Sworn translation to register a foreign birth in the Spanish Civil Registry

When Spain asks you to register a birth that happened abroad

Two situations bring people to this page. Your child was born outside Spain and you —or the other parent— are Spanish: the birth exists in the local records (a Texas county, a register office in Leeds, a mairie in Lyon), but until it is entered in the Spanish Civil Registry there is no Spanish passport, no DNI, no official record to build a life in Spain on. Or you have just been granted Spanish nationality —by residence, by option or by carta de naturaleza— and the closing step of that file is registering your own birth.

Where you file depends on where you live. Abroad, at the consular Civil Registry covering your area. From Spain —or right after your citizenship oath— at the Central Civil Registry (Registro Civil Central) in Madrid. Either way, the key foreign document is the same: the full birth certificate from the local registry, apostilled or legalised, with a sworn translation into Spanish.

The paperwork, piece by piece

For the direct registration of a Spaniard's birth, the Central Civil Registry's official checklist includes, among others:

• The birth certificate from the foreign local registry, legalised or apostilled and translated.
• The Spanish parent's literal birth certificate, issued by a Spanish registry — no translation needed there.
• The Spanish parent's DNI or passport, the parents' marriage certificate, proof of address and the hoja declaratoria de datos, the registry's own data sheet.

If you are registering after naturalising by residence, part of that list is replaced by the certificate of the nationality grant and the record of your acceptance oath. Of the whole bundle, the sworn translation only concerns what is written in another language: normally the foreign certificate and its apostille. And yes, the apostille gets translated too — handing it in untranslated is a classic reason files get sent back.

Fair warning: every consulate and registry adds its own wrinkles. Many consulates want the certificate issued within the last six months; some have their own forms or long waits for appointments. Check the exact list on your consulate's page at exteriores.gob.es, or the Central Registry's at mjusticia.gob.es, before ordering anything. We don't advise on the file itself — we make sure the foreign part of it arrives in Spanish and valid.

The certificates we see most

• United States: order the long form certified copy from the state's vital records office; the short form, which omits the parents, tends to bounce. The apostille comes from the Secretary of State of the issuing state.
• United Kingdom: the long birth certificate, the one showing the parents' details. The short version won't do. Apostille from the FCDO Legalisation Office.
• Canada: certificates are provincial (ServiceOntario, Alberta or BC Vital Statistics…) — ask for the long form with parentage. Since January 2024 Canada issues apostilles, so the old chain legalisation is gone. Quebec certificates arrive in French; we translate those as well.
• France: the copie intégrale of the birth record. As an EU public document it needs no apostille under Regulation 2016/1191, and with the multilingual standard form attached the registry may accept it without translation. The catch: the form doesn't carry the mentions marginales (marriages, divorces, acknowledgements), and when those matter, registries often ask for a sworn translation of the full copie intégrale anyway. Ask your registry first; if they want it, we do it.

If this registration is the last leg of a Spanish nationality application, we have a page on that file's documents. And for a closer look at how a birth certificate gets sworn-translated, see our birth certificate guide.

How it works with Textualia

1. Upload the apostilled certificate — a PDF or a sharp photo is fine. The price appears instantly.
2. We confirm the turnaround; if your consular or registry appointment is close, there's a rush option.
3. A sworn translator authorised by Spain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAEC) signs and stamps the translation, apostille included.
4. You get an electronically signed PDF and, if your registry insists on paper —with birth certificates many do—, a copy on official Spanish stamped paper by post.

Everything you upload is encrypted and shared with no one.

Why Textualia

Birth certificates cross our desks daily, and this is a document where craft shows: keeping names spelled exactly as in the record, not hispanising place names, handling American date formats properly, recording every seal and stamp. Spanish registries only accept translations sworn by a MAEC-authorised translator — a US certified translation or a plain agency translation ends in a request to cure the file, with the appointment already burnt. Fixed price up front, a clear deadline, and a real person to talk to if your registry asks for something odd.