Applying for your child's first British passport with Turkish documents

Three families, three different claims

The first passport is different from a renewal because HM Passport Office (HMPO) has to establish that the child is British before it prints anything. How it does that depends on the family. A child born in the UK to a parent who was British or settled at the time of the birth is British automatically, and HMPO looks at the parent’s status on the date of birth. A child born in Türkiye to a British parent may be British by descent, and HMPO looks at the parent’s own birth or naturalisation. A child who has been registered as British by the Home Office holds a registration certificate and HMPO looks at that. In every case HMPO asks for the child’s birth certificate and evidence about the parents, and where the parents’ evidence is Turkish, it must be translated. The HM Passport Office page lists the documents by scenario; this guide is about the sequence.

What HMPO says about foreign documents

HMPO’s guidance on British citizenship applications, published as caseworker guidance on GOV.UK, asks customers to supply translations for any foreign documents that are not in English; the guidance’s own sentence is quoted in the box on this page. HMPO does not define a format of its own beyond that; in practice it expects the elements GOV.UK describes for a certified translation, that is, a written confirmation that the translation is a true and accurate translation of the original document, the date, and the full name and contact details of the translator or of a representative of the translation company. Our certification carries those items on every page together with the company’s Ankara registry details, and HMPO has accepted our translations to date. The translation is sent with the original document, not instead of it.

Turkish documents that typically come into play

• The child’s Turkish birth certificate where the child was born in Türkiye. The multilingual Formül A extract is easier to read, but the UK is not a party to the convention behind it, so it still needs a certified translation of the Turkish text and footnotes.
• The parents’ marriage record (evlenme cüzdanı or Formül B) where HMPO needs to see that the British father was married to the mother, which affects claims through the father for older births.
• The nüfus kayıt örneği with event history, which can show the birth, the parents’ marriage and any name changes on a single document and is often the most economical thing to translate.
• A Turkish parent’s own birth certificate where HMPO needs to trace the parent’s identity for the claim.
• A name-change court decision where a parent’s name differs between the child’s certificate and the parent’s passport.
• The Turkish parent’s passport: the data page is bilingual and rarely needs translating.

Consular birth registration: optional, not required

Parents of a child born in Türkiye sometimes ask whether the birth must be registered with the UK authorities before a passport can be issued. It need not. GOV.UK’s register-a-birth-abroad service is voluntary; it costs £150 to register and £50 per certificate, and a foreign certificate not in English has to be translated by an approved translator for that service too. Families who want a UK-style certificate for the child sometimes do both; the passport application itself only needs the Turkish certificate with its translation. Our GRO and consular registration page compares the two.

Fees, timing and the countersignatory

Passport fees are set on GOV.UK and depend on whether you apply online or on paper and where you apply from; check the figure on the day. First applications take longer than renewals and HMPO publishes an indicative processing time that changes with the season; do not book travel against it. A first child passport needs a countersignatory who has known the parent for at least two years and belongs to a recognised profession, and HMPO may interview the parent or ask for further documents. Applications from Türkiye go through the overseas service on GOV.UK and originals are posted to the address given.

Mistakes that generate a letter from HMPO

• Sending a Formül A extract without translation on the assumption that the printed English headings are enough.
• Translating the child’s certificate but not the parents’ marriage record, when the claim runs through the father.
• A parent whose Turkish surname changed at marriage using the new name on the application while the translated documents carry the old one, with nothing to link them.
• Photocopies where HMPO asks for originals; it does ask, and returns them afterwards.
• A countersignatory who has known the family for less than two years.

What we do and what it costs

Send us scans of every Turkish document the HMPO checklist for your scenario asks for, plus the parents’ passports so that spellings match. We translate each in full, with stamps and seals rendered, and certify every page. The PDF is fine for your own records, but because HMPO works with posted originals, most parents order the printed certified set by courier for £30 and post it with the originals. A child’s birth certificate is usually £10, a marriage record £10–20 and a full nüfus kayıt örneği £10–30, with delivery in one to two working days and no UK VAT. Where the passport application depends on an unresolved citizenship question, for example a parent’s status on the date of birth, a nationality solicitor is the right person to ask before you pay the fee.