Requesting your French birth certificate from the central civil registry

The central civil registry service (SCEC), based in Nantes, keeps and issues the civil status records of French people born abroad. It is the body that establishes your French birth certificate after naturalization.

According to service-public.gouv.fr, the request is made online or by post to the central civil registry service in Nantes. The service receives no visitors: you cannot go there in person. The page states a target of twenty days for an online request and about thirty days by post. A certificate can only be issued for a person who is a French national, which the publication of the decree establishes.

This step usually comes before the others: the birth certificate is the document asked for to establish your nationality when applying for a first identity card or passport. For a birth abroad, service-public.gouv.fr specifies that the certificate must have been issued on secure paper by the central civil registry service in Nantes, or on ordinary paper by a consular registrar.

A civil-status correction (spelling of a name, date of birth) is requested by post to the central civil registry service, again per service-public.gouv.fr.