Is a citizenship stamp on a child's birth certificate required in 2025 for travel to Germany?

Until 2024, the citizenship stamp on the back of the certificate was not mandatory, and it was sufficient that both parents had a note of Russian citizenship on this certificate. Now the laws have changed. In 2023, Presidential Decree No. 889 of November 22, 2023, 'Issues of Citizenship of the Russian Federation,' was signed, according to which Russian citizens are now checked for the presence of Russian citizenship when leaving the country. And if citizenship confirmation is lacking, in 2025, they may not be allowed through the border. The Border Service of the FSB of Russia (not customs!!!), which processes citizens at the border, has issued a clarification: Currently, for a child under 14 years old to travel abroad, one of the following documents must be shown at passport control:

• A stamp in the birth certificate.
• A separate insert confirming citizenship.
• An entry of the child in the parents' passport with a stamp and signature of an FMS employee.
• The child's own international passport or own passport after reaching 14 years of age.

Note that at least one of the listed confirmations of citizenship is sufficient, and this works in practice and complies with Russian legislation. In other words, it turns out that if the child has their own international passport or internal Russian passport obtained upon reaching 14 years of age, or has a citizenship insert, or is entered in your (parents') passport with a signature and stamp of an FMS employee, then it is not necessary to put a stamp in the certificate even 'just in case.' And all the stories in chats and forums from users about not being allowed out without a stamp on the birth certificate under any circumstances are inaccurate information as of 2025.

To summarize, we reiterate that the question can be definitively answered as follows:

• If you are traveling with a child abroad to one of the distant countries where entry is strictly by international passport, not by internal Russian passport or birth certificate, which is the vast majority of countries, then there is no need to worry about having a stamp at all; it is not required since citizenship is confirmed by the international passport.
• If you are traveling with a child abroad to one of the countries where Russian citizens can enter with an internal passport or birth certificate (currently Abkhazia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, South Ossetia) and the child does not have their own international passport, Russian passport, insert, or is not entered in your passport with a signature and stamp, then the child must have a stamp in the birth certificate.

To put a stamp in the birth certificate, you need to contact the FMS of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to have it affixed. Usually, this is done in one visit within just a few minutes, but sometimes it takes several days (depending on the workload of the FMS department). Also, stamps are placed in some MFC offices, but this takes much longer, and not all MFCs do this.

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