# Is Birth Certificate must requirement when applying for Australian Citizenship ?



## YuviSingh (Apr 29, 2016)

Is Birth certificate a must requirement when applying for 
Australian Citizenship?

I have friends in Australia from India who have got Australian citizenship without providing Birth Certificate document. They have used Passport or 10th certificate instead of Birth certificate.

As Passport carries "Place of Birth, Date of Birth, Country" and is the most genuine proof issued by Govt.

The DIBP site mentions Birth certificate or equivalent for the country.


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## CCMS (Oct 10, 2013)

Why not provide both? Birth certificates come in handy for all sort of situations and it is always a good idea to have a copy in a place.

www.ausvisa.net.au


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## YuviSingh (Apr 29, 2016)

But what if we don't have a Birth certificate and can't provide one.


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## Maggie-May24 (Jul 24, 2011)

I'd apply for one. A birth certificate is used for so many legal processes that I can't imagine being without one. Otherwise you'll have to try applying for citizenship without one and see what they say. A passport won't be evidence of your name at birth so they'd likely need other documentation in place of the birth certificate.


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## montu_seshil (Feb 21, 2014)

form passport.gov.au site


Birth certificates

If you cannot meet the requirements set out below, or if you have questions about birth certificates, seek advice from the Australian Passport Information Service (APIS) on 131 232 or, if you are overseas, from an Australian diplomatic or consular mission.

Applicants born in Australia

If you were born in Australia, you must present your original full birth certificate issued by a Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (RBDM) with your passport application. Copies or extracts of a birth certificate and commemorative birth certificates are not acceptable.

For a child applicant whose birth certificate names only the mother, a form B8 Mother's name only on child's birth certificate (pdf) must be completed and presented with the passport application.

All applicants born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986 must present additional evidence to support their Australian citizenship.

Applicants born overseas

If you were born overseas and acquired Australian citizenship as an adult, you must present your citizenship certificate with your passport application. Some citizenship certificates do not specify sex and place of birth. In such cases, you must present additional documents that record this information, preferably your original full birth certificate or a foreign passport. Foreign documents that are not written in English must be accompanied by a translation from an approved translation service.

For children who have acquired Australian citizenship, both an original full birth certificate (with translation, if required) and a citizenship certificate must be presented.


so apparently passport is enough if you are applying as an adult


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## CCMS (Oct 10, 2013)

A client of mine was just told she could not sit the citizenship test, because she did not have a NAATI translated copy of her birth certificate with her...


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## YuviSingh (Apr 29, 2016)

I have just read that we can get a birth certificate issued from indian consulate based on the passport once we are in Australia.

Will that certificate work as Birth certificate when we apply for Citizenship ?


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## CCMS (Oct 10, 2013)

Applicants 18 Years of Age or Over

Official document(s) with your photograph and signature (these can appear on either one document or two separate documents)

•	Australian driver licence, or
•	passport, or
•	United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) document, or
•	a national identity card, or
•	Document for Travel to Australia (DFTTA), or
•	another document containing a signature and photograph, such as an air crew identity document, seafarer identity document, military identity document or student card.

Evidence of your current residential address

•	a utilities notice such as an electricity, gas or water bill, or
•	bank notice, or
•	rental contract or rates notice, or
•	Australian driver licence.

Evidence of your date of birth, birth name and any changes of name

*•	a full birth certificate;*
•	evidence of links between present and previous names, for example a marriage or divorce certificate, if applicable;
•	an official document recording your change of name, for example a marriage certificate, a change of name certificate, or adoption papers, if applicable.

Evidence of when you first arrived in Australia and your present country of citizenship

•	current and/or previous passport, or
•	travel document with a visa such as a Document for Travel to Australia (DFTTA), PLO56 (M56), Titre de Voyage.


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## YuviSingh (Apr 29, 2016)

CCMS said:


> Applicants 18 Years of Age or Over
> 
> Official document(s) with your photograph and signature (these can appear on either one document or two separate documents)
> 
> ...


So is the Birth Certificate issued by Indian Consulate not a full birth certificate ?
It will have all the details that a birth certificate carries.
Name
Fathers name
Mothers name
Place of birth
Date of birth etc.


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## giriman (Jan 8, 2017)

Hi Yuvi,

Hope youre well. Could you please what steps did you take to meet the requirement. Im in the same boat as you and I do not have a birth certificate to provide and my test is due in 3 weeks time.


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## wrussell (Dec 31, 2014)

A birth certicate is not needed for a citizenship application.


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## giriman (Jan 8, 2017)

wrussell said:


> A birth certicate is not needed for a citizenship application.


Thanks for the reply wrussell. Just been a bit worried cos 2 of the recent applicants that I know of personally were asked to produce one without any exception. Their application was kept on hold. Do you know of Anu recent cases where they exempted and accepted an equivalent? Cos the county I come from School Leaving certificate is accepted as one. Unfortunately back in the days the technology and the documentation weren't not that effective and prevalent.


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## sudhan (Jan 12, 2017)

*.*

hello every one.


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## sudhan (Jan 12, 2017)

giriman said:


> Thanks for the reply wrussell. Just been a bit worried cos 2 of the recent applicants that I know of personally were asked to produce one without any exception. Their application was kept on hold. Do you know of Anu recent cases where they exempted and accepted an equivalent? Cos the county I come from School Leaving certificate is accepted as one. Unfortunately back in the days the technology and the documentation weren't not that effective and prevalent.


You are right Giriman,
My first application without Birth certificate was cancelled and reimbursed.


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## wrussell (Dec 31, 2014)

giriman said:


> Thanks for the reply wrussell. Just been a bit worried cos 2 of the recent applicants that I know of personally were asked to produce one without any exception. Their application was kept on hold. Do you know of Anu recent cases where they exempted and accepted an equivalent? Cos the county I come from School Leaving certificate is accepted as one. Unfortunately back in the days the technology and the documentation weren't not that effective and prevalent.


I have had clients who had other ID and submitted a statutory declaration that a birth certificate was not available, with no issues.


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## Xavier Gomes (Jan 17, 2017)

*Subclass 189, Citizenship*

Hello,
I would to like to know about certain points :-
1) How long would it take for me to apply for citizenship?
2) After working for 3 years under subclass 189 visa, if I pursue for masters, will I be considered as an international student or Australian student?
So, kindly please help me out, asap.


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## FutureCitizen (Feb 4, 2017)

I don't have a birth certificate and I'm stateless


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## bridge58 (Apr 26, 2017)

giriman said:


> Hi Yuvi,
> 
> Hope youre well. Could you please what steps did you take to meet the requirement. Im in the same boat as you and I do not have a birth certificate to provide and my test is due in 3 weeks time.


Hi there. Would you mind confirming how did you go with your application? I applied for citizenship online but did not upload a Birth Certificate. From your post, I understand you didn't provide one either but still got allocated a Test Date? Is that correct?

Cheers


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## hotdawg (Jun 24, 2016)

Hi everyone,
I understand that a child born in Australia is immediately a citizen providing one of the parents is a citizen or PR at time of birth etc.. My question is what about the actual Australian Citizenship certificate? Do I still have to apply for that for my child?


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## sheilae (Jan 28, 2017)

hotdawg said:


> Hi everyone,
> I understand that a child born in Australia is immediately a citizen providing one of the parents is a citizen or PR at time of birth etc.. My question is what about the actual Australian Citizenship certificate? Do I still have to apply for that for my child?


I don't believe citizenship certificates are issued to children born in Australia, as their birth certificate is proof enough for any further questions of their citizenship (i.e. applying for a passport)


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## hotdawg (Jun 24, 2016)

sheilae said:


> I don't believe citizenship certificates are issued to children born in Australia, as their birth certificate is proof enough for any further questions of their citizenship (i.e. applying for a passport)


I think you will find that is not the case. All children born in Australia are not immediately Australian citizens unless one of the parents is a Citizen or PR at the time of birth.

Evidence of Australian citizenship - eligibility

My query was regarding obtaining the actual Citizenship certificate. For processes within Australia it's probably not an issue but for applying for visa's for other countries, sometimes they want evidence of citizenship from your country. Passports don't always satisfy some institutions.


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## jamesbrock (Jan 11, 2013)

My wife does not have a birth certificate, nor—we have just found out—is she able to get one.

She has had PR since October 2015, and has been eligible for Citizenship for a year now. We tried to obtain a BC from Australia (stat dec from the Thai Consulate, registered post to Thailand) but were told she had to attend in person. We are here now, and have spent all morning at the amphoe (local government office), and they have no records of her original BC so have advised that they cannot issue a new one.

Her Thai ID, passport, and current (and original) house book all have 'x's where her day & month should be, and the wrong year, so has zero evidence of her actual birthdate. The immigration department has her dob as 01/01/1970.

We'd love to get everything reissued with her actual birthdate, and, obviously, apply for citizenship but we're at a loss as to how to go about it...


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## wrussell (Dec 31, 2014)

*See my previous post.*


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## kanmaj10 (Mar 11, 2018)

giriman said:


> Thanks for the reply wrussell. Just been a bit worried cos 2 of the recent applicants that I know of personally were asked to produce one without any exception. Their application was kept on hold. Do you know of Anu recent cases where they exempted and accepted an equivalent? Cos the county I come from School Leaving certificate is accepted as one. Unfortunately back in the days the technology and the documentation weren't not that effective and prevalent.


Hi giriman - I am in the same boat about not having date of birth certificate . I have submitted my application with an alternative document (school leaving certificate showing DOB). I am hoping that should be sufficient during the Test date . Can you update what you ended up doing about the DOB . My appointment is on 15th Mar?


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## lins_mathew (Apr 16, 2018)

Just wondering if you had to produce your birth certificate or was your passport sufficient as evidence of date of birth? Please let me know as I will be applying for my citizenship next week.
Thank you


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## ahbee (Sep 9, 2013)

giriman said:


> Hi Yuvi,
> 
> Hope youre well. Could you please what steps did you take to meet the requirement. Im in the same boat as you and I do not have a birth certificate to provide and my test is due in 3 weeks time.


Have you got an National Identity card from your own country ?


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## ILoveAus (Sep 2, 2018)

lins_mathew said:


> Just wondering if you had to produce your birth certificate or was your passport sufficient as evidence of date of birth? Please let me know as I will be applying for my citizenship next week.
> Thank you


Any update on how did you go with your citizenship without the Birth Certificate. Your experiences would be valuable to many. Please share your experiences.


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## ILoveAus (Sep 2, 2018)

kanmaj10 said:


> Hi giriman - I am in the same boat about not having date of birth certificate . I have submitted my application with an alternative document (school leaving certificate showing DOB). I am hoping that should be sufficient during the Test date . Can you update what you ended up doing about the DOB . My appointment is on 15th Mar?


Can you share your experiences of what you managed through without providing the Birth Certificate. Many Thanks


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## Pooravb (Jan 14, 2019)

*Birth certificate requirement and my experience with citizenship*

Whomsoever this post may help - -

I just had my Australian citizenship interview followed by the written test yesterday (14/01/2019) and I have just checked my application status and it's set to 'approved' which means now I just need to wait for my citizenship ceremony.

Like a few people on this forum, I too struggled with a few things in terms of information available around docos and preps for the citizenship interview. I thought of sharing some of my experiences in the hope that this may end up helping a few people.

1) Birth certificate - I am an Indian by birth and like a lot of others, I did not have my birth certificate handy before the interview. Based on my conversation with a mate, I just carried my X marks sheet (not school leaving cert.) which had my name and DOB mentioned in there. The lady interviewing me accepted it without much argument. The only thing she mentioned was that people from India usually submit school leaving certificate, but she can accept the mark sheet too. So, I think either mark sheet with DOB or the school leaving cert with DOB should suffice as the Immi team is not solely after the birth cert for the purpose of confirming your DOB. To be honest, the person interviewing my wife at the same time didn't even bother checking her X mark sheet and accepted her application. My mark sheet was in English so I cannot comment on the ones that are in regional languages.You may need to follow the language conversion process in those situations. Also, please note that Indian passport has all information such as place of birth, parent's name, spouse name etc. recorded. Passports from some other countries may not include those level of details. So please go through the requirements as depicted in the invite.

2) Written test - Written test is fairly simple and straightforward. As long as you have gone through the important sections of the reference book (pdf), you should be able to answer all questions. I actually completed my test in under 5 mins and got a 100% score.

In the end, as a general advise, I would say just remain calm n make sure you carry all your relevant documentation. I know a lot of people tend to carry too many docos (including passport size photos and all) which are not even required. So save yourself some time and hassle, just carry what you have uploaded on the site. Just read the requirements in the invite carefully and tick off everything based on that.

****Please note that these suggestions/insights are solely based on my personal experience with the citizenship process. Please use this to gain an understanding, but do not follow it blindly. The experiences may vary with people, so all this is solely for information purpose. I should not be held responsible if there is any deviation from what I have just mentioned*******


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## Gerlazh (Dec 20, 2018)

Pooravb said:


> Whomsoever this post may help - -
> 
> I just had my Australian citizenship interview followed by the written test yesterday (14/01/2019) and I have just checked my application status and it's set to 'approved' which means now I just need to wait for my citizenship ceremony.
> 
> ...


Would you mind share your timeline?


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## Pooravb (Jan 14, 2019)

Gerlazh said:


> Would you mind share your timeline?


Here you go mate..

Application date: 18/01/2018
Interview invite: 30/11/2018
Interview and test: 14/01/2019
Citizenship ceremony: ??


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## Chunky (Feb 12, 2019)

Pooravb said:


> Here you go mate..
> 
> Application date: 18/01/2018
> Interview invite: 30/11/2018
> ...


Hey Pooravb

Thanks for Info.,
What is your year of birth just to get an idea if that matters for school leaving certificate?


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## Pooravb (Jan 14, 2019)

Chunky said:


> Hey Pooravb
> 
> Thanks for Info.,
> What is your year of birth just to get an idea if that matters for school leaving certificate?


Don't think the year of birth should matter mate. Anyway, mine is 1982 if that helps.


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## Wilson Aus (Nov 5, 2018)

Birth certificate issued from Indian Embassy will show that your date of birth is -- -- ---- according to your passport. It is just same effect as you submit your passport copy. What about your Indian school certificate which should show the required information.
However, there could be more expert opinion from others.


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