Birth Certificate
Apostille in India
An Indian birth certificate is a public record issued under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 — which means it can go straight to the SDM for pre-authentication without a notary. The complication is almost never the apostille itself. It is that the certificate people hold is often not the one the government will authenticate: hospital slips, panchayat records and unregistered late births all fail at this stage, and they fail before anyone tells you why.
All-in price
₹2,100per document
Processing
3–7 working days
plus courier transit
Check this first
An apostille only works for Hague Convention countries.
There are 130 Contracting Parties as of 30 June 2026. If your birth certificate is going to the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Malaysia, Iraq or Iran, an apostille is not valid — you need embassy attestation instead, which is a different process. Check your destination before you order.
Check your destination countryThis page is for a birth certificate issued in India. If yours was issued in the United States, you need the US route instead — see US Birth Certificate Apostille.
Who Issues an Indian Birth Certificate
Issuing Authority
Municipal Corporation, Municipality or Gram Panchayat, through the Registrar of Births & Deaths for the place of birth
A birth certificate issued by this authority is a public document, which means it goes straight to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate for pre-authentication — no notary step.
How the SDM Route Works for a Birth Certificate
Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM)
3–7 working daysThe SDM verifies that the certificate was genuinely issued by the registering authority named on it, and attests it. This is the step that catches hospital-issued and unregistered certificates.
Ministry of External Affairs
1–2 working days after depositThe MEA verifies the SDM signature against its records and affixes the apostille sticker with its QR code. The MEA accepts no document directly from an individual, so we deposit through an MEA-authorised collection channel.
Does a Birth Certificate need notarisation first?
No. A birth certificate issued by Municipal Corporation is a public document, so the SDM attests it directly and no Notary Public is involved. Notarisation applies to privately-made documents — affidavits, powers of attorney, employer letters and certified copies — where there is no government signature for the SDM to verify. If an agency tells you your birth certificate must be notarised first, ask them why.
SDM or State Home Department?
Personal documents can be pre-authenticated by either the SDM or the State Home Department. We default to the SDM because it is materially faster, and because the slower route rarely buys the customer anything. The exception matters though: some destination countries and some receiving institutions specifically require Home Department attestation, and getting that wrong means running the whole process again.
| Pre-authentication authority | Typical time | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| SDM Our default | 3–7 days | The standard route for personal documents |
| State Home Department | 10–20+ days | Where a destination or institution specifically requires it |
Tell us the destination country and the receiving institution when you order and we will confirm which route yours needs before anything is submitted. If it needs the Home Department, we will say so — quoted on request.
Birth Certificate Apostille by State
The SDM is a district-level officer, so the office that pre-authenticates your birth certificate follows the district where it was issued — not where you live now. The Home Department alternative is state-level. Both routes end at the same MEA counter, and our price is the same from every state.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Telangana
- Issued by
- GHMC or the relevant municipality / gram panchayat
- Home Department route
- General Administration Department, Government of Telangana (Hyderabad)
Hyderabad births are registered by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. A hospital-issued discharge slip is not a birth certificate and cannot be apostilled — the GHMC-issued certificate is the one that can.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Andhra Pradesh
- Issued by
- The municipal corporation, municipality or gram panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- General Administration Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh (Amaravati)
Records for births before the 2014 bifurcation may sit with the authority in the district as it then stood. Tell us the district and year and we will confirm which office holds it.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Maharashtra
- Issued by
- BMC in Mumbai; the relevant municipal corporation or gram panchayat elsewhere
- Home Department route
- Home Department, Government of Maharashtra (Mumbai)
Mumbai civil records are issued by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Documents registered in Pune, Nagpur or Nashik follow their own corporations, not BMC.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Karnataka
- Issued by
- BBMP in Bengaluru; the relevant municipal body elsewhere
- Home Department route
- Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Government of Karnataka (Bengaluru)
Bengaluru records come from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike. Degrees from Karnataka universities take the HRD route rather than the SDM route — that is a different service, quoted on request.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Tamil Nadu
- Issued by
- Greater Chennai Corporation, or the municipality / panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Public (Political) Department, Government of Tamil Nadu (Chennai)
Tamil Nadu civil records are commonly issued in Tamil. Where the receiving authority abroad requires English, a certified translation is needed — the apostille does not translate anything.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Kerala
- Issued by
- The local self-government body — corporation, municipality or panchayat
- Home Department route
- General Administration (Political) Department, Government of Kerala (Thiruvananthapuram)
Kerala has among the highest volumes of documents going abroad, much of it to Gulf states. Several of those — the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait — are not Hague parties, so an apostille has no effect there and embassy attestation is required instead.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Gujarat
- Issued by
- The municipal corporation or gram panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Home Department, Government of Gujarat (Gandhinagar)
Documents issued in Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara each come from their own municipal corporation. Confirm which body issued yours before ordering a fresh copy.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Punjab
- Issued by
- The municipal corporation, council or gram panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Department of Home Affairs and Justice, Government of Punjab (Chandigarh)
Chandigarh is a Union Territory administered separately from Punjab and Haryana. If your document was issued in Chandigarh itself, the UT administration holds it, not the Punjab department.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Haryana
- Issued by
- The municipal corporation or gram panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Home Department, Government of Haryana (Chandigarh)
Gurugram and Faridabad records come from their own municipal corporations. As with Punjab, documents issued in Chandigarh itself follow the UT administration.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Uttar Pradesh
- Issued by
- The Nagar Nigam, Nagar Palika or gram panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Home Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow)
Late-registered births are common in UP and the certificate will say so. That does not prevent an apostille, but some receiving authorities ask for supporting evidence alongside it — tell us if yours is late-registered.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Rajasthan
- Issued by
- The municipal corporation, council or gram panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Home Department, Government of Rajasthan (Jaipur)
Rajasthan issues many civil records in Hindi. Where the destination requires English, budget for a certified translation in addition to the apostille.
Birth Certificate Apostille in Madhya Pradesh
- Issued by
- The Nagar Nigam, Nagar Palika or gram panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Home Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal)
Indore and Bhopal records come from their own municipal corporations. Documents from smaller districts follow the local body that registered them.
Birth Certificate Apostille in West Bengal
- Issued by
- Kolkata Municipal Corporation, or the municipality / panchayat of registration
- Home Department route
- Home and Hill Affairs Department, Government of West Bengal (Kolkata)
Kolkata civil records are issued by the KMC. Bengali-language certificates need a certified translation where the destination requires English.
We do not publish state office addresses here because they change and a stale address is worse than none — check the current one on your state portal, or just send the document to us and we will route it. Stamp-paper values and notary charges are set by the state and vary; we confirm those at order.
What about e-Sanad?
Some municipal corporations are onboarded to e-Sanad and some are not, and coverage has expanded unevenly by state. Check your own issuing body at esanad.nic.in before assuming it applies. Even where it works, most foreign authorities still ask for the physical apostille sticker.
e-Sanad is the government's own free platform for digitally verifying documents from onboarded issuing authorities. Where it covers your document and your destination accepts it, it is genuinely the better option and we will tell you so. It is not a replacement for a physical apostille sticker in most cases.
What a Birth Certificate Apostille Costs
Government feesAt cost MEA apostille ₹50 + authorised-channel collection ₹84 + scanning ₹3/page | ₹143 |
Veritas service fee SDM pre-authentication, authorised-channel deposit, handling and tracking | ₹1,957 |
| Total per document | ₹2,100 |
Courier Quoted before payment, charged at what it actually costs | At cost |
The same ₹2,100 applies to every personal document we handle, whatever its page count. Most sites in this market either publish no figure at all or put their calculator behind an email form — on searches where the whole intent is to find out what it costs. Government fees are reproduced from mea.gov.in and passed through at cost. See the full charges breakdown.
Why People Apostille a Birth Certificate
Study abroad
Universities in Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland routinely ask for an apostilled birth certificate as part of the admission or student-visa file, often alongside a certified translation.
Dependent and spouse visas
Proving a parent–child relationship for a dependent visa is the single most common reason this document gets apostilled. Immigration authorities want the civil record, not a hospital document.
Permanent residence
Canada, Australia and most EU PR routes require apostilled civil-status documents for every family member listed on the application.
Foreign birth registration and citizenship
Registering an Indian-born child with a foreign consulate, or claiming citizenship by descent, both start from the apostilled birth record.
Which Birth Certificate Do You Actually Have?
This is where applications fail, and it is almost never the apostille itself. Find your case below before you courier anything — a rejected document costs a full second run, not a correction.
Hospital-issued certificateOften rejected
This is the most common rejection we see. The slip a hospital gives you at discharge is not a civil registration — it is a record of the birth event. You need the certificate issued by the municipal corporation or panchayat that registered the birth. If the birth was never registered, that has to be done first.
Municipal corporation issued
GHMC in Hyderabad, BBMP in Bangalore, MCGM in Mumbai, MCD in Delhi and so on. These are the straightforward cases and route through the SDM without difficulty.
Gram Panchayat issued
Valid, but rural certificates are more often handwritten or in a regional language. Some destination authorities ask for a computerised or translated copy, and it is worth resolving that before the apostille rather than after.
Late registration
A birth registered years after the event carries a delayed-registration order from a magistrate or the registrar. That order usually needs to travel with the certificate — send us both and we will tell you what the SDM will want.
NABC — Non-Availability of Birth CertificateOften rejected
Where no birth was ever registered, the issuing authority provides a Non-Availability certificate, generally paired with an affidavit of birth details and a school leaving certificate. This bundle can be apostilled, but the receiving authority abroad decides whether it accepts the substitute — check with them first.
Name mismatch with the passportOften rejected
Probably the most common real-world failure across every document type. If the certificate says one spelling and the passport says another, the destination authority may reject the set even though the apostille itself is valid. Fix the record before apostilling, not after.
Not sure which you have? Send photos on WhatsApp — we check before you courier anything, and we will tell you if the answer is that we cannot help.
What to Send Us
The original birth certificate issued by the municipal corporation, municipality or panchayat — not a hospital certificate
A clear photocopy of the passport (photo and address pages) of the certificate holder
Where the holder is a minor, a copy of one parent's passport or Aadhaar
An authorisation letter if someone other than the holder is submitting — we send a template
Birth Certificate Apostille — Common Questions
Can a hospital birth certificate be apostilled in India?
How long does a birth certificate apostille take in India?
Do I need to send the original birth certificate?
How much does a birth certificate apostille cost in India?
Is an apostilled Indian birth certificate valid everywhere?
Does the SDM route work for a birth certificate from any state?
Hague Convention figures verified against theHCCH status tableon 30 June 2026. Government fees from mea.gov.in, same date.
Ready to Apostille Your
Birth Certificate?
₹2,100 per document, 3–7 working days processing. We check your document for free before you courier anything.
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