In the Dominican Republic there are two options for acquiring Dominican citizenship, or it can be said, one process follows the other: the transcription of birth certificates and the provisional Dominican citizenship or Dominican citizenship by choice, depending on the case. These options frequently disconcert Dominican citizens living abroad, at the moment of requesting their children’s citizenship in the country, since they are unclear of which process is the best option for their particular case as well as which are the advantages and disadvantages.

Citizenship by Choice
Generally, at the moment of requesting Dominican citizenship, the applicants in this case, children of Dominican parents, are already of legal age and have been already registered as citizens of a different country other than the Dominican Republic. It is important to point out that our Constitution allows Dominican citizens to have dual citizenship.

Our Constitution recognizes Dominican citizenship, among others, to: (i) children of Dominican parents; (ii) children of Dominican parents born in a foreign country even though when they have acquired the citizenship of their country of origin, they will have the option of having both citizenships or waive to one of them once they reach 18 years old; (iii) the direct descendants of Dominicans residents in a foreign country; (iv) those who are married to a Dominican citizen, as long as they choose Dominican citizenship; and, (iv) those foreigners that have acquired Dominican citizenship by the naturalization procedure, according to the rules of Dominican laws.

The Dominican citizenship procedure is regulated by the Law No. 1683 dated April 21st 1948. The application procedure for children of Dominican citizens must be addressed to the Dominican president through the Ministry of Police and such procedure varies depending if the applicant is a minor or not.

When the applicant are minor children born in a foreign country, the application deposited in the Ministry of Police must be signed either by one or both parents. Once the application has been reviewed by the corresponding authorities, the president will grant the provisional Dominican citizenship to the applicants, having then the option of requesting the permanent Dominican citizenship when they reach 18 years old.

The process of obtaining Dominican citizenship by choice for children of legal age, is similar to the process mentioned above for minors, however, requires additional documents to initiate the application procedure. In the contrary to the Dominican citizenship process for minor children, tt is important to mention that this procedure grants the applicants of legal age permanent Dominican citizenship. Once the applicant has acquired Dominican citizenship by means of a decree, he/she must proceed to request the transcription of their foreign birth certificate before the Central Electoral Board, in order to request the Dominican Id card known as the Cédula and furthermore allows you to obtain the Dominican passport.

Birth Certificate Transcription
Notwithstanding the above mentioned, the transcription of a birth certificate can be done without having to initiate the Dominican citizenship procedure by choice. The birth certificate transcription procedure is a fast and simple procedure which allows children of Dominican parents born in a foreign country to obtain both, the Dominican birth certificate and the Dominican Id card, with minimum requirements. As we mentioned before, this procedure must be conducted to the Central Electoral Board, in the legal department.

Once the application is deposited in the Central Electoral Board, they will issue an authorization for obtaining the Dominican birth certificate and the Dominican ID. The only inconvenient with the birth certificate transcription process is that the newly naturalized applicant will not be able to obtain a Dominican passport, for which the applicant, if interested, must apply for the Dominican citizenship by choice before the Ministry of Police. The transcription process is quite beneficial and advantageous when obtaining the birth certificate since you do not have to complete the Dominican citizenship application procedure which takes between 9 and 12 months.