Citizens of the Republic of Moldova, who have registered civil status documents with the competent authorities of foreign countries, are obliged to declare the documents re-registration within 6 months from the date of returning to the country or from the date of receiving from abroad the civil status certificate, or a copy or extract from the civil status document.
Official documents that are issued by the authorities of other states are only recognized in the Republic of Moldova if they are superlegalized (consular legalization) or apostilled and translated, unless it is otherwise established by a treaty/convention/agreement to which the Republic of Moldova is a party.
Exceptions to the rule of superlegalization or apostillation of civil status documents issued abroad are:
- multilingual extracts from birth, marriage and death certificates issued by the competent authorities of the following foreign states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Swiss Confederation, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Montenegro, the Kingdom of Belgium, Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Bulgaria, the Republic of Cape Verde, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Turkey, the Republic of Estonia, the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Republic, the Italian Republic, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Poland, the Portuguese Republic, the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Slovenia, Romania;
- documents issued by the member states of the Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan;
- documents of the states with which the Republic of Moldova has concluded bilateral treaties, including by succession: Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, the Republic of Hungary, Georgia.
Acts/documents concerning the facts of civil status, which are produced under the legislation of foreign states and confirmed by official documents issued by foreign authorities of a religious, notarial, private nature (contracts, decisions of courts, etc.) shall not be subject to the procedure of re-registration. They shall be recognized as valid on the territory of the Republic of Moldova on the condition that they are superlegalized or apostilled in established manner, if the international treaties to which the Republic of Moldova is a party do not provide otherwise, and are presented to the competent authorities of the Republic of Moldova to serve as a basis upon the ocurrance, modification or termination of civil/family relations, in case of recognition of the fact of marriage according to the legislation of the Republic of Moldova.