How to Get Your Baby’s Mexican Citizenship (for babies born to foreign parents in Mexico)

Dec 7

Organizing your paperwork is essential to register your baby, including applying for their passport and citizenship documents. To do this properly, bring the following documents with you to the hospital:

Passports (originals) of both parents
Photocopies of both parent's passports (to be safe, make several copies)
Proof of address in Mexico: Bring a copy of your monthly telephone/internet bill, electricity bill, or water bill. We were renting then, so we just asked for a copy from our landlord. Rental contracts are not accepted.
OPTIONAL: Both parents' original birth certificates, with a government apostille from the jurisdictions they were issued in. Both certificates need a certified translation into Spanish (perito traducción). This process will transfer lineage rights to the baby's grandparents in addition to the parents, therefore making the grandparents also eligible for residency rights in Mexico. Or, bring a copy of your marriage certificate, with a government apostille from the jurisdiction it was issued in, and a certified translation in Spanish. This would also confer those rights to the grandparents.

Certificate of Live Birth: This is a national statistics document that pediatricians will issue to mothers after giving birth in the hospital, confirming that the mother did indeed give birth, along with the details of the baby. It only contains the mother's name and the pediatrician's name.

Your baby's full legal name will include both the father's and mother's surnames in the following order: Written full name of the baby in the following order (both surnames are required):

First Name
(Middle Name)
Paternal Surname
Maternal Surname

Getting Your Baby's Birth Certificate – Acta de Nacimiento

The Acta de Nacimiento (long-form birth certificate) is a vital document. You need this document to apply for your baby's Mexican passport and any other foreign citizenship to which they are entitled. This document will also be essential for your application for permanent residency. Therefore, ask for multiple original copies when you apply for the record.

Many hospitals will offer a service to collect and submit these documents on your behalf to the Registro Civil (Civil Registry Office) and procure your baby's Acta de Nacimiento.

The hospital charges around 60 pesos per copy, and you want about ten copies to be safe. The process takes about a week to 10 business days to finish. Make sure every spelling, date, and detail is perfect since the Acta is tough to correct later. The total cost of the Acta plus the service fee from the hospital is around 1000 to 1500 pesos.

Getting Your Baby's CURP

After receiving your baby's Acta de Nacimiento, you should immediately go online and obtain their CURP-- a unique identification number assigned to every Mexican citizen and resident (kind of like a social security number). Having a CURP to do just about anything in Mexico is necessary.

To get your baby's CURP, open this website. Click on the second tab, "datos personales", and input the following in each field:

Child's first (and middle) name(s) according to their birth certificate
Child's paternal surname
Child's maternal surname
Child's day of birth (day of the month)
Child's month of birth
Child's year of birth
Child's gender
The Mexican state where the child was born

When this is complete, hit the search button ("buscar"), and this information should pull up the online profile of your child. An option to download their CURP as a PDF will appear. Download their CURP as a PDF, and be sure to print out several copies.

Verify Your Child’s Acta de Nacimiento Online.

Since Mexico has recently transitioned to an all-digital records system, there are still some flaws. It is vital to verify your child's Acta de Nacimiento online and ensure all the details from the paper version are included and match the digital version.

If your nationality is left blank -- i.e. "-" -- on the digital version of your child's Acta de Nacimiento, your child will be unable to get a Mexican passport until it has been corrected. To check:

· Go to the following website.

· Input your child's CURP (or your CURP)

If this does not work, go to "datos personales" instead and input your child's information to match the required fields.
If that still doesn't work, input your details in those fields as the registered parent on the birth certificate. At least one of these options should bring up your child's digital birth certificate.
From there, you need to see if all the information matches exactly. If it does not (or anything is missing, like the parents' nationality), you must correct this before trying to obtain your baby's passport (learn how to fix this problem in the next section).

What to Do If Your Child's Digital Acta De Nacimiento Does Not Match Or is Missing Information From Their Paper Copy Acta De Nacimiento

It is common for children born to foreign parents in Mexico to run into this issue, but it is not impossible to solve.

For your Mexican citizen baby to obtain a passport, their digital birth certificate must match their paper birth certificate exactly. Any discrepancy or missing information between the two means your child cannot get their Mexican passport issued.

The parent's nationalities were not included on the digital version of my baby's birth certificate. The same issue occurred to my friend, who is also an ex-pat. If a child is born to foreign parents in Mexico, the parent's full names, dates of birth, and nationality must be included on BOTH their paper as well as digital birth certificates.

How to Check If This Problem Will Happen to You

Verify your child's Acta de Nacimiento online – see the sub-section above. If something is missing, here is how you can fix it:

You will have to go in person to the nearest Registro Civil (Civil Registration Office).

From there you will need to go to the “programas especiales” window and explain that the Acta de Nacimiento on the digital platform does not match the official copy (or that details are missing).

Depending on the official you talk to, they may be helpful or dismissive. Normally they will tell you to email the document copy and it will be added to the platform. Do not try this, it won’t work.

Instead, do the following:

Bring two copies of each of the following documents:

A copy of your passport.
A copy of a Mexican passport application appointment within the next 3-5 days.
A copy of your child’s Acta de Nacimiento
Your child’s CURP

Then request that they process your application on the spot. They should take these documents and within about an hour have the digital platform updated manually for you. You can check online to confirm that the details are correct and complete.

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