If your Birth Record has been registered with an Italian Municipality and you need to request a Birth Certificate from that Municipality, but you are unable to go to that Municipality or to one of that Municipality’s physical Civil Registry Offices, you can request a digital copy of your Birth Certificate.
In this guide, we will explain all the available ways to request your Italian Birth Certificate online.
Before proceeding further, here are some relevant preliminary notes:
– When we talk about an Italian Birth Certificate, we do not talk about a full copy of the Birth Record. The Italian Birth Certificate is a simpler certificate that records only a person’s first name, last name, date, and place of birth. There are two other Birth Certificate types that you can request in Italy. In fact, there are the Birth Certificate Extract (that also includes any annotation required by the law and also available in a multilingual version) and the Full Copy of the Birth Certificate (that is a complete copy of the Birth Record). The type of Birth Certificate you actually need depends on the reason you need it and the request of the receiving authority. Some of the ways described in this guide allow only to request a Birth Certificate, others allow you to also request a Birth Certificate Extract and/or a Full Copy of the Birth Certificate.
– If you intend to use your Italian Birth Certificate in Italy, according to Italian laws, it is valid for 6 months from its issuance date.
– If you intend to use your Italian Birth Certificate in a Foreign Country, you have to verify with the receiving authority if that authority would accept a digital copy of the document. For example, the receiving authority could accept only a document signed with the original, handwritten signature of a public official, so a digital document would not satisfy this requirement.
– If your Italian Birth Certificate is intended for use in a Foreign Country and it must be legalized or apostilled for its recognition by the authority of that Country, you need a physical copy of the document signed with the handwritten signature of a public official whose signature is registered with the Prefecture. In this case, you need to legalize or apostille your Italian Birth Certificate at the territorially competent Prefecture for the Municipality that issued the document. An Italian public document can be legalized or apostilled only if it is a physical document signed with the handwritten signature of a public official whose signature is registered with a competent authority that can authenticate it.
The Anagrafe Nazionale Popolazione Residente (ANPR) is a service that has been active since November 15, 2021. Thanks to its enormous database, it makes it possible to request and obtain many civil registry certificates directly from home. It is important to note that the portal is in Italian only.
To get your Birth Certificate on this portal, the first thing you’ll need to do is log in using your Italian digital identity (SPID, CIE, CNS) or a national digital identity of another European Union Country (eIDAS) on the ANPR’s Servizi al Cittadino (Citizen Services) page. It is important to note that through the ANPR website you can only request a simple Birth Certificate, not a Birth Certificate Extract or a Full Copy of your Birth Certificate.
The service offered by SMART ANPR is even faster and easier.
Certificates are produced directly by ANPR (National Resident Population Registry) but with a few differences.
In this case, stamp duty exemption isn’t provided for certificates (there are some exemptions for Birth Certificates listed later in this paragraph), and many Municipalities haven’t yet joined the service offered by SMART ANPR. So, on this page, enter your reference Municipality in the search bar of the drop-down menu and check if it’s on the list.
If your Municipality is not on the list, but your Birth Record is actually registered with that Municipality, you can still request your Birth Certificate on the ANPR website, as described in paragraph 1.
It is important to note that if your Municipality is on the list, the available certificates are the same ones available through the ANPR portal. This means that the only type of Birth Certificate you can request via SMART ANPR is the simpler one. Birth Certificates Extracts and Full Copies of Birth Certificates are not available via this service.
The new feature, compared to the ANPR portal, is that you can also choose to use your mobile phone directly by simply downloading the “Smart ANPR” app from the App Store or Google Play.
In contrast with the ANPR website, you can access the service only using your SPID (Public Digital Identity System) or CIE (Electronic Identity Card).
If the certificate you’ve requested requires a duty stamp (marca da bollo), you must have a valid €16.00 duty stamp, and its 14-digit identification number will need to be entered into the mandatory field.
The certificate issued this way is legally valid only if it has the corresponding duty stamp affixed to the printed paper copy.
However, if the certificate’s intended use falls under cases exempt from duty stamp, you’ll need to select the reason for exemption, which will be stated on the certificate.
Therefore, duty stamp exemption can only be requested based on the intended use and solely for the specific cases provided.
Certificates issued with a duty stamp exemption cannot be used for purposes other than those indicated.
You won’t have to pay any duty stamp if you need the Birth Certificate for:
– Non-profit organizations (ONLUS);
– Sports clubs;
– Legal proceedings;
– Adoption, fostering, or guardianship of minors;
– Separation and/or divorce proceedings;
– Interdiction, incapacitation, or support administration.
Another available option is to request the issuance of your Birth Certificate via the Municipality website of the Italian Municipality where your Birth Record has been registered.
Not every Italian Municipality has an online service to request Civil Status Certificates online, so you have to check on a case-by-case basis.
The online service offered by some Municipalities allows you to request not only a digital copy of the simple Birth Certificate, but also the Birth Certificate Extract and the Full Copies of the Birth Certificate.
For example, the online service of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia allows for the request of Birth Certificates, Birth Certificates Extracts (and Multilingual Birth Certificates Extracts), and Full Copies of Birth Certificates, while the online service of the Municipality of Modena only allows for the request of Birth Certificates and Birth Certificates Extracts (but not Multilingual Birth Certificates Extracts).
Many Municipalities allow for the request of digital copies of Birth Certificates by sending an email or a PEC (Posta Elettronica Certificata – an Italian certified email system) to the Municipality. In many cases, through this method, you can also request a digital copy of the Birth Certificate Extract, the Multilingual Birth Certificate Extract, or the digital Full Copy of the Birth Certificate.
It is important to note that if the Municipality only accepts requests by PEC, you will need a PEC email address to make your request, unless the Municipality’s PEC email address is also enabled to receive standard emails.
Do you already know you can’t handle the application for a Birth Certificate or any other certificate, extract, or full copy of a Civil Status Certificate at the intended Municipality? We can do it for you!
Send an email to info@multilex.it, and we’ll be happy to request and obtain the document or documents you need.
We can also handle their legalization or apostille at the Prefecture and/or their official translation.
