Checklist: consulate birth registration

Registering a UK-born child in the Turkish civil register is one of the few procedures where a translation company's honest answer is often “you do not need us”. The Consulate General handles the core British documents in-house. Knowing which items fall outside that saves both a fee and an appointment.

Who this list is for

Turkish parents whose child was born in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, applying at the Consulate General in London, Edinburgh or Manchester according to where you live. It also helps parents who left registration late and are being asked for extra evidence.

The documents

• Full Birth Certificate (long form, naming both parents) — the short certificate and the hospital letter are refused. Order the full version from the register office or the GRO. No outside translation is asked for: the Consulate deals with British birth certificates itself.
• Both parents' Turkish identity documents — TC kimlik kartı or nüfus cüzdanı, plus passports. Nothing to translate.
• Proof that the parents' marriage is already registered in Türkiye — the aile cüzdanı, or the marriage registration completed first. A child cannot be entered on a family record that does not yet exist.
• Deed poll, where the mother's surname changed in the UK (isim değişikliği belgesi) — this one does travel outside the Consulate's in-house set: it needs an FCDO apostille first, then a Turkish translation. Without it the surnames on the birth certificate and the nüfus record do not line up.
• A third-country parent's birth certificate — where one parent is neither British nor Turkish, either a multilingual Formül A extract, or the certificate apostilled, translated into Turkish and certified through that country's mission in London.
• Timing — the Consulate asks for registration within two months of the birth. Later registrations are possible but attract additional questions, so treat the two months as the plan rather than the deadline.
• Names containing Q, W or X — these letters are not in the Turkish alphabet and are adapted when the entry is made. Decide with the Consulate how the name will be written before the record is created, because changing it afterwards is a court matter.
• Fees — set and published by the Consulate; the consular fee is nothing to do with translation cost.

What people most often get wrong

By a distance, the commonest mistake is paying for a Turkish translation of the British birth certificate before checking. The Consulate's own information note states that no outside sworn translation is requested for British civil-status and identity documents such as passports, birth certificates and marriage certificates — it does that work internally. The second mistake is ordering the short certificate because it is cheaper and quicker. The third is registering the child before the parents' own marriage has been recorded, which stops the process at the counter.

What we would translate and what it would cost

In the ordinary case, nothing — and we will tell you so rather than take the order. Where a deed poll is involved: one page of English into Turkish is £6.50, certification included, no UK VAT. If a Turkish office later asks for that translation to be notarised, notarisation in Ankara adds the notary's tariff, roughly £13.50 per page in 2026 at current rates, plus a £5 handling fee. A third-country birth certificate of two pages is £13.00. Note that a translation you must hand to the Consulate itself has to come from a translator on its own registered list; we are not on that list, and we say so plainly on our Turkish Consulate FAQs.

Before you rely on this list

This is a preparation aid from translators, not a consular ruling, and practice differs slightly between the three posts. The Consulate General's published note for your post decides what it will accept — start at londra-bk.mfa.gov.tr for London.