A first Indian passport for a baby born in the US
Two things happen here and they are separate. The birth is registered with the consulate, which produces an Indian birth registration. And, if the child is an Indian citizen, a first passport is applied for.
Registering the birth comes first
The birth registration is the document the passport application is built on. Doing them in the wrong order means doing the second one twice.
If either parent has taken US citizenship before the birth, the child is generally not an Indian citizen and the route is an OCI card rather than a passport.What a first passport application needs
| Document | Why |
|---|---|
| US birth certificate | Establishes the birth |
| Consular birth registration | Establishes the Indian record |
| Both parents' Indian passports | Establishes the citizenship claim |
| Parents' marriage certificate | Usually asked for |
| Photographs to the portal specification | Rejected often, so read it twice |
The route is the same as any other passport
Online form, then VFS, then the consulate. Six to eight weeks. The child's presence is not usually required, which is the one part of this that is easier than the adult procedure.
- US birth certificate first
- Then the consular birth registration
- Then the passport application, through VFS
- If a parent has naturalised, look at the OCI instead
- Photographs to specification, or the file comes back
The name, and the order of the names
US birth certificates record a given name, a middle name and a surname. Indian passports often carry a given name and a surname with the father's name in a separate field, and families frequently use a different order at home.
Whatever goes on the consular birth registration is what goes on the passport and, years later, on the OCI. Decide it once, write it the same way every time, and keep the US certificate consistent with it.
Travelling before the passport arrives
The child can travel on the US passport, which is issued far faster. The Indian one is not needed to leave the country and, if the child turns out not to be an Indian citizen, is not needed at all.