Registration of birth in the Population Register System

Births of Finnish citizens outside Finland must be notified to the Digital and Population Data Agency(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window). You can also submit the notification at a Finnish embassy or send it there to be posted to the Local Register Office for registration.

Birth certificates issued by an EU country are accepted without requiring that a so-called apostille(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) be attached to the document.

In other countries the original birth certificate or a copy of it, authenticated at a mission of Finland, must be appended to the notification. The document must be legalised(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) and, if it has been issued in some other language than Finnish, Swedish or English, an authorised translation in one of these languages must be provided. Translations made abroad must be legalised. Translations made by an authorised translator in Finland are valid as such.

An Apostille stamp is not required for a birth certificate, which is issued by an EU country authority and a translation of the certificate is not needed if a multilingual standard form is appended to the document.

A Finnish citizen born in China may be registered directly to the Local Register Office in Finland or via a Finnish mission abroad. Registration is free of charge and takes 6 weeks. The following documents are required:

  1. English language Birth Certificate issued by the hospital shall be notarized at a Chinese notary office. Contact information of notary offices in China: www.chinanotary.org/(Link to another website.) (in Chinese).
  2. After that, the notarized document shall be legalized:
    In Beijing's jurisdiction: At the Foreign Ministry of China
    Contact information: Legalization Division of the Consular Section of Ministry of the Foreign Affairs, 7th floor, South Tower, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, No. 2 Road, Chaoyangmen, Beijing. Tel. +86-010-65889761
    In Shanghai's jurisdiction: Local Foreign Affairs Office, FAO
    Contact information: Shanghai Municipality Foreign Affairs Office (FAO), Authentication Office, Equatorial Hotel Office Building, Hua Shan Road No. 228, 2nd floor, Shanghai, Tel. +86-021-6247 0833
  3. Lastly, a Finnish mission shall legalize the document:
    In Beijing's jurisdiction: Embassy of Finland in Beijing
    In Shanghai's jurisdiction: Consulate General of Finland in Shanghai