National Court Administration, Family Register Office for Overseas Koreans

  • KOREAN
background

Report of Birth

Birth and Acquisition of Nationality

  1. Acquisition of nationality by the birth

    A person who meets any of the following criteria acquires the nationality of the Republic of Korea:

    1. A person whose father or mother is a national of the Republic of Korea at his/her time of the birth

    2. A person whose father was a national of the Republic of Korea at the time of death if his/her father died before the person was born

    3. A person who is born in the Republic of Korea if both parents of the person are unknown or have no nationality

    Persons Born Out of Wedlock Between a Korean Father and Foreign Mother

    Such a person is not qualified to acquire the nationality of the Republic of Korea simultaneously with the birth because the Korean father’s paternity of the person is not established at the time of the person’s birth under the “Civil Act” of the Republic of Korea.
    However, if the Korean biological father recognized the child as his own before he/she was born, that is, as a fetus, the child acquires the nationality of the Republic of Korea by birth as an exception.

    Even if the father filed a report of recognition of a child while still a fetus, the family relation register is created for the child when their report of the birth is filed later. In such cases, the birth report shall be filed with the registration office, where the report of the recognition of a child while still a fetus was filed. If the report of the recognition of a child while still a fetus was filed with an overseas Korean diplomatic mission, the birth report shall also be filed with the overseas diplomatic mission.

  2. Report of multiple nationalities

    The Republic of Korea allows multiple nationalities in certain cases, and a child who acquires a foreign country’s nationality at the time of the birth becomes a person holding multiple nationalities by the birth. The fact that the child has multiple nationalities and which country’s nationality he/she acquired shall be entered in the birth report.

    Materials Proving Multiple Nationalities

    A child born in the USA acquires US citizenship under the territorial principle. The certificate of the birth stating that the place of the birth is a place in the USA can be recognized as a document proving that the child acquired US citizenship. However, each country has different requirements for a child’s acquisition of nationality, and there are exceptions even in the countries that have adopted the territorial principle. Therefore, it is mandatory to provide requirements for the acquisition of nationality under the law of the relevant foreign country.