Convention on the Issue of Multilingual Extracts from Civil Status Records

Convention on the issue of multilingual extracts from civil status records

Signed	8 September 1976 (1976-09-08)
Location	Vienna, Austria
Effective	30 July 1983 (1983-07-30)
Condition	5 ratifications
Parties	24: Austria Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Cape Verde Croatia Estonia France Germany Italy Lithuania Luxembourg Moldova Montenegro Netherlands (European territory) North Macedonia Poland Portugal Romania Serbia Slovenia Spain Switzerland Turkey
Depositary	Switzerland
Language	French

The Convention on the issue of multilingual extracts from civil status records (French: Convention du 8 septembre 1976 relative à la délivrance d'extraits plurilingues d'actes de l'état civil) is a multilateral convention, drafted by the International Commission on Civil Status which defines a uniform format for extracts on civil status (birth, marriage, death). The convention was signed in Vienna 8 September 1976 by 12 European states, and entered into force 30 July 1983 upon the ratification of the 5th state. As 17 October 2015, the convention is in force in 23 European countries and Cape Verde; the convention is open for accession to any state.

This convention was a replacement for the convention concerning the issue of certain extracts from civil status records to be sent abroad which had been signed at Paris on 27 September 1956 and had required the information to be provided in French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Turkish.

Obligations

State parties are obliged to issue multilingual extracts on request and accept the abstracts of other countries and handle them not differently from national extracts: "they shall be handled without legalisation or equivalent formality in the territory of each state". They should provide translations of basic items on status records (e.g. Death of the husband) for inclusion by the other state parties.

Format

Extracts are to be produced in the language of the issuing country, in French and one other language on the front with optional translations in the other deposited languages on the back. The certificates are known as Formule A for births, Formule B for marriages and Formule C for deaths.