The passports & nationality section of the British Consulate-General in Madrid is able to register the birth of a British national provided the event took place in Spain. Registration is not compulsory, but it has the advantage of ensuring that a permanent record of the event is kept at the General Register Office in the United Kingdom. Certified copies of consular birth and death entries may also be obtained. Such certificates are produced in English.

Registration with the Spanish authorities is mandatory. The birth may be registered at the Civil Register Office nearest to the place of birth or residence, by one of the child's parents. This should be done in the first 8 days following the child's birth. However, this period can be extended to 30 calendar days if there is a justified reason for the delay. If you miss this time limit with the Spanish authorities, you may have problems getting the birth registered. You also may have to start an administration procedure with the Spanish authorities which will be long and expensive. This can affect your child's access to state health, nursery or school.

How to register the birth of your child

If you wish to register the birth of your child, please complete the application form for the registration of a birth and send it to the British Consulate General with the appropriate fees and the following documents. In all cases, you should send us original documents and a photocopy of each. The only exception is if you are sending a parent's passport, in which case you can send us a photocopy and not the original.

Child's birth certificate

The Child's full Spanish birth certificate, showing names of both parents (certificado literal de nacimiento, not the Libro de Familia). If you do not have this document, you can obtain a copy from the local Register Office where you registered the birth of your child.

Parents' birth certificates

• if both parents are British, their full UK Birth Certificates (the one which gives details of their parents).
• if one of the parents is not British, the local birth certificate of this parent or copy of his/her passport/DNI.
• if only one of the parents is British and he/she was born outside the United Kingdom, we need to see his/her consular birth certificate showing that his/her father was in Crown Service at the time of the birth.
• if any of the parents were granted British nationality, we need to see the original Certificate of Registration or Naturalisation.

Parents' full marriage certificate (not the Libro de Familia)

Birth and marriage certificates can be obtained from the General Register Office website.

Photocopies of parents' passport

If either parent was previously divorced, the divorce decree

In addition to every original document you send, you should also include a photocopy of each document. We will return all original documents to you. 

Birth registrations where the parents of the child are not married

A child born after 01/01/83 is entitled to British Citizenship if the mother was born in the United Kingdom. Until 01/07/06 there was no provision in nationality law for the consular registration of births of children where only the father was British and the parents were not married. The law changed on 01/07/06 and from that date British fathers do not have to be married to the mothers of their children in order to be able to pass on their nationality.

We can therefore register the births of children born abroad to British fathers in these circumstances on or after 01/07/06. We will need to see the child’s full Spanish birth certificate, the father’s full UK birth certificate, and the mother’s passport, DNI or birth certificate. Children born before 01/07/06 do not benefit from this new legislation.

However, since March 2000, British-born fathers have been able to register their children who were born abroad via the Home Office. These applications must be submitted to the British Consulate-General in Madrid for transmission to the Home Office.

In some cases it is necessary for the parents to make formal declarations of paternity before a consular officer if the father’s details are to appear on the registration. The circumstances are the following:

a) The mother (born in UK) and father are not married and the child was born before 01/07/06
b) The mother was born in the UK, the father is not a UK national and the child was born either before or after 01/07/06
c) The father (born in UK) and mother (not British) married after the birth of the child and the child was born before 01/07/06

There is no charge for this. The declarations must be made in person by both parents.

If you have returned to the UK and want to register your child who was born in Spain, please apply to the following address:

Nationality and Passports Section of the Consular Directorate
Old Almiralty Building
London SW1A 2AF

Tel: +44 (0) 207 008 0186