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How to give birth in Pankow (Berlin) as foreigners

German like bureaucacry and giving birth is no different

🕒 8 min read

Category: Miscellaneous

Tags: babies, prenzlauer berg, berlin

We recently welcomed our first child 😊. Born in Germany! If someone had told me 10 years ago, I would not have believed it.

Anyways, just like for all things, why make things simple when Germans can make them complicated? The process to "register" a newborn and get their birth certificate and then later an ID card is not the simplest. Here is a short summary that hopefully will help other parents in the future. This article is specifically about Pankow in Berlin. Each district handles things slightly differently.

Things not covered in this article:

This article mostly focuses on the fun part: paperwork. 😆 If you're looking for a complete TODO list of everything that needs to be done when expecting a child and afterwards, open this PDF (backup).

German part

Before the birth

Mutterschaftsgeld

A MET-Bescheinigung (Mutmaßlicher Entbindungstag - Expected Date of Delivery) is necesary from the gynecologist for the employer and/or health insurance.

Vaterschaftsanerkennung

If you're not a married couple, you'll need a Vaterschaftsanerkennung (acknowledgment of paternity) + Sorgerechtserklärung (declaration of custody). Get both months ahead, you do not want to deal with it after the birth, you'll have enough to deal with. It will take an appointment in person, with both parents. It requires a great level in German, or an accompanying German friend who can translate. For both documents, you can go to:

You need to bring the Mutterpass, your IDs of course and recent birth certificates translated in German. They will often require you to send a few documents ahead of the appointment by email (scans of ID cards, Mutterpass, parents' birth certificates).

More info in English.

Deciding on a hospital

In Germany, it's is highly recommended to "book" a hospital. Some hospitals offer "group tours"/visits once a week, every week, sometimes in English. Then, usuallly after 28 weeks of pregnancy, you need to call a hospital and let them know about your intention of giving birth there. You will then usually go in person and meet the midwifes. The (non) availability of a neonatal unit and/or a familiy room could also be a deciding factor. Also the English skills of the midwifes is something to take into account.

After the birth

Registering the birth

This is the first thing to do. Ideally, within the first week after birth.

You'll need to register your newborn in order to obtain a Geburtsurkunde (birth certificate) from your Standesamt. This will "unlock" many following steps. Some hospitals will send documents on your behalf to the Standesamt, specifically:

After leaving the hospital, you need to send an email to the Standesamt with your own birth certificates (both parents) and a copy of your ID cards (Personalausweise). Ask them in the same email if any other document is missing. In my experience, we only sent them our birth certificates per email and they replied two days later asking for our ID cards. We received 3 copies of the Geburtsurkunde 4 days later.

Registering the paternity (Vaterschaftsanerkennung) and shared custody (Sorgerechtserklärung) at the Bürgeramt

If you have registered the paternity and shared custody at the youth welfare office before, the info might not have traveled from them to the Bürgeramt. When we did the registration, we were told to go to the Bürgeramt after the birth to make sure both are also registered there. Quote:

die Beurkundung der gemeinsamen Sorge wird nicht automatisch der Meldebehörde übersandt. Demnach ist die Mutter im Meldesystem vorerst als allein sorgeberechtigt eingetragen. Daher wurden Sie gebeten, der Meldebehörde eine beglaubigte Abschrift der Urkunde bei ihrem nächsten Besuch im Bürgeramt vorzulegen. Dort wird dann eingetragen, dass der Kindesvater ebenfalls sorgeberechtigt ist.

Simply book an appointment at any Bürgeramt for the following reason: Melderegister-Berichtigung von Daten. Bring the two following documents:

Getting your newborn a health insurance card

Through a public insurance, you can get free insurance for your kid by applying for a family insurance. Just reach out to your insurance and tell them about your newborn, they'll walk you through the process (it's surprisingly as easy as filling out ONE form!).

Elterngeld (parental allowance)

Elterngeld and Elternzeit are two different things, although they are almost always connected. Elternzeit is "unpaid leave with the guarantee to return to your job". It has to do with your employer. Elterngeld is money you may/can get while being on Elternzeit, not from your employer but from the federal government.

If both parents take Elternzeit at the same time, they will get only Elterngeld for both parents for the first month, after they'll get it for only one parent. That's why most couples take the first month together right after the birth, and then take Elternzeit in turns. A couple can only get 14 months total of basis-Elterngeld (65% of salary capped at 1800 euros). For longer periods, it's another type of Elterngeld (Elterngeld Plus), with less money.

Elternzeit usually start on the date of birth. The duration is in baby life months, not calendar months. For instance, a baby born on January 15: first month of Elternzeit would run from Jan 15 to Feb 14 (included).

The Mutterschutz period after the birth (first 8 weeks of the baby) and the money received during that time are also counted as Elternzeit and Basis-Eterngeld for the mother. Except that the money during that time is not capped, it's the full salary of the mother.

Supposedly the application for Elterngeld can now be done 100% online but only if you have a BundID, which as a Frenchman I cannot have unfortunately because the French national ID card system is not yet fully connected to the German one. So in our case, the process was as follow:

  1. Create a email+password account on the official website
  2. Fill out the form then upload on the website the required attachements
  3. 12 or 14 last payslips for both parents
  4. Confirmation of Mutterschutz by the health insurance

  5. Confirmation of Elternzeit by both parents' employers (Arbeitgeberbescheinigungen) - there is a template document

  6. Then submit the application online. This will generate a massive PDF.

  7. Print out the first page of this PDF, as well as all of the documents uploaded online. Then send them all by post to the address written in the PDF, plus the following additional documents:
  8. Vaterschaftsanerkennung (a copy, not an original)
  9. Geburtsurkunde (send an official copy)

That's it. Bear in mind, this must be done within the first 3 months following the birth.

As a father, your health insurance will ask you to pay your own contributions if you are "freiwillig" insured (annual gross salary higher than €77,400) and not married. The French registered civil partnership (PACS) can be leveraged and used as "mariage" to avoid paying your own contributions. More info here. Info from TK here.

Kindergeld (child benefit)

The process is fairly easy. In our case, we received a letter from the Familienkasse with a QR code that took us to a form. We filled it out. Only one parent must be chosen to be the single receiver of Kindergeld. Then it generated a PDF to print. That PDF must be printed out and sent to the address written on the first page, alongside the following documents:

That's it. Bear in mind, this must be done within the first 6 weeks following the birth.

German ID card

Yet to be done... I will update the article later accordingly.

Kita Gutschein and finding a Kita

Yet to be done... I will update the article later accordingly.

Kita Navigator

French part

After the birth: Déclaration de naissance

To get a French birth certificate, you have two options:

Later, to get your newborn a French ID card, you'll need another appointment and similar documents, alongside their French birth certificate and a photo.

Hope this helps!