Renewing Russian Passports after adoption

For an adopted person who would like to apply for a new Russian passport, if a previous Russian passport is expired, it will be required to confirm his/her Citizenship with the Russian Embassy here in New Zealand as a first step. 

This is not the passport application.

Passport Applications are submitted once your Citizenship has been confirmed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. 

This process from when you apply for a Russian citizenship confirmation check may take up to 8 weeks.

This will require the following:

• Application for a confirmation of Russian citizenship signed by the adopted person, your actual photo should be attached in the proper place of the questionary (Download the Form here);
• Copy of previous Russian passport;
• Copy of your NZ passport;
• Copy of Birth Certificate and Certificate of Adoption (if you have your first pre-adoption Birth certificate please enclose a copy of it, it would be helpful); 
• Adoption Documents in Russian (or their translations in English) – the court decision, letter/order of adoption from City Administration; 
• Bank cheque (not personal) written out to the «Embassy of the Russian Federation» to pay the consular fee (97 NZD);
• If you changed your name in New Zealand, you should have a Name change certificate (apostilled and translated in Russian). Please be advised that if you changed your name by marriage you should still have to apply for a Name change certificate to prove the Name change to make an application for a Russian passport. This is required because in Marriage certificates issued in New Zealand there is no field "Name, Surname after marriage" as it is a rule in Russia.

The application to confirm Russian citizenship should be filled out in Russian. Please do not forget to specify the address of the orphanage in the proper field of the application.

We have provided an English Template here for your guidance, but the Application for the Ministry of Internal Affairs should be filled out in Russian. 

You should fill in as many required details in the form as you can. If information is missing or you cannot add it to the form, please leave this field blank. However the more documents you provide, the higher the likelihood of getting positive results. In some cases, it may take a longer time, up to 4 months to finalize the check. It depends on the availability of the information in archives.

When you have your application (filled out and signed with your photo attached) and required copies of the documents ready to send, you are to post them to the Embassy in Wellington (57 Messiness Road, Karori, Wellington). Any questions before posting can be requested at < rus.consul.nz@gmail.com>.

 If documents are lost, please do not hesitate to contact the consulate for assistance by e-mail (rus.consul.nz@gmail.com).

After confirming your citizenship we will get in touch with you by e-mail to book an appointment. 

To apply for a new passport you should make your application online in Russian in advance (not earlier than 3 weeks before your visit) and visit the Consular section in person on the appointment date with all required original documents (expired Russian Passport, valid NZ passport, Birth&Adoption Certificates, if you changed your name - Name change certificate). Bring a self-addressed prepaid courier bag, "signature required" for when you go to your passport interview. 

Any questions can be sent by e-mail: rus.consul.nz@gmail.com.