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FBR documents checklist

Choose your route and tick documents off as you gather them. Your progress is saved in this browser, and you can print the list to keep with your paperwork.

  • 4 min read
  • Updated

Quick answer

An adult Foreign Births Register application needs original civil certificates for each generation in your claim, certified copies of photo ID, two original proofs of address, four passport photos and the signed, witnessed application form. Incomplete applications are returned without being processed.

Your documents checklist

Which route are you applying through?

0 of 16 ready

About you

0/6

Your parent in the Irish line

0/3

The parent who is the child of your Irish-born grandparent.

Your Irish-born grandparent

0/3

Before you post it

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Your ticks are saved in this browser only.

Originals, copies and certified copies

Unless the list says otherwise, send originals: birth, marriage and death certificates must be the ones issued by the civil registration authority. They are all returned to you by recorded mail at the end.

Photo ID is the exception. Send a photocopy certified as a true copy — your own by your application witness, and a living parent’s or grandparent’s by someone from the approved witness list. A certified copy is signed and dated by that person as a true copy of the original. Keep the original ID yourself.

When names don’t match

If anyone’s name has changed since birth — most often through marriage — include the marriage certificate or another change-of-name document so each record links to the next. Your Foreign Birth Registration certificate will show your name exactly as it appears on your birth certificate.

Grandparents born before 1864

Irish civil registration of births began in 1864. For a grandparent born before then, the Department of Foreign Affairs accepts a baptismal certificate instead of a birth certificate. You can search the parish registers with Find Irish documents.

Children and adoption

This checklist covers adults. Applications for someone under 18, and applications through a parent who was adopted, have their own document lists — for example, a child’s application needs a letter from a school or family doctor showing their address instead of proofs of address. Use the official list on ireland.ie for those.

Sources

Checked against these official pages on . Requirements can change — confirm them before you apply.

Free toolFind Irish documentsSearch the Irish civil and church registers for births, marriages, deaths, baptisms and burials, and view the original register page.GuideWhat is the Foreign Births Register?How Ireland’s Foreign Births Register works: who can apply, the documents, the €278 fee, the 12-month wait, and how registration leads to an Irish passport.FAQsForeign Births Register FAQsEligibility, documents, witnesses, fees and timelines in short answers.