After the birth: certificates and registration

Medical birth certificate

The hospital issues a 出生医学证明 (chūshēng yīxué zhèngmíng), the medical birth certificate. This is the main document for everything that follows. Check that both parents’ names match their passports before you leave the hospital. Errors in Roman letters are costly to correct.

Your child does not receive a hukou

A hukou (户口) is a Chinese household registration. Foreign newborns do not receive one. Being born in China does not make your child a Chinese citizen. The birth still must be registered: China’s Exit and Entry Administration Law gives parents 60 days from the birth to register the baby’s stay or residence with the Exit-Entry office of the public security bureau where they live. Go early, with the medical birth certificate, both parents’ passports and residence permits, and a marriage certificate if you have one. The office records your child. It does not grant Chinese citizenship.

Your embassy

U.S. citizens: apply for a Consular Report of Birth Abroad and a U.S. passport. Then apply for a Chinese visa in that new passport so your child can leave China. In Beijing, CRBA appointments are not booked on the public online calendar. The embassy directs parents to its Beijing ACS Inquiry Navigator, and questions go to BeijingACS@state.gov.

British, Canadian, Australian, Irish, South African, and EU parents: start consular birth registration and the passport application as soon as you are home from the hospital. Use the embassy-by-nationality guide for first steps. All of them will ask for the Chinese medical certificate and a notarial translation.

If either parent is a Chinese national, or if you are not married, read the family-status guide before you file anything. Under the Nationality Law, a child born in China with a Chinese-national parent has Chinese nationality, and China does not recognize dual nationality. That is a different legal case.

Your child’s Chinese visa

A foreign baby born in China still needs a Chinese visa or residence permit in order to stay and to exit. Apply at the Exit-Entry bureau. Do not book flights until that visa is in the new passport.