Can I change information on my birth certificate according to my wishes in Vietnam?

Can I change information on my birth certificate according to my wishes in Vietnam?

Pursuant to Article 7 of Decree 123/2015/ND-CP regulating conditions for changes and correction of civil status affairs:

1. An application for change of full name of a person less than 18 years of age prescribed in Clause 1 Article 26 of the Law on civil status shall be subject to his/her parents’ consent which is specified in such application. An application for change of full name of a person aged 9 or older shall also be subject to his/her consent.

2. Civil status correction prescribed in the Law on civil status means correction of personal information in vital records or originals of civil status documents which have been carried out only when there are substantial grounds to prove presence of mistakes at the civil status official’s faults or at the applicant’s faults.

Thus, according to above regulations in Vietnam, in order to correct the information in the original Birth Certificate and Civil Status Book, you need to have enough basis to determine that when registering the birth there was an error due to the error of the officer in charge of civil status work or of the person requesting civil status registration. In case of desired amendment to legalize other documents, it will not be accepted.

Can I change information on my birth certificate according to my wishes in Vietnam? (Image from the Internet)

Can information about the day, month, and year of birth be added to the birth certificate in Vietnam? 

Pursuant to Article 18 of Circular 04/2020/TT-BTP regulating civil status information revision as follows:

1. Civil status documents mentioned in Clause 2 Article 75 of the Law on Civil Status remain valid and do not need to be revised based on the existing civil status forms.

2. Civil status documents lawfully issued from January 01, 2016 may add missing civil status information if there are proofs lawfully issued by competent authorities/organizations.

Vietnamese citizenship shall be added to civil status documents issued from January 01, 2016 after it has been confirmed that the applicant has Vietnamese citizenship as per regulations of the Law on Vietnamese Citizenship.

3. In case a birth registered before January 01, 2016 lacks a date/month of birth in the birth certificate/birth register, the date/month of birth may be added based on the certificate of live birth or written confirmation of the healthcare establishment where the birth took place.

If there is no certificate of live birth or written confirmation of the healthcare establishment, the date/ month of birth shall be determined as follows:

a) If the individual’s personal documents have a consistent date/month of birth, this date/month shall be used.

If the individual’s personal documents have no consistent date/month of birth, the date/month on the document confirmed to be valid or issued first shall be chosen.

b) If the individual have no personal document or their personal documents contain no date/month of birth, they may draw up a confirmation of their date/month of birth according to regulations in Article 5 of this Circular.

c) If the date and month of birth could not be determined following the guidelines in Points a and b herein, January 01 of the birth year shall be chosen; if the birth month could be determined but not the birth date, the first of the birth month shall be chosen as the birth date.

4. In case the authority revising the civil status information is not the original civil registration authority, after revision is completed, a written notification and a copy of the civil status extract shall be sent to the original civil registration authority to have the new information added to the civil register; if the original civil registration authority is a representative mission, the notification shall be sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Thus, information about the day, month and year of birth can be added to the birth certificate according to the above regulations in Vietnam.

For your above case, if there is enough evidence to determine that when you go to write your name in the civil status book, the civil status officer made a mistake in recording your name, you can correct the civil status information according to as prescribed by law in Vietnam.

Best regards!