Registering a foreign birth or marriage certificate in Romania: how transcription works

A child born in Germany to a Romanian parent, a wedding held in Italy, a marriage to a foreign spouse registered abroad: for the Romanian state, none of these events exists on paper until the foreign certificate has been entered in the Romanian civil-status registers. The procedure is called transcription (transcriere), and it ends with a Romanian birth, marriage or death certificate.

The steps below follow the procedure published by the civil-status service of Cluj-Napoca city hall, which sets out the rules town halls apply under Law No 119/1996 on civil-status documents.

Who it concerns

Transcription is for Romanian citizens whose birth, marriage or a family member’s death was registered by a foreign authority. That includes families where only one spouse or parent is Romanian, and people who have regained Romanian citizenship.

Which town hall is competent

The request is not filed at any town hall. According to the Cluj-Napoca procedure:

• Birth certificates: the town hall of the place where the person has, or last had, their domicile in Romania.
• Marriage certificates: the town hall of the spouses’ common domicile; if they have different domiciles in Romania, either of the two.
• Romanian citizens living abroad: the town hall of their last domicile in Romania.
• Romanian citizens who never had a domicile in Romania: the town hall of Sector 1 in Bucharest.

In Cluj-Napoca, requests are filed at the civil-status service at 5 Moților Street. The published schedule reserves Mondays and Tuesdays for certificates from the Republic of Moldova and Wednesdays and Thursdays for all other countries.

The foreign certificate: three possible regimes

How the foreign certificate has to be prepared depends on the country that issued it. The city hall describes three cases.

No formalities at all. A multilingual extract issued under the 1976 Vienna Convention is accepted as it is. The procedure states that these extracts do not have to be apostilled, translated or legalised, and lists the issuing countries: Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Switzerland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Serbia and Turkey. Certificates from countries that have a legal-assistance treaty with Romania are also exempt.

Apostille. If the issuing country is party to the 1961 Hague Convention, the original certificate must carry an apostille from that country’s authorities.

Supralegalisation. For countries outside both systems, the certificate goes through a chain: endorsement by the competent authority of the issuing state, then by the Romanian diplomatic mission there (or that state’s mission in Romania), and finally by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For anyone eligible, the multilingual extract is clearly the simplest route, because it removes both the apostille and the translation.

The translation

Where a translation is needed, the procedure asks for an authenticated and legalised Romanian translation with the translated certificate attached. One detail is easy to miss: if the translation and its legalisation are done in the country that issued the certificate, the translation itself must also carry an apostille or supralegalisation. The requirement is tied to where the translation is legalised, not to the translation as such.

What else goes in the file

For a birth certificate, the Cluj-Napoca list includes:

• the applicant’s identity document, in original; a passport for Romanian citizens living abroad, and an identity document or passport for a foreign parent;
• the parents’ marriage certificate, in original, and the parents’ birth certificates;
• a declaration by the parents that no registration or transcription of this birth has been requested before;
• a declaration stating at which parent’s Romanian domicile the child will be registered.

A parent who files in person at the town hall of domicile can make these declarations in front of the civil-status officer. Made abroad before a foreign notary, they need an apostille or supralegalisation; made at a Romanian consulate, they do not.

For a marriage certificate, the file adds the spouses’ birth certificates and identity documents, a declaration that no other transcription exists, and, where the foreign certificate does not state it, notarial declarations on the surname each spouse carries after the marriage. For marriages concluded after 1 October 2011, if the foreign certificate says nothing about the matrimonial property regime, a notarial declaration on the law applicable to the effects of the marriage is also required.

The order matters

If a child was born from a marriage concluded abroad, the marriage certificate is transcribed first and the child’s birth certificate afterwards, the procedure says.

Filing through someone else

The request can be made by a representative holding a special power of attorney, notarial or consular, which must state its purpose explicitly: the transcription of the certificate and the issuing of the Romanian one. A power of attorney signed before a foreign notary needs an apostille or supralegalisation and a Romanian translation; one signed at a Romanian consulate needs neither.

When names do not match

The procedure deals directly with mismatches. If the name on the foreign certificate differs from the applicant’s Romanian records, the town hall asks for documents that explain the difference. If the foreign certificate contains data that contradict the Romanian registers, the transcription takes place only after the issuing foreign authority has corrected the error. That correction happens abroad, not in Romania.

Where translators come in

Where no multilingual extract is available, the file needs a legalised translation of the certificate, and sometimes of a power of attorney or declaration as well. In Cluj-Napoca, TransMondo is one of the offices that prepares certified and legalised translations for civil-status files. Whoever prepares them, three facts decide how much paperwork there is: the country that issued the certificate, whether a multilingual extract is available, and where the translation is legalised.

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