Registering a Child's Birth With the Philippines From Australia

A child born in Australia to a Filipino parent is registered with the Philippines through a Report of Birth, lodged with the Philippine post covering your state. It needs four original forms, each notarised by a Philippine consul, a notary or a Justice of the Peace, plus the Australian birth certificate. A legitimation affidavit needs a notary or lawyer.

Key takeaways

• The Report of Birth registers a Filipino child's birth abroad with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), and is needed for the child's first Philippine passport.
• Which post you use depends on your state: Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne.
• The Canberra embassy asks for four original forms, each notarised by a Philippine consul, notary public or JP. A JP is accepted here.
• A Joint Affidavit of Legitimation, for parents who married after the birth, must be notarised by an Australian notary public or lawyer.
• Reporting more than one year after the birth needs an Affidavit of Late Registration; more than five years also needs a PSA certificate of no birth record.

Why register the birth with the Philippines?

The Philippine Embassy in Canberra explains that when a child is born abroad to one or two Filipino parents, the birth must be reported promptly to the embassy or consulate general with jurisdiction over the place of birth, so it can be registered with the PSA. It notes that the Report of Birth, or the PSA birth certificate if the report was made more than six months earlier, is one of the requirements for the child's Philippine passport. The PSA can issue the official birth certificate between six months and a year after the report is registered.

The embassy's wording refers to a Filipino parent who has not been naturalised as a citizen of another country. If you became an Australian citizen after your child was born, or have reacquired or retained Philippine citizenship, the embassy lists extra documents, covered below.

Which Philippine post covers you?

The embassy's page sets out the division:

Where you live	Philippine post
ACT, Queensland, Western Australia, Northern Territory	Embassy of the Philippines, Canberra
New South Wales	Philippine Consulate General, Sydney
Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania	Philippine Consulate General, Melbourne

The details on this page follow the Canberra embassy's published requirements. The Sydney and Melbourne consulates publish their own pages, which are similar but not identical; the Sydney consulate, for example, has said that forms lodged by mail must be notarised. Check the page of the post that covers you before you prepare anything.

What does the Canberra embassy ask for?

1. A covering letter, if sending by mail, addressed to the Civil Registry Section, stating the service requested and your phone and email.
2. Four original Report of Birth forms, completed and originally signed by the Filipino parent or parents, the person being registered if over 18, the attending doctor, nurse or midwife, or the foreign parent if none of the others can.
3. Notarisation of all four forms, by a Philippine consul, a notary public or a Justice of the Peace.
4. The child's original Australian birth certificate, with its registry number, plus four photocopies. The original is returned.
5. The parents' marriage certificate: an original PSA certificate, or an original Australian marriage certificate with its registry number, plus four photocopies. The original is returned.
6. Four photocopies of the parents' passport data pages, certified by a JP, or certified copies of other ID such as a driver licence if no valid passport is available.

The embassy is strict about neatness. It says the form must be completed without erasures, because it becomes the permanent record, and that it may reject forms that are sloppy, have erasures or wrong entries, or carry the wrong stamp from the notary public. Fill in all four copies identically and carefully before anyone witnesses them.

Notary or JP: who should witness what?

This is where the Philippine requirements are unusual. For most of the documents, the embassy accepts a Justice of the Peace, which is free, as well as a notary or the Philippine consul. For one document, it asks for a notary or a lawyer.

Saying so plainly saves families money. If the only documents you need are the Report of Birth forms and certified passport copies, a JP can witness them for the Canberra embassy, and you may not need a notary at all. A notary becomes necessary for the legitimation affidavit, and is a sensible choice if you want one person to handle several documents at once, or if the post covering you asks for a notary specifically. Our guide to notaries and JPs explains the difference.

What if the parents married after the birth?

If the parents married after the child was born, the embassy asks for a Joint Affidavit of Legitimation, executed and signed by both parents, and notarised by an Australian notary public or lawyer. It asks for one original and three photocopies, and publishes a form. This is the document a JP cannot witness for this purpose. Bring both parents to the notary, with their passports, and the completed form unsigned.

What if the parents are not married?

The embassy sets out two paths for a child whose parents are not married:

• Using the mother's maiden surname: one original PSA birth certificate of the mother, plus three photocopies, returned after processing.
• Using the father's surname: four original Affidavits of Admission of Paternity, signed by the father, and four original Affidavits to Use the Surname of the Father, signed by the mother. If filed in person, both are signed before a consular officer at the embassy, with copies of each parent's valid passport and the child's unregistered birth certificate. The embassy then issues a Certificate of Registration.

If the father or mother is not in Australia, the embassy says their affidavit must be notarised and registered at the Philippine embassy or consulate in the country where they live, or, if they are in the Philippines, notarised there and registered by the local civil registrar.

What about late registration?

The embassy sets two thresholds. If you report the birth more than one year after it happened, you need an Affidavit of Late Registration of Birth, notarised by a Philippine consul, notary public or JP; the embassy publishes the form. If you report more than five years after the birth, you also need a recently issued original PSA certificate showing there is no record of the birth. It is worth reporting early, both to avoid the extra paperwork and because the child's Philippine passport depends on the registration.

What if the Filipino parent is now Australian?

The embassy lists extra documents where citizenship has changed. If the Filipino parent became an Australian citizen after the child was born, it asks for four certified true copies of the Australian citizenship certificate and four certified true copies of the old Philippine passport. If the parent reacquired or retained Philippine citizenship after the birth, it asks for four certified true copies of the documents showing that. These affect whether, and how, the child is registered as a Filipino, so raise them with the embassy's civil registry section if they apply. Questions about the child's citizenship itself are for the embassy, not a notary.

Do any of the documents need an apostille?

The Canberra embassy's requirements do not ask for an apostille on the Australian birth or marriage certificate, or on the notarised forms, for the Report of Birth. The originals are sent to the embassy itself, which checks them. If a Philippine agency later asks for an apostilled Australian document for another purpose, only DFAT can issue it in Australia. The Philippines is a member of the Hague Apostille Convention; check the HCCH status table on the day. An apostille confirms the signature and seal on a document, never its contents. Our guide to apostilles for the Philippines covers that step.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Lodging with the wrong post for your state.
• Erasures or corrections on the Report of Birth forms, which become the permanent record.
• Using a JP for the legitimation affidavit, which needs a notary or lawyer.
• Sending uncertified passport copies when the embassy asks for certified ones.
• Leaving it more than a year, which adds an affidavit, or five years, which adds a PSA certificate.
• Forgetting the citizenship documents if the Filipino parent is now Australian.

Here is an illustration, not a real case.

A Filipino mother and her Australian husband in Brisbane want to register their daughter's birth with the Philippines so she can get a Philippine passport. They married a year after she was born. Brisbane falls under the Canberra embassy. They fill in four Report of Birth forms identically and have them witnessed by a JP at their local library, with JP-certified copies of their passports. Because they married after the birth, they also sign the Joint Affidavit of Legitimation before a notary. They send everything to the embassy with the daughter's Queensland birth certificate and their marriage certificate, and the originals come back with the official Report of Birth.

In short

A Filipino child born in Australia is registered with the Philippines through a Report of Birth, lodged with the Canberra embassy, or the Sydney or Melbourne consulate, depending on your state. The Canberra embassy asks for four identical forms notarised by a Philippine consul, notary or JP, the Australian birth and marriage certificates with copies, and JP-certified passport copies. A legitimation affidavit needs a notary or lawyer. Report within a year to avoid extra documents. Our guide to registering a birth overseas covers other countries, and our document notarisation page explains the notarial act.

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