Registration of birth in the Population Register System

Births of Finnish citizens outside Finland must be notified to the Digital and Population Data Agency. 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 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 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.

Registering a child born in China to a Finnish citizen in the Finnish Population Information System

A child who has acquired Finnish citizenship by birth (Citizenship Act 359/2003) can be registered in the Finnish Population Information System.

The registration notification is submitted to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.

The following documents are required for registration:

  • The form "Notification of a Finnish citizen born abroad".
  • The original birth certificate issued by the Chinese authorities, legalized with an Apostille certificate.
  • A translation of the birth certificate into Finnish, Swedish, or English. Translations done abroad must also be legalized with an Apostille certificate.

  • Photocopies of the personal data pages of both parents' passports (optional).

The documents can be sent directly to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency or to the Finnish Embassy in Beijing or Shanghai. The service provided by the embassy is subject to a service fee.

Legalization instructions in China

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the competent authority for issuing Apostilles for documents issued in mainland China. See the contact details of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs offices at this link.