Registering a Child's Birth With South Korea From Australia

To register an Australian-born child with South Korea, a parent files a birth report at the Korean mission covering their state, ideally within one month of the birth. You lodge the report form, the original Australian birth certificate, your own Korean translation of it and both parents' passports. The certificate is not returned, and no notary is needed.

Key takeaways

• Korea's missions in Australia say a birth report is due within one month of the birth. A late report is accepted, but a fine may apply without a good reason.
• You lodge the birth report form, the original Australian birth certificate, a Korean translation and both parents' passports.
• You translate the certificate yourself, exactly as the original. A NAATI translation is not required.
• The original certificate is kept, so the mission suggests keeping a JP-certified copy or ordering another.
• There is no fee, and no notary or apostille step.

The one-month rule

The Korean Consulate in Melbourne's birth report page says a birth must be reported within one month of the birth. A report can still be made after that, but if the person obliged to report does not do so in time without a justifiable reason, a fine may be imposed. The page cites Korea's Act on the Registration of Family Relationships, article 122, and the rules made under it.

The deadline is tight when you also have to wait for the Australian registry to issue the birth certificate. Register the birth with your state or territory registry of births, deaths and marriages as soon as you can, and order the certificate at the same time. If the Korean report ends up late because the certificate was slow, keep evidence of when you applied for it.

What to lodge

The Melbourne page lists the documents for a birth report:

Document	What the mission asks for
Birth report form	One copy, on the attached form, signed by the reporting parent
Australian birth certificate	The original issued by the Australian government; it is not returned
Korean translation	One copy, translated by the reporting person, identical to the original
Parents' passports	The personal details pages of both parents' passports
Foreign parent	If one parent has lost Korean nationality or is a foreign citizen, their foreign citizenship certificate
Dual national child	If the child is a dual national by birth, the child's foreign passport or citizenship certificate
Electronic delivery form	The application for electronic transmission, on the attached form

The page says there is no fee. If the name on the birth certificate differs from the name in a passport, it asks for separate proof that they are the same person, a certificate and a statement.

Keep a copy before you hand over the original

Because the mission keeps the original Australian birth certificate, the Melbourne page gives a practical tip: you may need an original for something else, so before you lodge it, either keep a copy certified by a Justice of the Peace, or apply to your state or territory's registry of births, deaths and marriages for another original. This is the only point on the page where an Australian witness appears, and it is for your own records, not for the Korean report.

A certified copy will satisfy many Australian uses, but not all. An Australian passport application, for example, needs an original or a copy the Passport Office accepts, and some overseas authorities want an original with an apostille. If you expect those, order a second original from the registry while you are ordering the first. Our guide to certified copies of birth certificates explains what a certified copy can and cannot do.

The Korean translation, done by you

Unlike many consulates, the Korean missions do not ask for a professional translation. The Melbourne page says the reporting parent translates the birth certificate into Korean personally, identical in content to the original, on the translation form attached to the page, with every item written in Korean. So there is no need to pay a NAATI translator for this report.

Take care with the details the page flags for the birth report form itself:

1. Hanja names: if you give the child a name in Hanja, the characters must be ones listed in the dictionary of name Hanja the page links to.
2. Clan origin: write the bon in Hanja, for example 全州 for the Jeonju Lee clan.
3. Place of birth: give the hospital's name and address in Korean address order, for example Australia, Victoria, Clayton, Monash Hospital.
4. Time of birth: give the Australian local time, and if the child was born during daylight saving, add a note saying so next to it.
5. Registration base: enter a parent's registration base, or one you choose, as an exact road-name address.
6. Foreign-style names: if the child is registered abroad under a foreign parent's surname but reported in Korea with a Korean name, write the child's English name in the other matters section, exactly as on the birth certificate.
7. Contact details: your current Australian phone number, address and email, and your signature.

Do you need a notary or an apostille?

No. The mission works from the original Australian certificate and your own translation, so nothing on its list is notarised or apostilled. Korea is a member of the Hague Apostille Convention; an apostille matters only if an Australian document is going to an authority in Korea by another route. In Australia, only DFAT issues apostilles; check the HCCH status table on the day. Our guide to apostilles for South Korea covers that route, and our guide to notarising Korean documents covers documents that do need a notary.

Which Korean post covers you?

The Melbourne page sets out the jurisdictions:

• Consulate in Melbourne, a branch of the Embassy: Victoria.
• Consulate General in Sydney: New South Wales and the Northern Territory.
• Brisbane office: Queensland.
• Embassy in Canberra: the ACT, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania.

Dual nationality and what comes later

A child born in Australia to a Korean parent may be both Korean and Australian from birth. The Melbourne page asks for the child's foreign passport or citizenship certificate in that case, so the dual nationality is recorded. Korea's Nationality Act then requires dual nationals to choose a nationality within set periods, with rules that differ for men because of military service. The Sydney consulate's nationality pages set these out; read them well before your child's late teens.

The Sydney consulate's page on retaining nationality adds a related point. A Korean citizen who naturalises in Australia loses Korean nationality when they acquire Australian citizenship, under article 15(1) of the Nationality Act. That is why the birth report asks for a foreign citizenship certificate where a parent has become a foreign citizen: whether the child is Korean depends on at least one parent being Korean at the birth. If both parents had naturalised before the birth, ask the mission before filing anything.

If your child became Australian later, not at birth

Some children are born Korean only and become Australian citizens later, together with a Korean parent who naturalises. The Sydney consulate's page on reporting retention of nationality covers that case. Because a minor child acquires Australian citizenship without choosing it, the child can keep Korean nationality if a nationality retention report is filed within six months of acquiring Australian citizenship. If it is not, Korean nationality is lost retrospectively from the date of Australian citizenship, under article 15(2)(4) of the Nationality Act.

The page says the report is made in person at the mission covering your address, or at a mobile consular service, and not by post. A child aged 15 or over reports personally; for a younger child, the legal representative does. The documents include the report form, a photo, the child's Australian passport and citizenship certificate with a translation, recent Korean family relation and basic certificates, the parent's record of loss of nationality, and evidence that the child applied for citizenship with the parent. A child who keeps both nationalities this way must still choose a nationality within the periods the Nationality Act sets.

After the report: Korean certificates

Once the birth is entered in the Korean family relations register, the child appears on the family's Korean certificates, such as the family relation certificate and the basic certificate. The Sydney consulate says these can be issued through the consulate, or online through the Supreme Court's electronic family relations registration system, which requires a Korean joint certificate for sign-in. Order one after the report is processed and check that the child's name, Hanja and date of birth are correct.

In short

File a Korean birth report at the mission covering your state within one month of the birth. Lodge the form, the original Australian birth certificate, your own Korean translation and both parents' passports, plus the electronic delivery form and any foreign citizenship documents. The mission keeps the original, so keep a JP-certified copy or order a second one first. There is no fee, notary or apostille. For other countries, see our guide to registering a birth overseas.

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