RUSSIAN AGENCY offers services to confirm citizenship of the Russian Federation for Russian citizens living or staying abroad in the U.S., Canada, or other countries. We are able to help you regardless of which country you currently live in since the process is standardized for all Russian embassies and consulates abroad. The confirmation is required if a Russian citizen is going to apply for a new Russian travel passport, and both of his/her old Russian passports (internal and travel) are lost or expired, or the Russian citizen has never had a Russian internal or travel passport. Also, you may need to confirm your Russian citizenship when requesting a name change with an expired travel passport. Please note, going through Russian citizenship confirmation is not required for those under 14 years of age unless the child was adopted from Russia.
We are often asked why having an expired Russian passport or having a Russian birth certificate does not automatically confirm having Russian citizenship. This is because during the period when Russian passports were being issued soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the issuing of Russian passports was not done in the proper official way. People who emigrated before the Russian Federation was establish exchanged their Soviet passports for Russian passports without officially obtaining Russian citizenship. These people were able to renew their Russian passports without problems as long as the passport hadn’t already expired. Once the passport is expired Russian law requires for there to be a confirmation of citizenship in order to renew the passport. In the case of someone never obtaining Russian citizenship properly, they will not be able to confirm Russian citizenship nor renew their passport despite having an expired Russian passport. If you are not sure whether or not you are a Russian citizen, we can do a free consultation and review your documents. We’ll let you know if you are not a Russian citizen according to the regulations and help you save your money and the hassle of trying to get confirmation when it will just be denied. If you need to visit Russia, we can quickly help you obtain a Russian visa.
RUSSIAN AGENCY processes the confirmation of Russian citizenship without the personal appearance of the applicant at the Russian consulate or Embassy. Our services are available to you in whichever country you live. You can request this service from us at one of our locations, by mail, or by email.
The processing time for confirmation of Russian citizenship is 3 months or more. There is no maximum time limit for processing these requests. The processing time of the confirmation of citizenship is not regulated by Russian laws. Everything depends on how quickly the Russian Consulate or Embassy receives a response from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Russia or other Russian authorities about your case. We make sure that the full package of documents is in order to avoid any slowdown in the process. We contact officials to verify that outgoing requests to specific authorities has been received, processed, and responded to. We track the status of your case through all points of the process. We ensure that nothing gets lost while going between the different authorities. However, occasionally we see that some archives have been lost or damaged which makes the process much longer and in some cases impossible to confirm Russian citizenship. If this happens to you, you will receive an official letter from the Russian consulate or embassy that it not possible to confirm your citizenship. This letter makes you eligible to apply for a Russian visa in order to travel to Russia. If it is still necessary for you to confirm Russian citizenship, you can do so on the territory of Russia through court procedures. If your only purpose of obtaining a Russian passport is to travel to Russia, then being declined citizenship is not a problem and allows you to travel to Russia on a visa as a foreign citizen.
We offer two options for Russian citizenship confirmation:
- With the first option we prepare all the papers and mail it to a Russian consulate or embassy of your choice. You must confirm your Russian citizenship at the same location where you plan on applying for your Russian passport. Keep in mind that the applicant must appear in person at the same consulate or embassy where they confirmed citizenship for the next step of applying for a Russian passport. This is why it is important to plan in advance. If circumstances force you to apply for your Russian passport at a different location from where you confirmed your Russian citizenship, then another citizenship confirmation request will be necessary to be done for the new location. This can occasionally happen, for example when someone needs to move to another city or country, but don’t worry because we can quickly handle these situations. The processing fee for this first option is $500.00 including the consular and shipping fee. This option is only available for people applying in the United States.
- The second option offers the same service except you will submit the paperwork prepared by us yourself and pay the consular fee separately. We will provide you with detailed instructions on how to submit the paperwork by mail or in person. Our processing fee for this second option is $400.00. This option is available in all countries, including the United States.
DOCUMENTS REQUIRED TO APPLY (you should either mail, email, or bring in the following items to us):
- Payment of processing fees. We accept personal checks, money orders and cashier checks. All the checks and orders should be made payable to RUSSIAN AGENCY. We do not accept credit cards.
- Сompleted application,
- Зassport photo;
- A copy of the main page of your expired Russian travel passport;
- A copy of your expired Russian internal passport (main page and all the pages with address registrations in Russia);
- A copy of your birth certificate;
- If you apply for a citizenship confirmation for a minor under the age of 18 a copy of a valid Russian travel passport of one of the parents or guardians is required (a copy of the main page);
Besides what is listed above, you will need to provide some of the following information/documents depending on your situation:
- If you emigrated from the USSR before February 6th, 1992 (the date when Russian citizenship was officially established after Russia became a separate country from the Soviet Union), you must provide information on when and where you received Russian citizenship. Please note that for those living abroad who left USSR before Feb. 6th, 1992, they didn’t automatically receive Russian citizenship. This would have been obtained from a Russian consulate or embassy.
- If you were living in one of the former Soviet countries outside of Russia, such as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, etc., after the Soviet Union fell apart and you obtained Russian citizenship through one of the Russian consulates or embassies, you must provide information on where and when you obtained Russian citizenship.
- If you were born abroad and you received Russian citizenship at a consulate, embassy, or on the territory of Russia, you must provide information on when and where you received Russian citizenship.
- If you were adopted from Russia, you need to additionally provide a copy of your birth certificate before adoption, your second birth certificate from after adoption, and your foreign passport. Two more documents are needed – adoption certificate and the court order for the adoption. Any other documents related to your adoption will be helpful.
- If you lived on the territory of Russia on Feb. 6th, 1992, you automatically became a Russian citizen even without submitting documents. You need to provide the exact address of your official address registration that was valid on Feb. 6th, 1992. If you were a minor child under 18 or born after Feb. 6th, 1992, the address registration of your parents will be checked. If there were two addresses for parents, both will need to be provided and checked. Full names, place of birth, address(es) of registration will need to be provided by you. If your parent’s name changed, you must provide additional documents proving the name change. Also, if you or your parent(s) obtained Russian citizenship officially, you need to provide information on when and where it was obtained. If for some reason the registration of you or your parents is not found in the archives, you will be asked to provide additional documents proving the fact of living on the territory of Russia on Feb. 6th, 1992, such as education documents showing that you were a student in Russia, military service documents, place of work, etc.
- If you were registered in Crimea on the date of the referendum, March 18th, 2014, you need to provide the exact address of your registration on that date.
If your name has changed, you may need to provide documents proving each name change. All documents proving name changes issued outside of Russia must have an apostille and a certified translation into the Russian language. Apostilles and certified translations are not included in our processing fee for Russian citizenship confirmation. We can provide apostilles and certified translations for additional fees. If you are missing some vital documents from Russia, for an additional fee we can obtain them with an official power of attorney from you.
Once your citizenship is confirmed you have 12 months from that date to apply for a new Russian travel passport at the Russian Consulate in person. If you don’t apply within this time frame, you must go through the whole process of the confirmation again.
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