Registration of Russian citizenship for a newborn child is a procedure that parents do not even think about mandatory completion until a certain moment. Moreover, many are confident that the mere fact of a baby’s appearance on the territory of the Russian Federation already determines its legal status as a citizen of the state in which it was born. But in practice everything is somewhat different.

Moreover, in some cases, making a child a citizen of the Russian Federation turns out to be much more difficult than one might expect. After all, complications can also arise if the location of one of the parents is not established when preparing the necessary documents and one or both parents do not have the status of a Russian citizen.

However, for each such case in the legislation there is a fairly clear algorithm of actions with which you can cope with any arising circumstances.

And even if the child who needs to obtain citizenship is an orphan or the whereabouts of his parents cannot be established, he will not be left without the legal protection of the state and the newborn will still need to obtain citizenship.

How to prepare for citizenship

Establishing a citizen’s affiliation with a particular state is a procedure for which no strict time frame is defined.

For example, theoretically, a child can do without approval of this status until he reaches the age of fourteen, when the time comes to issue an internal passport for him.

It is necessary to confirm affiliation with a particular state in cases where the child is planned to be taken abroad, as well as when registering maternal family capital. But in general, there are no other circumstances obliging one to obtain citizenship immediately after the birth of a baby at the legislative level.

If you decide at all costs to comply with all the necessary legal formalities in the first months of the baby’s life, it is worth remembering that today confirmation of citizenship is a special stamp that is placed on the back of the main document in your child’s life - the birth certificate .

However, in any case, the first important confirmation of the birth of a future Russian citizen is a certificate of his birth, which is issued by the doctor who delivered the child in the maternity hospital. This document must contain:

  • information about the baby's gender;
  • time of his birth;
  • information about the institution that issued the document;
  • information about the person performing obstetric services;
  • seal of the institution that issued the certificate.

Without any of these points, the document is not considered valid. Moreover, its validity period is 30 days from the date of issue, after which the certificate loses its validity. If the birth took place at home, the document must be issued by a specialist present who has the right to conduct obstetric activities, or by an ambulance team that arrived at the woman in labor on call. It is with this certificate that parents can apply to the registry office to obtain a child’s birth certificate, in which the newborn will be given the last name, first name and patronymic.

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How to obtain Russian citizenship for children

Having received the document in hand, which will be the main justification for obtaining citizenship, parents can contact the migration registration authorities directly to carry out the necessary procedure. In this case you will need:

  1. Identity documents (passports or their equivalents) of both parents (or one, if the second is not identified or it is not possible to establish his whereabouts).
  2. For children born before July 2002 and who have not yet received Russian citizenship, they may also need to fill out a special application and confirm that the parents had the status of Russian citizens at the time the child was born.
  3. For children born after July 1, 2002, a written statement from parents is not required. An oral appeal is sufficient; the entire procedure takes a minimum of time and is carried out during just one visit to the Federal Migration Service.
  4. If a child has the status of an orphan or guardianship has been established over him, but citizenship was not formalized accordingly during the life of his parents, the guardian has the right to apply for the appropriate status for his ward by submitting a written application to the Federal Migration Service.

When completing documents with a written application, you can obtain the required form not only by visiting the migration service department with a personal visit, but also by downloading the required form on the department’s website.

However, the procedure for establishing citizen status will in any case take more time.

The law sets a period of up to 10 working days, and in addition to the birth certificate, you will need to provide documents confirming that one or both parents have Russian citizenship at the time the change in legislation comes into force.

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What is the basis for a newborn to obtain Russian citizenship?

In order for your baby to be able to obtain citizenship of the Russian Federation immediately after his birth, you need to know that he may have such a right both by birth and due to other circumstances. For example, if both parents of a child are citizens of the Russian Federation at the time of his birth, no complications are guaranteed to arise when preparing documents. It will be enough to present the documents specified in the list to the Federal Migration Service to receive the corresponding stamp on the birth certificate.

If at the time of the baby’s birth only one of the parents has citizenship, and the other does not have it for any other country or is completely unknown and it is not possible to establish his whereabouts, there will be no difficulties in obtaining citizenship either. It will be enough to provide the relevant documents. For example, in the event of the death or deprivation of parental rights of one of the parents, you will need to provide documents confirming this fact.

If the child’s parents - foreign citizens or stateless persons on the territory of the Russian Federation - only have permanent registration, they can also obtain Russian citizenship for a newborn, but with some reservations. In particular, the baby must be born on the territory of the Russian Federation, and the country whose citizenship (if any) its parents have, refuses to grant citizenship status to the born child. It is important to note that children found on the territory of the Russian Federation, whose parents have not been identified, also automatically receive Russian citizenship after six months.

How to obtain citizenship for a newborn born to parents, only one of whom has the status of a Russian citizen? In this case, the law requires that, before applying for citizenship status in one of the countries for their child, the parents have executed and notarized an agreement that will secure the consent of both legal representatives of the child to obtain citizenship. A woman’s labor does not always begin exactly in the period of time in which she plans it. And no one is immune from the fact that it is possible to resolve the burden on the territory of another state. What to do in this case with obtaining citizenship? Practice shows that there is nothing complicated here either: you just need to formalize a refusal to assign citizenship at the place of birth in the country where your child was born.