get renewals done whilst back in the UK visiting....will definitely do that for me, DH and DD when they need renewing.

Femmeaufoyer, you have British passports yes? You have place of birth as the UK yes? So why do you need a full birth certificate? I never needed a full birth certificate for either my passport of my children's passports.

A consular certificate - it's NOT a birth certificate - neither facilitates the issue of a British passport or the issue of a British NI number. Anyone with legal residence in the UK, with permission to work in their passport for non EU nationals, is entitled to an NI number, they do not provide birth certificates, only passports and proof of residency in the UK.

You can pay for a certified translation of a foreign birth certificate into English, it would normally cost less than a consular certificate of registration of birth outside the UK.

Great! Just checked the IPS website, and I has misread it...I thought you needed to supply the parents passports and birth certificates...but having looked again it does say "one of the following" ....that's easier!

No, it's not that simple! On the FCO website, it says that I need to supply parents passports and the mother or fathers full birth certificate....so conflicting information...great!

I never supplied a full birth certificate to apply for a British passport for our children, I never even had one! I'm going to take a look now at what it says on the IPS website.

Oh well if you get a jobsworth and really need a full birth certificate, don't fall for the "scam" sites which apply on your behalf for a copy of your birth certificate and charge you for it. There is a small charge only. I eventually applied for a copy of my full certificate a few years ago, as I didn't and still don't have confidence in who my father is! Well it took me a while to find the official website.

Here is I think the official website, just £9.25, much easier to find it now!
www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/default.asp

Oh look, same service...... for £25 ..... I bet they just use the official website, pocket the extra £15.75 profit. This website appears before the official one on google, that's how they con people.

www.uk-document-services.co.uk/certificate/birth

Thanks Natation...it's a minefield. I ended up here from the IPS website:

ukinfrance.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-british-nationals/passports/what-passport/children-under-16/apply-child-passport

From the website:
What supporting documents do I need?
You should submit the following documentation (only original documents ? laminated documents and photocopies are not acceptable except where specified) to apply for your first UK passport.

IMPORTANT: As well as the documents listed here, please check the How to apply page for your country to see if there are any additional documents required locally.

The supporting documentation you provide is very important for first time applications and varies depending on when you were born.

If the child was : Born outside the UK
You must include:

The child's travel document (if applicable); AND
The child's original registration certificate from the Home Office; OR
The child's original consular birth certificate; OR
The child?s full foreign birth certificate and the mother?s original UK long version birth certificate or original naturalisation/registration certificate; or the father?s original UK long version birth certificate or original naturalisation/registration certificate, and if the father only was a British Citizen at the time of the birth of the child?s birth and not the mother and the child was born before 1 July 2006 the parents? marriage certificate must be provided ? if the child was born after 30 June 2006 the father?s details must appear on the child?s birth certificate; AND
Original Deed Poll/Statutory Declaration if the child?s name has been changed since birth, together with 3 original forms of identification in the child?s new name; AND
Copy of parents' passports.

Am I reading it right?? I do need a full birth certificate for me or DH??

DH is annoyed I'm getting in a flap about it when it's not relevant for 9 months. It's the pregnany hormones...I need to know what I have to do now!!!!