Opposite-sex parents

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Certificates posted after 20 December may not arrive until after 5 January.

If you require your certificates earlier, please arrange to collect them in person. 

• Birth registration
• Where to register a birth
• Opposite-sex parents
• Same-sex female parents
• Same-sex male parents
• Other people who can register a birth
• What you need to tell the registrar
• Birth certificates
• Child Benefit
• Re-registering a birth
• Changing a child's forenames
• Perjury warning
• Privacy Notice

Married or civil partner parents

Either parent can register the birth on their own. They must include both parents’ details if they were married or in a civil partnership when the baby was born or conceived.

The law does not allow both parents to sign the register if they are married or in a civil partnership.

Unmarried, non-civil partner parents 

The details of both parents can be included on the birth certificate if they both sign the birth register.

During the appointment, the registrar will need to interview both parents. 

If the unmarried mother attends alone, the father will not be named on the birth certificate. But he can be added at a later time by Re-registering the birth.

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