Frequently Asked Questions About Birth Certificates

The apostille is often required on UK birth certificates. We hope the following FAQs are helpful, but please contact us if you need any assistance.

Birth Certificate Questions

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office will only legalise either original or official registrar copy birth certificates with the apostille stamp. They will not accept any form of scanned or photocopy documentation as they must receive the certificates with the original registrar’s signature on it, or the original Registrar Office’s embossing seal.

When legalising a UK issued birth certificate we recommend having the apostille issued on the long version. The long version certificate is the document that contains the parent’s names and is generally requested by most overseas authorities rather than the short version. However, this is ultimately your preference and we are able to legalise either the long or short version of the certificate.

If you do not have an original or official registrar copy birth certificate then we can certainly assist you in obtaining official replacements. This is one of the many areas in which we specialise in. Alternatively you are able to obtain the relevant replacement documents from the General Registry Office at the following website: -

To legalise a UK issued birth certificate requires you to send the original certificate to our office address. Please do not send a photocopy; we can only accept the original document or an official replacement document issued by the UK registry. Once the original certificate or official registrar copy is received we can then issue the Apostille stamp. You can order online or simply post your document to us with your contact details.

We can certainly assist in legalising a birth certificate issued within Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland birth certificates are legalised in England by the FCO. Therefore the process for these documents is ultimately the same as any England, Wales or Scotland issued birth certificates.