Updated on: August 26, 2025 | By: @rprasanth_kumar
Apostilled personal civil documents are required for many purposes, when you are moving a foreign country. Without the apostille stamp, some Indian documents will not be recognized outside India. For example, France requires it for various purposes such as social security, housing subsidy from CAF, resident permit renewal, French citizenship application, etc.
The following documents must be apostilled before leaving India. However, they are not required for the visa application.
- Birth Certificate (BC)
- Marriage Certificate (MC, if married)
Other documents such as your degree certificates, etc. do not have to be apostilled, except when explicitly asked.
Good to know: The apostilled civil documents from India don’t have an expiry date. They can be used in France life long and the rule of submitting documents less than 3-6 months old do not apply.
Note: Whenever uploading an apostille document online, it is recommended to use a single pdf having the apostilled document and its translation. Documents such as school education certificates or marksheets, Aadhaar card, Passport, etc aren’t accepted as replacements for a Birth certificate.
Prerequisites
Before starting the apostille process, you must verify a few things on the documents. First check, if your full name, date of birth, place of birth, and other details are exactly the same in your BC/MC and your passport. The same for all other details including your parents.
- If yes, go ahead and follow the apostille process.
- If not, you should either correct the BC/MC or the passport. If this is not possible, get an affidavit stating that both the names are yours. Get it from your local notaire/lawyer. An example affidavit, Affidavit for Indian Birth Certificate Issues – An Example.
- This Affidavit must be apostilled and translated too.
- If your name is missing in your BC, it’s better to add the name in your BC and then do the apostille process. An affidavit may not work in this case.
- In the absence of a Birth certificate (old people), an affidavit can be obtained in India from a notary public. But, it must be apostilled too.
Note: All the names must match. One document having the initial and another document having the last name in full form will not be accepted.
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Apostille Process
The apostille process in India involves verification of documents by both the state and central governments. The relevant stamps, seals and stickers will be done on the back side of the document.
Apostille process can only be done in India for Indian documents. So, It cannot be done by an Indian Embassy or Consulate located outside India.
Step 1: State govt seal by Regional Authentication Centers (RACs)
- First, the documents must be verified and attested by the respective state governments or union territories.
- For example: I was born in Chennai city in TamilNadu. So, I visited the Public Department (Foreigners section) office of my State Secretariat in Chennai, with my original Birth Certificate. The certificate was verified and attested with a stamp, as shown in the example at the end.
- Currently, this process in TamilNadu is handled online via E-sanad portal as explained little later in this article. For other states, please check about the local procedures.
- If it’s not possible for you to do the same, you can check with the outsourced agents mentioned in the list below. But they will add more cost to the process.
- Without the state government’s stamp from the concerned City/District authority/SDM related to the place of birth, the apostille document will not be accepted.
- Either do it my yourself or explain it to the outsourced external agent. However, the agent is going to charge you a lot more for the entire process. A friend was quoted 8k INR by an agent for the combined state and central government attestations.
Step 2: Central govt seal by MEA
- The Indian Ministry of External Affairs thereafter, legalizes the documents on the basis of the signature of the designated signing authorities of the State Government or Union Territory.
- This step is outsourced to 5 private Agencies across India. So, you can submit the original documents to them, pay the fees and get back the apostilled documents.
- It can take 2-3 weeks approximately and cost on average Rs.2000.
Details of the Five Outsourced agency centers,
Apostille of documents by E-sanad centralised portal
- E-sanad is an online service for verification & attestation of documents of Indian Citizens.
- Currently, People from Tamil Nadu state can use it to apostille their BCs & MCs completely online on esanad.nic.in. It costs approximately Rs.100.
Translation
- For France, the apostilled documents must be translated to French language.
- Translations from Alliance Française offices in India or other translators may or may not be accepted in France. There have been so many cases of rejections by French administrative services.
- So, it is highly recommended to do the translation via an official translator “traducteur assermenté” in France. This can be done when you are in India or even after reaching France.
- Translators usually take 2-3 working days and can cost 30-50€ per document.
- Here is the city-wise list of officials including translators available on Traducteur Assermenté: List of official translators in France.
Passport Based Birth Certificate from Indian Embassy
If you had reached France without an apostilled birth certificate. Don’t worry because there is a temporary solution until you can get an apostilled birth certificate from India.
- Passport based Birth Certificate is issued by the Indian Embassy on the basis of the information present on your valid Passport.
- Prior to applying for it, please verify with concerned French organization as to whether this certificate will be accepted in lieu of an apostilled Birth certificate. It is not accepted by all the French services.
- The process is handled by VFS and applications can be submitted at Paris or Marseille office. More info is available on vfsglobal.com
- Here are the forms and the checklist explaining the required supporting documents.
It is not a replacement for an apostilled birth certificate. So, this type of birth certificate can be rejected too and there have been so many cases of rejections by CPAM, CAF, etc. It cannot be used for French nationality applications.
Example of a complete apostilled document
A proper example of an apostilled Birth certificate with the State government seal and the Central government seal by the Ministry of External Affairs, on the back side.
Example of an incomplete apostilled document
If you had apostilled your documents directly via an outsourced agent, the state government seal part is often ignored.
When you submit these incomplete apostilled documents for your French nationality application, you will be asked to resubmit your apostilled documents with the following notification on ANEF website.
The Indian civil status certificate must be legalized by the District Commissioner (or District Magistrate) of the city of the event or by the state Home Department (Home Ministry), before finally being apostilled by the Central Government. Please do the necessary and send your birth certificate compliant FRONT AND BACK.
If your apostilled documents were rejected for the above reason, try to ask for a refund or a discount in the new application. The agents knew the apostille process completely and should have explained when providing the quote for their services.
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Sources & References 📕
- Hague Convention of October 5 1961, Apostille Section – HCCH
- Countries under Hague Convention (HCCH Members)
- Enclosure: Issuing and Accepting Apostilles
- More details about the apostille process can be found on mea.gov.in
HI Prasanth,
My birth certificate was not apostilled in India by my company when I came on passport talent in 2018, and it was only translated/legalised in french/france when I reached here.
It was the Marriage Certificiate that was apostilled in India and then translated here.
Are you sure that BC must be apostilled in India for the citizenship application ?
Hello Mohit,
As explained in the article, it is mandatory to apostille and translate all your civil docs such as Birth & Marriage Certificates. There is no alternative for it.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hi, my certificate have only central government appostile stamp done in 2019. Can I ask/apply for state gov stamp now to make it complete ? If not should I restard the process by issuing duplicate birth certificate?
Hello Pratik,
State govt procedure is done 1st & then the central govt procedure.
You can try in reverse but the stamp dates may seem very far from each other. Sometimes they accept or ask you to redo everything from scratch.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello Prasanth,
Thank you for all of this information. It is a bit overwhelming. My situation is that I am married to a french spouse and we have been in Paris for the past 5 years. I already have the Police clearance certificates in place. The only thing I am unclear is if the passport based Apostille Birth certificate via VFS would be accepted or not ? Could you please help clarify this ? Thank you
Hello Kiran,
It depends on the purpose of the Birth certificate. If you are going to apply for French nationality, only an apostilled BC from
India will be accepted. No other version will be accepted including the passport based Birth certificate from Indian Embassy in Paris obtained via VFS.
Exactly, why I have highlighted this part in red on the article.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hi Prasanth,
Thank you very for your great article. It’s a real life saver with this complex administrative process. I have a question regarding Indian police clearance certificate , I have applied it at VFS Paris. I checked with them and they suggested I can directly submit it for Nationality process. Do you know of this is true and I can submit PCC certificate received directly for the process or I need to Apostile it separately ? Many thanks in advance for your guidance.
Hello Sunlll,
Yes, you can use the PCC from Indian Embassy for the French nationality process. But it must be officially translated to French. Please refer to https://prasanthragupathy.com/2025/01/complete-guide-to-documents-required-for-french-nationality-application-naturalisation-francaise-par-decret/
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Thank you so much, Prasanth! This is incredibly helpful. If I could ask one more thing, I’m planning to prepare an affidavit for my parents’ birth date information. Do you know if it’s acceptable if my mother, who is currently in India, to do this affidavit? I’d submit it after getting it apostilled and translated. Many thanks again for your kind guidance.
hi sunil.
did you get attested with both state government and central?
Hi Prasanth,
Thanks for all this info, it gives a lot of clarity on the process. I have a few questions and I request your help to get more clarity on them please :
1. For Birth Certificates – My BC has a different name and I don’t have BCs or Marriage Certificate for my parents so as you suggested I got the affidavit made with notary and I will get this document apostilled using supporting documents (passports, voter ID, service booklet etc.). Can I use this as the document as the proof of civil status and nationality for both me and my parents ?
2. My marriage certificate already has the round seal of Maharashtra govt. Can I directly go for Cent. Govt. Seal? Or do I need to repeat the first step?
3. You mentioned that soon B2 level of French will be needed for the eligibility, any idea on the timelines or the year when this will be put in place ?
Thanks a lot for your reply.
Hello Prakhar,
1. An apostilled Birth Certificate is mandatory for you. For your parents, an apostilled affidavit can be used in the absence of their birth and marriah certificates.
2. No it is not enough. Please compare your marriage certificate with the good and bad apostille examples mentioned in the article.
3. Please refer to my detailed explanations in https://prasanthragupathy.com/2024/03/faq-new-language-requirements-for-french-resident-permits-citizenship/
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello. How can I get the documents apostille while I am in France?
Marriage Certificate issued in Maharashtra, India
Birth certificate of first child issued in Maharashtra, India
Birth certificate of second child born and certificate issued in UAE,
Regards,
Hello Yatin,
I have explained the apostille process for Indian civil docs in the above article. Please contact one of the agents listed.
For UAE documents, Please check with the local UAE Embassy in France.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Prashanth,
Appreciate the all the information you provided in the article. It has been very helpful. However I am in need of clarity on my situation as below
I was born in Muscat, hence my birth certificate has been issued by Indian Embassy of Muscat, Oman – However there’s a spelling mistake of my first name for which I have got a Same Person affidavit done.
For the apostille process, can I get my birth certificate apostille in Mumbai considering it’s been issued from Muscat but by the Indian authorities?
Hello Sangeetha,
Only Indian civil docs can be apostilled in India because it requires the state govt (place of birth) and central govt attestations. So, it is not applicable for docs issued outside India.
Please check with the Indian Embassy in Muscat about the same.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hi Prasanth,
Firstly, thank you very much for this wonderful guide. I have a quick question — my Birth Certificate and Passport have different “Place of Birth” information. The Birth Certificate mentions the hospital name, while the Passport mentions the city name (the hospital is located in the same city). Will this be an issue?
Additionally, there is another concern — my Birth Certificate mentions both my parents’ names, but their surnames are not included. I would like to know if this could cause any problems. Please advise me on what I should do to rectify these issues.
Thanks once again for your help.
Best regards,
Sushma
Hello Sushma,
As clearly mentioned in my article, the details on the civil docs (birth, marriage, etc) must match the details on the passport.
If they don’t, please correct the incorrect documents. If not, you will keep facing complications life long.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hello, May I know if I have to send my original document by post for getting it apostilled to the outsourcing agents or does France accepts scanned copies? I was told by the outsourcing agents to verify this.
Thank you!
Hello Soumiya,
Yes, the apostille must be done on the original documents.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hello Prasanth,
Thank you for your reply. Do you know the channel through which it is possible to get the affidavit from notary for my parents birth certification apostilled? I was told by the agencies that it is not possible for them to get the stamp from State govt and that it has to be done in person by the applicant. Is it so? Thank you veyr much for the clarification again.
Hello, I was told the same. The said that only official documents like birth certificate can be attested by the state. Can you tell me in the end did you get the state govt attestation or not?
Thank you
Hi Prasanth, Thanks for these articles. I have a question regarding apostilling.
If we are doing it through esanad – we just upload the BC or MC and then they send the apostilled docs to our address in india. So it will not be on the original document but on the copy. Is that fine?
We do have one we got done for my daughters OCI through esanad which has only the central stam but not the state stamp and on the copy ie. its not the original MC with our photos stuck.
Thank you
Soumya
Hello Soumya,
Yes, esanad process (central govt) is fine. But please complete the state government process 1st & only then do the esanad part.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hello Prasanth,
Before coming to France I created affidavit for the differences in names of myself and my parents mentioned in the BC.
Then I apostilled my BC and later translated my BC in French.
Problem 1: the affidavit is not apostilled.
Problem 2: the affidavit is in english
Problem 3: my BC does not have state apostille thus my translated BC does not have state apostille
1. What do you suggest I do?
I feel sending the document from France would make it complicated to get apostilled. So I guess I would have to ask my parents to create a new affidavit and do apostille.
Similarly for BC, I guess I have to ask it to be apostilled again and translated.
2. When I create affidavit, I already attach my BC along with passport etc in it as proof. So if I get this affidavit apostilled then I don’t need to get a seperate apostille for my BC right?
Similarly, once I translate the apostilled affidavit (containing my BC) I don’t need to translate again seperately my BC. Right?
3. Similarly for my parents im creating
1 affidavit for each for the name ambiguity attached with passport, adhar..
1 common affidavit with all our names, place of birth, date of birth.
In these affidavit I’ll be attaching their marriage certificate, death certificate, passport etc. so one I get this affidavit apostilled and translated it will cover everything right?
No need to seperately apostille marriage certificate, death certificate.
Hello Ravi,
All your questions already covered in this apostille article above and the affidavit article https://prasanthragupathy.com/2023/07/affidavit-for-indian-birth-certificate-issues-an-example/
Please refer these self-explanatory articles and help yourself. So, I will keep it very simple here.
For your issues: update the BC (not affidavit) with correct details, apostille it and translate.
For your parents:follow the same affidavit template explained above, apostille it and translate.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello Prasanth,
Recently I sent the documents for apostille in India. I requested for both state and central government attestation. I received the documents today and they are saying that recently they have stopped giving state attestation for such requests. They only give central attestation. State attestation is only for cases which are very important.
Do you know anything about this? Has anyone else faced this issue?
Hello Ravi,
Most of the apostille cavers do only the central govt part. So, you might have to get the state govt part done by yourself. I have even explained an example in the above article.
Without the local govt attestation, the incompletely apostilled doc has a risk of being rejected as explained by the bad example above.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello, small question, in the apostille, in the issued to, who should it be? I asked my father to help doing it, and they put his (father’s) name on the issue to part on *my* birth certificate and also on parents’ marriage certificate.
Is the ‘issued to’ part of the apostille on the birth certificate necessarily one of the person named in the birth certificate?
Hello Sharbatanu,
Apostille is simply legally attesting an existing document by state and central governments. It does not involve any text modifications on the document.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello, I’m sorry as it wasn’t clear. I am not asking about the text modification in the document. In the apostille stamp at the back of the document (birth certificate), there is a part which says “issued to” and mentions a name. A mistake was made in that name. Does it matter?
Best,
Sharbatanu
If a mistake was made, please get it done again. Different names on the doc can be easily seen.
Anyway, it’s your choice to continue with it & hope that French admin doesn’t see it or correct the error.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hello Prasanth,
I got my PCC from Gurgaon. Do I need to get this document apostilled (state and central) as well before getting it translated or is direct translation sufficient?
Kind Regards,
Aditya
Hello Aditya,
As it was obtained in India, it must be apostilled as explained in the above article and only then translated.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Even for the PCC (Police Clearance Certificate), it needs to be apostiled by both state and central govt? I undertood from the article that this was only required for BC and MC.
Hi Prasanth,
Thank you for posting such a valuable article.
As you mentioned that you visited the Public Department (Foreigners Section) at the State Secretariat in Chennai, I wanted to ask: when you submitted your documents for stamping was it done on the same day or did it take a few days. Also, is there any service fee involved in the process.
One more question—can a marriage certificate issued in any city within Tamil Nadu be stamped at the State Secretariat in Chennai.
Thanks
Hello,
Should the apostille sticker be translated to English as well? Thank you very much.
Hello Soumya,
The apostille sticker will be in English. The entire document including the apostille must be translated to French.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello
My friend has applied for French nationality and he received a message to share the apostille documents of Birth certificate.
He has birth certificate issued in 2018. So his questions are:
Can he go ahead for apostille with the birth certificate issued in 2018 OR should he get new copy of birth certificate issued now and go for appostille?
Should he go for translation of BC after appostille?
Should he visit india to get the appostille?
Hello Rajesh,
This article answers all these questions in detail. Please check. I can help with any answers which I may not have covered above.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Prashanth,
I was one of the participant in the ICT seminar and it was a great help for me.
Can you please clear my doubts:
1.I am getting my birth certificate and marriage certificate apostilled, but they have taken only the scanned copy of the original documents rather than the hard copy.
Can you please let me know if this works?
2.Is it better if i get the translation done in France rather than in india?
Hello Dr. Muskan,
1. Not a problem.
2. Official translation to French in France only.https://prasanthragupathy.com/2024/09/traducteur-assermente-list-of-official-translators-in-france/
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Prashanth,
Thank you for posting reliable blogs to ease my overwhelming brain after coming to France. I came as a postdoc researcher, and they require my birth certificate translated into English/French with filiation or apostille I have two questions:
1.) My Birth certificate isn’t made. I put class 10th certificate everywhere in India as my birth proof.so it was not required then. and ofcourse read your blogs late. So, the first step would be to make a delayed birth certificate issued from gram panchayat (I was born in a village). Do I need affidavit in this too?
2.) For the apostille process, can I do everything from France itself? Does the e-sanad portal is really online service? Because my parents are old and I dont want them running here and there.
Hello Shreyansh,
1. Getting the birth certificate and apostilling it is very important. An affidavit is not an 100% solution for this problem.
2. Esanad process is available only in certain states. But you can contact any agent from the list mentioned above. Its the official list published by MEA Indian govt.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello Prasanth,
I have two questions :
1. I had my PCC issued from Passport Office so the Apostile Agencies are telling me I do not need State Stamp on this but only the Central Government Apostile. Could you confirm?
2. In the absence of the birth certificate of my father, I made the affidavit (following your template) and got it notarised in India when I was there. The Apostile Agencies are telling me that they can only do SDM Attestation on this and not Home Department Attestation since it is not an “official” document. Could you confirm if this would suffice?
Best Regards,
Aditya
yes aditya you are right even my agency said they can’t do attestation for affidavits unfortunately.
Hello Prasanth,
Agencies that coordinate the apostille process say the affidavit is not a valid document and cannot be apostilled. Not sure if something has changed recently. You have any idea or information on the same ?
Regards
Hello Manu,
Affidavits can be apostilled too and many have done it. What more important is your own documents must be completely apostilled and translated properly.
For your parennt’ missing documents, do whatver is possible. In the worst case scenario of the incompletely apostilled affidavit not being accepted for French nationality applications, you will have 2 motnhs to correct the errors and resubmit.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello Prasanth,
Thankyou for the valuable information.
I have a question regarding the state government seal.
I have made a affidavit of my parents bc and mc as per your template.
Now I m stuck with state government seal. Will the DM of my district can attest the document , I m from a small town in uttar Pradesh.
I am completely lost. Could you please help.
Thanks,
Akanksha
Hello Akansha,
If its the same district as your place of birth, the DM attestation should be ok. Try with whats possible at the moment. All the best
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Manu,
I’m in a very similar situation as yours. May I please ask if you found an alternative or work-around to this?
Best regards,
Hi Prasanth,
Thank you for posting this helpful blog. I have just one query:
There is no surname along with my and my father’s names on my birth certificate. So, do I need to get an updated birth certificate, or can I proceed for apostillation by just getting an affidavit regarding the name change?
Hello Vijay,
If I had this problem, I will get an updated birth certificate and not an affidavit.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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hey prashant
great work for the community, really great one!
I am from chennai and all around in aadhar and birth certificate there is no last name rather
I just have an initial there but the passport has the full last name.
In this case, i went to chennai corporation to change my initial and add it like passport
they denied it and said that it is not even possible.
In this case, is an affidavit an option?
Hello Raji,
Expanding the initial is definetly possible. If its not feasible, you can obtain a Certificate of Concordance in Paris or Marseille via an appointment. Details on https://www.eoiparis.gov.in/page/other-consular-services/#L
This document is issued to justify discrepancy between name on passport and Indian birth certificate.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello Prasanth,
Thank you very much for your clear and informative articles. I have a question regarding the apostille process and would be grateful for your guidance.
In your article, you mentioned that a document with an apostille was rejected because it carried a seal from an SDM in Delhi rather than a State Government seal. I wanted to clarify a few points:
1. Since the Ministry of External Affairs lists the SDM as one of the Regional Authentication Centres (RACs), why might such a seal still be rejected?
2. Is the State Government stamp only valid if issued by the District Commissioner (or District Magistrate) or the Home Department?
3. Is there any difference in validity if the stamp comes from an SDM (HQ)?
4. One of the MEA’s outsourced agencies advised me to obtain both an SDM stamp and a Notary. Does this align with the official process?
Thank you once again for your helpful insights!
Hello Deb,
Whats more important: Where you born in Delhi?. Is it mentioned as place of birth on your bith certificate & passport.
Yes, I was born in Delhi. It’s written on my passport. On my birth certificate it just mentions the name of the hospital but the hospital is in Delhi.
hi deb,
would be very much interested if you could suggest the outsourced agent details.
Hello, The official complete list of authorised agents is clealry mentioned in Chapter 2 above.
sorry prashant for leaving such comments.
none of your agents in the list are helpful with the process(apostile) you’ve mentioned above (state department seal et MEA).
you process was in place way back only when you did this yourself, thigns have changed since then
no more seal are authorized by HRD in person or by agents anymore and I don’t really wanted to argue, rather contacting ppl
who have experience with these in recent days.
Hello Raji,
Unfortunately, You have misunderstood. These are the official agents listed by the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of India. If you have issues with their services, please feel free to submit a complaint to MEA.
There is nothing to argue about an official procedure. Regarding the local government/administration attestation related to place of birth, people are getting it done by themselves or via these agents at an additional cost.
Anyways, its your document. Please do whatever feels right for you. All the best.
I contacted one of the 5 agencies in the above article mentioned under Step 2 of “Apostille Process”
Hello Deb,
Thanks for your feedback. If possible, please Can you share an overview what you did exactly for your documents?. It will help others reading this article.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello,
I am facing the same situation. Since I don’t have my parents’ birth certificates, I will be preparing an affidavit and getting it apostilled. However, I was told that the process will only involve SDM + Notary + Apostille, and not the state government.
Hello Arkja Kavya,
As I’ve explained above, you can do whats feasible locally for your parent’s documents for your french nationalit application. But, your own documents must be done properly without any deviation.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello regarding updating the birth certificate, had a question. If I update my birth certificate to match my parents birth certificate (to correct some spelling mistakes) then I will also have to update my passport right? And then these new updates/changes will not match with my existing titre de séjour n other docs already submitted in France. Will this be an issue? Or would you suggest that the best case is to just make an affidavit mentioning X n Y is the same person (as suggested in your blog incase of spelling mistakes in names)? Or don’t use parents BCs at all n make the affidavit as mentioned in the blog?
Your support would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Hello Krupal,
You have not mentioned, which name is correct. As explained in the article, the full name on your civil docs (birth, marrriage) must match your Passport details. The same name will be on your Carte de séjour, avis d’impots, salary slips, etc. So, its not a wise choice to change your name now & complicate unnecessarily. Unless you want to spend a lot of time updating each & every doc. This can take months or even years.
An affidavit option looks simpler but its not a 100% perfect solution as submitting your parents’ birth certificates. All the best
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello Prasanth,
Thank you for your answer.
So my name and my parents name on my birth certificate and my passport and all french documents match each other. However, my parents names on their respective birth certificates do not match parents name on my birth certificate. This is where the discrepancy lies.
I have the option to make corrections on my birth certificate so that I can match my parents names with their birth certificates. However, that would mean, change things in passport too, and my respective french documents, which as you rightly mentioned will take a long time. So I think affidavit option seems to be the optimal one for the moment.
Thanks,
Krupal
As explained earlier, please do not complicate things unnecessarily. All the best. Have a great weekend
Hi Prashanth,
I have an apostilled birth certificate issued by the indian consulate in UAE as thats where I was born. Will this document be enough for the naturalisation process or do I need the a separate document from UAE as well?
Thanks,
Niha
Hello Niha,
Sorry, I do not have any idea about UAE documents. But the general rule is that an apostilled birth certificate is required from the place of birth issued by the local authorities. So, it should be the official UAE govt issued birth ceritficate in your case, apostilled and translated to French. Docs issued by Indian Embassy/Consulate are never considered as replacements for official docs.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Prashanth,
I am applying for Naturalization in France. I dont have an official birth certificate issued from India. I live in France for more than 17 years.
I see in your post that I cant use Passport based birth certificate for Naturalization issued by Indian Embassy. Is there any alternative that I can do being in France?
Thanks a lot for your help.
Regards,
Shikha
Hello Shikha,
Getting an offcial Birth certificate from your place of birth is this best option. If its not possible, please try https://prasanthragupathy.com/2023/07/affidavit-for-indian-birth-certificate-issues-an-example/ However, there is no gurantee that an affidavit will work for your situation.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Prasanth, Thank you for the information. For the state govt seals, can we can get it from any state government office in the city we were born or does it have to specifically be from a certain department ?
Hello Caroline,
It is specific to each state and usually done at the same office for the entire state. I have expained the same in the above article. So, please check with the home or foreign affairs department office of your state govt.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello
One quick question, do the Paris Embassy issue us a birth certifiate in English based as per our passport?
If yes, how can I applu for that, as the existing application i believe they will create the certificate only in French. Thank you.
Hello Arun,
The passport based Birth certificate is issued in French & it’s meant for a temporary use in France.
Feel free to write to the embassy about an English certificate.
Also, it’s not a permanent replacement for an original birth certificate.
Cheers,
Prasanth
Hello thanks for ypour reply. I tried over phone to reach the embassy, but there is no responce. I send an email a week back and still no responce.
You can also get it translated. FYI https://prasanthragupathy.com/2024/09/traducteur-assermente-list-of-official-translators-in-france/
Hi Prashanth,
Thank you so much for this extremely helpful blog. I just wanted to ask a few questions regarding my situation. I recently obtained a copy of my original birth certificate. It’s currently in Tamil.
– Should I get it translated to English before I get it notarised and apostilled? Or I can directly get the Tamil version notarised and apostilled. Because from what I understand, it’s the apostilled version that needs to be translated into French. Please let me know if I am understanding this correctly.
Hello,
Apostille must be done always on the original doc (any language). This must be accompanied by a French translation for all French admin procedures.
My birth certificate from Chennai is bilingual (English & Tamil).
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hello MK,
My documents where in also in hindi. I get them apostilled first and then made a translation in English on it, as this English translated document will have apostille seals information as well which proofs your orginal document is valid.
Now I can use this as reference for french translation here in France.
Hello Prasanth,
Thank you for your article. I got my documents apostille in India as they were incomplete like you mentioned in your article. I contacted the list of services you mentioned in the article “Alankit apostille”. For information Bangalore PEC attestation office in Bangalore are unfortunately closed after Covid they are operating from Pune only but they were ready to do the Attestation for me with additional 10k as my documents belonged to Madhya Pradesh and state seal has to be of Madhya Pradesh.
Then I contacted Alankit Attestation Bangalore and they assured me that they have a small office in my city Indore in Madhya Pradesh and gave an estimation of charging 10k for each document. It was doing the complete attestation state+Delhi.
Alankit attestation customer service was really good considering my tight schedule in India. The person incharge gave me whole day and personally helped me prepare related affidavits attested, even went to the SDM office with me. It was funny to be in the queue waiting in the government offices and understanding there process of delay due to unknown reason we all know :-D. Well Attestation service employee know there job well. I could have also done this on my own but trying to wait in queue endlessly outside government with no timeline especially when i am on vacation to visit india for few weeks, is not my cup of tea.
Madhya pradesh government services are not as developed and organised like Karnataka or Tamil nadu which I read in your article, you even have a website to apply for apostille and everything looks more transparent.
Since my documents also consisted of my parents birth certificates it needed extra affidavits. I couldn’t receive my documents apostilled in my hands while I was in India, so they promised to courier it to me ofcourse with extra charges. It was huge relief to receive the documents safe and in good condition in the end in France, as I was couldn’t afford to loose them in courier transfer. Voila!! I thought of sharing my experience. The whole process for me took 15 days instead of 1 month which was estimated by most of the other services I contacted.
Hello Div,
Thanks a lot for sharing your personal experiences.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Prashanth,
Thank you for sharing this much detailed information about the apostille process.
If I understand well, for a birth certificate from TamilNadu, by submitting the application in E-Sanad, we will be able to obtain both State and Central government seals. There is no need to visit the state government office. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Hello Dhiva,
yes for TamilNadu.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Hi Prashanth,
I just realized that the apostille on my birth certificate is incomplete, as it does not include the state government seal. Since I am from Kerala, I can obtain a new copy of the birth certificate and have it apostilled again.
Could you please advise whether I should proceed with getting a new copy and re‑apostilling it, or if it is possible to simply add the state government seal to the existing document and then have it translated again?
Thank you for your guidance.
Aswin
Hello Aswin,
If I was in this situation, I would do the apostille process again with all the steps.
Cheers,
Prasanth
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Okay, in my case I can do it. But in case of my friend, who is from Tamil Nadu. She has an original birth certificate issued in 1995 and she got it apostilled in 2022. But hers has the same issue, missing state government seal and the rest (notary, SDM, and MFE stamp) are all on the original doc itself. What can she do in this case?