Spain - Obtain a Copy of Birth Certificate

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Procedure

Postal application.

If you wish to request and receive, when appropriate, a birth certificate by ordinary post, you may send the form or a letter to the Civil Register, clearly indicating the name and postal address to which the certificate is to be sent, including the following data in the request:

• Name, surnames, date and location of birth of the individual for whom the certificate is requested.

Next, indicate the type of certificate you would like to receive:

• Literal
• Extract:
  • Ordinary or bilingual
  • Multilingual
• Negative

You should provide a contact telephone number in case there is any information that needs to be clarified.

Without digital certificate.

Civil Register certificate requests may be made online for registrations held at the computerised Civil Registers indicated in the drop-down list, to which the Civil Registers that are successively incorporated in this computerisation process will be added shortly.

The certificate that has been requested in this way will be preferentially delivered by ordinary mail to the home address specified in the application. Nonetheless, the interested party may collect it in person, as long as this has been expressly specified in the application.

To carry out this procedure via internet you must go to Electronic headquarters of the Ministry of Justice

With digital certificate

Civil Register certificate requests may be made online for registrations held at the computerised Civil Registers indicated in the drop-down list, to which the Civil Registers that are successively incorporated in this computerisation process will be added shortly.

To carry out this procedure via internet you must go to this link

Application in person

In person at the Civil Register in which the birth was registered, with the form available on this website, duly completed.

Documents to be presented:

• National Identification Card (D.N.I.) of the person requesting the certificate and
• Indication of the name and surnames and the date and location of birth of the individual for whom the certificate is requested.

Ways of receiving the certificate:

Any of the birth certificates described above may be collected at the corresponding Civil Register window.

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Required Documents

• National Identification Card (D.N.I.) of the person requesting the certificate and
• Indication of the name and surnames and the date and location of birth of the individual for whom the certificate is requested.

Office Locations & Contacts

Civil Registry Offices

Eligibility

There are two types of certificate:

• short/abridged (un extracto de inscripcin de nacimiento or certificado simple): contains the date of birth, the names of the child and parents and the inscription number
• full birth certificates (un certificado literal de nacimiento): full certificates may be needed for registration with a consulate for a baby born to foreign nationals resident in Spain

Fees

Explain the fees structure which is required for obtaining the certificate/document.

Validity

Explain the time until which the certificate/document is valid.
e.g. Birth Certificate Valid Forever

Documents to Use

Birth Certificate Application Form (PDF. 431 KB)

Sample Documents

Instruction dated 20 March 2002, from the Department of Registers and Notaries, on the receipt and dispatch of certificate requests at the Civil Registers by electronic means (PDF. 26 KB)

Article 20 of the Civil Register Act, dated 8 June 1957 (BOE - Official State Gazette - 10/07/57) (PDF. 169 KB)

Articles 71-75 and 165-170 of the Civil Register Regulations, dated 14 November 1958 (BOE 21/01/59) (PDF. 257 KB)

Processing Time

How long you have to wait to receive the certificate depends on *how you have chosen to receive it. If you have chosen to receive the certificate by post, the period between the request and reception of the certificate is approximately 15 days.

• When applicants choose to retrieve the certifications in person, the Civil Registry Office will notify the date from which they may do so.
• This period will be interrupted when the Civil Register requires additional or clarified information on the application, until they have been provided by the requester, and likewise, when technical difficulties make it impossible to receive the requests properly.
• In the case of certificate requests with a digital stamp from the Department of Registers and Notaries, the digital birth certificate will be issued immediately.

Related Videos

Videos explaining the procedure or to fill the applications. 
Attach videos using the following tag <&video type="website">video ID|width|height<&/video&> from external websites.
Please remove the "&" inside the tags during implementation.
Website = allocine, blip, dailymotion, facebook, gametrailers, googlevideo, html5, metacafe, myspace, revver, 
sevenload, viddler, vimeo, youku, youtube
width = 560, height = 340, Video ID = Can be obtained from the URL of webpage where the video is displayed.
e.g In the following url "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0US7oR_t3M" Video ID is "Y0US7oR_t3M". 
	

Instructions

To carry out this procedure via internet you must go to Electronic headquarters of the Ministry of Justice

• Legitimate interest to receive information on the entries in the Civil Registers or Consular Registers is presumed to be held by the individual who requests the certificate. However, no information will be provided in the following cases without special authorisation:
  • Adoption (except for entries made pursuant to the Department of Registers and Notaries Instruction dated 15 February 1999) or unknown kinship, or details that reveal said circumstances, and the change of a Foundling surname or other similar or inappropriate ones.
  • Sex change: Authorisation in these cases is granted by the Judge responsible, and only to those who certify legitimate interest and a well-founded reason for requesting it. The certificate indicates the name of the individual making the request, the reasons for issuing it and the express authorisation of the Registrar or Acting Registrar, who will personally issue the certificate from the Register directly under his or her control.
  • Surname changes authorised in cases of gender violence, or necessitated by the urgency of the situation.

In the case of wanting to apply for their own birth certificate and get it when you can do if you have a digital certificate to uniquely identify, Birth Certificate (personal)

• Certificates with a digital stamp from the Department of Registers and Notaries can only be requested by owners of the data identified using an electronic National Identification Card or another form of advanced electronic signature accepted by the Public Administrations. This register data refers to the digitised or computerised birth records entered since 1950.

Under no circumstances can register data relating to other people be obtained via this procedure.

Required Information

• Place and date of child's birth (often times they provide the exact time of birth)
• Full name, profession and place of birth of the child's father
• Full name and place of birth of the child's mother
• Full name and place of birth of the child's maternal and paternal grandparents

Need for the Document

The birth certificate is the document issued by the Registrar or acting Registrar of the corresponding Civil Register or Consular Register, which certifies the birth, the date it occurred, as well as the sex and, when appropriate, the time of the birth and the relationship of the registered individual.

Digital birth certificates can also be issued with a digital stamp from the Department of Registers and Notaries based on the data found in the central database of people registered in the Civil Registers

Information which might help

Several types of birth certificate may be requested. Certificates may be positive or negative:

• Positive Certificate:
  • Extract: This is a summary of the information related to the birth, as it appears in the Civil Register. There are different versions:
    • Ordinary: It is issued in Spanish in the autonomous communities in which the only official language is Spanish.
    • International or multilingual: This version is valid in the countries that have ratified the Vienna Convention of 8 September 1976. This certificate is issued in the official language of each of the signatory countries of that convention (Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey, Serbia-Montenegro).
    • Bilingual: Whenever an extract certificate is requested

Other uses of the Document/Certificate

Please explain what are other uses of obtaining this document/certificate.
e.g. Birth Certificate can be used as proof of identity.

External Links

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Others

More information which might help people.