VisaNew residents in Uruguay need the right birth record for their first identity card
A current-rule guide to obtaining the first identity card after a residence application, including foreign birth registration and separate fees.
Official announcement date: not established (undated guidance)
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Edited and checked by the VisaWand editorial team
Start with the residence category on your certificate
Foreign-born applicants with pending, definitive legal or definitive Mercosur residence need their Migration Directorate residence certificate and a birth certificate registered in Uruguay. Temporary residence has a separate procedure.
For missing records, ask the identification office about the published provisional-document alternative: the residence certificate plus the specified translated, apostilled overseas birth record or consular certificate.
Create the online account with a document you can keep using
The government account-creation service accepts an identity document from a South American country or a passport from another country, excluding a Uruguayan passport. Its published requirements include being over eighteen and having an active personal email address not used by another account. Account creation is free; it does not pay the later civil-registration or identity-card charges.
After self-registration, activate the account through the email link within thirty days. The resulting account has basic security; identity validation is a separate service for transactions requiring stronger assurance. This matters because the foreign-record registration service keeps using the identity document associated with the account until that procedure ends.
Register the foreign birth before requesting the registered copy
The Civil Registry’s foreign-document-holder route requires the original apostilled or legalised record, a complete copy, the registration form, identification and proof of payment. Its published fee is UYU 1,436. The reservation lapses if payment is not made within forty-eight hours, and the page warns that paid reservations are not refunded.
This particular route does not accept representatives: the person attending must be a verifiable direct relative of everyone included. A separate service exists for holders or representatives. Foreign-language records need the specified Uruguayan public-translator or consular translation; a translation prepared abroad requires a Uruguayan translator’s concordance certificate. The published receiving address is Uruguay 933. Confirm document readiness before paying, especially where a relative’s record is included.
Check the form’s warning about keeping your original
The linked foreign-document registration form asks for the event, the record holder’s names, date, country and city, followed by the presenter’s identity and contact details. It warns that submitted documents remain in the registry unless a Uruguayan notary prepares the specified testimony by exhibition, allowing return of the original after assessment.
The form also contains a representative-authorisation section. That general form does not override the service page’s explicit restriction on representatives for the foreign-document-holder route. Use the appropriate service rather than treating an authorisation signature as sufficient for every appointment.
Obtain the Uruguayan record and budget the separate card charge
The birth-certificate request service says foreign events must first be registered. Foreign records registered from 2015 are digital, downloadable free through the option for foreign acts or registry data. For a foreign birth, keep the person’s names, the year of registration in Uruguay, book or volume number and act number. These are registration details, which may differ from the original overseas certificate’s references. The registry says records do not expire for its own purposes, while acceptance depends on the receiving office. Do not buy another overseas certificate solely because a registered record is older; establish what the identification authority needs.
For a handwritten record, the published ordinary charge is UYU 153 and urgent charge UYU 612, with possible payment-service costs. Those charges concern issuing a record, not registering the original foreign event. Separately, the first identity-document service lists UYU 456 from 1 July 2026, with extra operating costs through collection networks.
Attend personally and check the collection age wording
The identity-document appointment is personal; applicants under fourteen attend with an adult carrying valid identification. Prepare civil status, home address, local police precinct, phone, email, occupation and work address, as requested in the identification authority’s data FAQ.
The card-service page’s collection wording leaves an age gap between “under nine” and “over ten”. The authority’s specific FAQ instead says under-ten applicants receive the card immediately and those aged ten or older after five working days. Confirm collection arrangements for a nine- or ten-year-old with the office. The service page also specifies collection within ninety days; keep the appointment and collection instructions.
