"How to properly register and legalize a newborn child of foreigners in Poland? What are the steps?"
We are increasingly receiving such questions from our clients. Some of them are only planning the birth of a child, while others start worrying after the fact.
Today we will cover the topic of child birth registration and answer the following questions:
- how the medical institution processes the paperwork for the child and what the further process looks like;
- how to correctly register a child's birth depending on whether the parents are married or not;
- what the overall process of birth registration and obtaining a birth certificate looks like.
Registration of a newborn child by foreigners. Parents' obligations and deadlines.
The medical facility where the child was born issues a birth certificate - karta urodzenia.
This document is sent to the Civil Registry Office (Urząd Stanu Cywilnego) at the place of the child's birth. Afterwards, parents must submit an application for the issuance of a birth certificate and the choice of the child's name - zgłoszenie urodzenia dziecka - within 21 days.
This can be done at the local Civil Registry Office (USC) or online via ePUAP.
Please note that if the parents are not married, the father cannot submit the application on his own without prior recognition of paternity. It will also not be possible to do this online.
So what should you do? Let's look at several possible scenarios.
If the parents are not married, two options are available:
- recognition of paternity before the child's birth (uznanie ojcowstwa dziecka poczętego) - thanks to this procedure, parents will be able to submit the zgłoszenie urodzenia dziecka online, or the father can do it on his own at the USC;
- recognition of paternity simultaneously with the birth registration.
In both cases, both parents must be present together at the USC.
Attention! Due to the pandemic, appointments are available by online booking only. In addition, if a foreigner has a poor command of Polish, the presence of a sworn translator is required.
If the parents are married, the process is much simpler.
Either parent can register the child's birth online or at the USC, providing the spouse's details.
The procedure will look exactly the same if the parents are not married but have previously gone through the paternity recognition process.
Remember the need for a sworn translation of the marriage certificate if it was registered outside of Poland.
Interestingly, in Poland it is possible to give a child two names.
Upon successful registration of the child's birth, the USC will start preparing the child's birth certificate, and the child will be assigned a PESEL number.
In case a child is stillborn, the medical facility issues a stillbirth card - karta martwego urodzenia. In this case, parents must register the stillbirth at the USC within 3 days.
If the parents fail to register the child's birth within the specified deadlines (21 days and 3 days), the Urząd Stanu Cywilnego will independently issue a birth or stillbirth certificate based on the documents from the medical facility.
In this case, the child is assigned one of the popular names in Poland, and the parents have 6 months to make changes.
That is pretty much it.
If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask them on our social media.
In our next posts, we will discuss the process of legalizing the child's status in Poland.
We will explain in which cases a newborn child can obtain Polish citizenship, and in which cases a residence permit (karta pobytu) / permanent residence, and how to arrange this properly.
See you soon!
