Registration
Every child born in Japan must be registered with the Japanese municipality of residence of the parents within 14 days after birth.
Parents must take the following administrative steps:
- Request a copy of your Japanese birth certificate: SHUSSEI TODOKE KISAI JIKO SHOMEI (GIF, 34.73 KB) at the Japanese town hall where the birth was registered.
Note, do not request juri shomeisho. This short version is not enough!
If a certain period of time has passed and you can no longer receive the certificate at the town hall, you can request the document at the "Legal Affairs Bureau (homukyoku)."
- Have the document legalized by means of an apostille (convention of The Hague) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho).
- Have the document translated by a sworn translator. A list of sworn translators in Belgium is available at the Court of First Instance in Belgium. Careful, check whether the names and dates have all been correctly translated.
- Fill out the registration form for the newborn child (Dutch (PDF, 189.61 KB) or French (PDF, 165.78 KB) form).
- Self-addressed return envelope. Please add a self-addressed Letter Pack Plus (520 JPY), so the documents can be returned to you by registered mail.
The parent registered in the consular registers of the Belgian Embassy in Tokyo must then take the following steps:
- First, send all original documents by post to the Embassy together with a self-addressed Letter Pack Plus (520 JPY), available at any post office. As soon as the Embassy has received and verified all the original documents, the child will be registered in the registers of this post, and a new national register number will be created. Then, you can apply for a passport and/or a Kids-ID for the child if you desire.
- The original documents will be returned to you by registered mail. You can then use these documents to have the birth certificate transferred to the registers of civil status.
The parent registered in a Belgian municipality must take the following steps:
- Send a copy of all documents to the Embassy and hand over the original documents to the municipality of your domicile in Belgium. On the basis of these documents, they will register your child in the registers of your municipality.
Please note, it is not possible to apply for a passport for the child at the Embassy if the child is not registered in the consular registers of the post. In this case, you can only obtain a passport in Belgium.
Transcription
(I.e., the transfer of the Birth Certificate to the registers of civil status in Belgium)
It is strongly recommended that the Belgian parent transcribe the birth certificate in the registry of civil status in the municipality of their last residence in Belgium.
Once the deed has been transferred, you can always obtain an extract and issues of this deed. If this is not done, the Japanese municipality of residence will remain the only location where a copy of the birth certificate can be obtained in the future. For those formalities, we recommend that you first contact the municipality to check their conditions.
In some cases, the transfer can only be done by yourself (i.e., you will need to go to the municipal office in person, maybe during your next trip to Belgium). In other cases, it can be requested by a family member who lives in Belgium.
The validity of the birth certificate with apostille and translation for transcription is maximum 6 months.
To know more about the usefulness of a transfer, see the following link: why transfer a birth certificate?
Nationality
The child is Belgian by birth if the Belgian mother and/or father was/were born in Belgium. If the Belgian parent was born outside Belgium, a declaration of retention of nationality is required: Nationality
For more information on nationality, please contact the Embassy.
Last Name
Read more about the choice or change of the name(s) and first name(s) of a Belgian child born in Japan here: Choice of name
To learn more about giving a name in general, go to the following page: Giving a name
For more information on last names, please contact the Embassy.
Recognition
If the parents are not married, there is a chance that paternal attunement is not established at birth. The Belgian father will then have to acknowledge/recognize the child.
More information can be found here: Acknowledgement of Parentage
If applicable, please contact the Embassy; preferably before birth.
