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A notary asks for an extract, not a certificate. A foreign bank wants “a fresh document straight from the register.” A court returns your filing because it needs confirmation from the civil registry (DRATS). All of these situations point to the same document: an extract from Ukraine’s State Register of Civil Status Acts. It does not replace a certificate and it is not a copy of one, it has its own role. Here is a rundown of the types of extracts, who can get one, how to apply, and what to do if you are refused.
Key points
The State Register of Civil Status Acts is an electronic database holding records of births, marriages, divorces, changes of name, and deaths. An extract is an official document generated from that database as of a specific date.
The difference from other documents comes down to this:
The practical difference matters precisely because an extract is current. A marriage certificate issued twenty years ago will not show that the marriage has since been dissolved. An extract will. That is why notaries handling inheritance cases, courts, and foreign authorities often insist on an extract even when you already have the certificate in hand.
One more distinction: a certificate is a controlled-form document issued to a limited circle of people, while an extract can also be obtained about a relative, given proper grounds.
The registrar generates an extract by type of civil status record:
Extracts for special purposes also exist, for example to claim a burial benefit. Those are issued free of charge.
To make it easier to see which extract fits which situation:
| Type of extract | When it is usually needed |
|---|---|
| On birth | Confirming a family relationship in an inheritance case, arranging child benefits, documents for foreign authorities |
| On marriage | Confirming a registered marriage and a pre-marriage surname, banking and insurance matters, formalities abroad |
| On divorce | Confirming that a marriage has been dissolved: for a new marriage, for a court, for foreign institutions |
| On death | Opening an inheritance case, a survivor’s pension, insurance payouts, closing accounts |
| On change of name | Showing that the person in the old and the new documents is one and the same |
If a request simply says “a DRATS extract” without specifying which type, it almost always means the extract for the event you are confirming. But when the cost of a mistake is high, for example when documents are going abroad and every day in the queue counts, it is worth double checking once.
The circle of eligible people is set by law, and the registrar checks the grounds before issuing anything.
The right to an extract belongs to:
Extracts are issued free of charge to courts, pre-trial investigation authorities, notaries, and Ukraine’s diplomatic and consular missions. Additional exemptions apply during martial law in specified administrative-territorial units and for internally displaced persons.
The key restriction: a parent deprived of parental rights will not receive a birth extract for that child. This is set out directly in law and checked against the register.
Applications are accepted:
Timelines depend on the channel. If you apply to DRATS in person, the extract is usually issued the same day. Through a CNAP or by mail, add time for the documents to be forwarded, typically the next business day. Through Diia, the registrar processes the application on the day it arrives or the next business day, and then it has to be delivered.
An important nuance for older events: if more than 75 years have passed since registration, the record books have already been transferred to state archives, and that is where you need to apply instead. Rather than an extract, you will receive an archival reference there.
The law does not set a validity period for an extract: it reflects the state of the register as of the date it was generated and does not “expire.” In practice, though, whoever requests the document sets their own timeframe.
A few benchmarks:
The practical takeaway: do not order an extract too far in advance. First find out the submission date and the freshness requirement, then go to DRATS. Otherwise you will end up paying the fee twice.
When an institution, rather than you personally, needs the extract, the process works a little differently. Courts, pre-trial investigation authorities, and notaries are entitled to request extracts from the register free of charge on their own. In many cases you do not have to run around yourself: a motion to the court or a request to your notary is enough for them to obtain the record directly.
This is especially useful in two situations. First: you do not personally have the right to an extract about a particular person, for example the data is needed in an inheritance dispute and the family relationship has not yet been proven. Second: the registrar refused you, but the court, within the case, requests the same information without any trouble.
So when you hear “DRATS refused us, the case is stuck,” a lawyer’s first question is usually whether a motion to obtain evidence has actually been filed. Often it turns out it has not.
Step 1. Identify exactly which extract you need. This is not a formality: a notary, a court, and a foreign authority ask for different documents, and a birth extract will not substitute for a death extract. If a request is vague, ask for written clarification.
Step 2. Prepare your documents: a passport or other identity document; documents confirming the family relationship, if the extract concerns a relative; a power of attorney, if you are acting as a representative; proof of payment of the administrative fee. Foreign nationals will additionally need a document confirming lawful stay in Ukraine, and any non-Ukrainian documents must be submitted with a translation.
Step 3. Submit your application through your chosen channel. State the person’s and the event’s details as precisely as possible: full name, date and place of registration. The more precise the data, the lower the risk of a refusal for failure to identify the record.
Step 4. Pay the administrative fee. The amount is set by the state and revised from time to time, so please confirm the current amount and payment details at the time of your inquiry. Certain categories of applicants and cases are exempt from payment.
Step 5. Receive the extract and check the details. Verify the spelling of names, dates, and record numbers. If an error in the register is found, it has to be corrected through a separate record-amendment procedure, and it is best to handle that right away, before the document goes into a case file.
This is the most common practical reason people request an extract. To open an inheritance case, a notary needs to see two things: that the person whose estate it is has died, and that the applicant really is their heir.
So inheritance cases usually require an extract on state registration of death together with documents proving the family relationship: birth extracts, a marriage extract, and sometimes a name-change extract if surnames differ across documents.
A typical trap looks like this. A daughter files inheritance documents; her birth certificate shows her maiden surname, her passport shows her husband’s surname, and the marriage certificate that would bridge the two is missing, it was lost. The chain breaks, and the notary cannot establish the family relationship. The fix is to restore the missing link through a duplicate marriage certificate or an extract. If the documents also contain discrepancies in spelling, the record will first need to be corrected, sometimes through the court.
A second common situation: a second-order heir, for example a sibling. Here the chain is longer, because the family relationship is proven through the shared parents: birth extracts for both are needed, and if either of them changed their surname, a name-change extract too. Every missing link stops the case.
A third situation involves people who have left the country. Their documents remained in Ukraine or were lost altogether, while the deadline for accepting the inheritance keeps running. A power of attorney is the way out: a representative collects the extracts and files the application with the notary while you are abroad. The main thing is not to miss the deadline, because reinstating it is a separate court procedure in itself.
If you are not sure exactly which documents your inheritance case needs, it is simpler to consult a lawyer once than to visit various offices repeatedly and pay fees for extracts you did not end up needing.
For foreign authorities, an extract on its own is usually not enough. You typically need a chain of three elements:
Requirements vary from country to country and even from institution to institution, so before ordering the document it is worth getting a clear list from the receiving authority. Also pay close attention to validity: many foreign authorities only accept extracts issued no earlier than three or six months before submission, so there is little point ordering the document too far ahead.
If you are abroad, the entire chain can be handled remotely: under a notarized power of attorney, a representative in Ukraine obtains the extract, has it apostilled, and sends it to you together with the translation. This is usually faster than waiting in a consular queue. We covered the stamp itself, the form requirements, and the order of steps with translation in a separate article: apostille for civil registry (DRATS) documents.
The electronic register was populated gradually, so far from every old record has made it in. If an event was registered a long time ago, the registrar may not find it and will have to request it from wherever the paper record book is kept. That is not a refusal, it just extends the timeline: the record is entered into the register first, and only then is an extract generated.
It is more complicated when the record books stayed in temporarily occupied territories or were destroyed during hostilities. In that case there is nothing to generate an extract from, and other mechanisms come into play instead:
For births and deaths in temporarily occupied territories, the law provides a separate simplified court procedure: the court reviews such applications without delay, and the application can be filed with a court outside the occupied area. After the court’s decision, state registration follows, and only then does the record appear in the register, along with the ability to obtain an extract or a certificate.
Practical tip: before spending time on several visits to different DRATS offices, first find out whether a record exists at all. That saves weeks.
The most common reasons:
A refusal because no record exists is not a dead end. Depending on the situation, the record is restored through DRATS based on available documents, or the fact is established through the courts. A separate simplified court procedure applies for people born or deceased in temporarily occupied territories.
If you believe a refusal is unjustified, it can be appealed. In practice, it helps to first obtain the written refusal with its stated grounds: without it, a court or a higher authority has nothing to rule on.
Getting an extract about yourself, with a passport and accurate details on hand, is not hard to do on your own. Legal help makes sense when: you are abroad and cannot appear in person; you need an extract about a relative and have to assemble proof of the family relationship; the record cannot be found or you were refused; the documents are needed as part of a chain with an apostille and translation for a specific country; or it concerns an inheritance case where the notary sets the list of required documents. LexOn’s lawyers take on this work end to end: identifying the documents you need, obtaining extracts under a power of attorney, handling record restoration or a court procedure, and preparing the full package for submission.
If it is simpler to hand off the whole chain, we take it on: restoring DRATS documents and apostille, done for you.
No. The right to an extract belongs only to people defined by law: you yourself, your relatives, parents and adoptive parents regarding a child, guardians, and, in defined cases, heirs and certain institutions. Anyone else can only act as your representative under a notarized power of attorney.
It depends on who is requiring the document. If what is needed is confirmation of the event itself and a document to keep long term, that is a certificate. If current information from the register is needed, for example for a notary or a court, that is an extract. When a request is worded vaguely, ask for written clarification, that way you will not pay twice.
The main document today is the extract on state registration of divorce from the register. If the marriage was dissolved through the courts, the court’s decision is the basis, and the fact of dissolution is reflected in the register.
If you apply to DRATS in person, usually the same day. Through a CNAP, by mail, or through Diia, add time for processing and delivery, roughly the next business day plus transit. It will take longer if the record is not in the electronic register and has to be retrieved from paper record books.
Yes. Two routes work: applying to a Ukrainian consular office, or a power of attorney to a representative in Ukraine. The second option is usually faster, especially when the document is needed together with an apostille and translation.
The error is corrected through the record-amendment procedure, and in disputed cases through the courts. It is best not to put an extract containing an error into use: discrepancies in documents later block inheritance, benefit payments, and formalities abroad.
The law does not set a validity period; whoever requests the document sets their own. Notaries, and foreign authorities in particular, often want an extract issued no earlier than three or six months before submission. So order the document for a specific submission date rather than far in advance.
You can try, but the odds are lower, since the registrar has to identify the record. The more source information you provide (full name, an approximate year, the locality, the parents’ or spouses’ details), the more likely the record will be found. If there is very little data, it is more sensible to start with an archival search.
First, obtain the written refusal with its stated grounds, without it there is nothing to work with. From there, the options depend on the reason: gather additional documents proving the family relationship, restore the civil status record, go to court, or, if the matter is already before a court, file a motion to obtain the evidence.
These are different documents, and one does not replace the other. If the certificate has been lost, it is reissued. We covered that procedure in detail in a separate article: how to get a duplicate birth certificate.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice. Procedures, fee amounts and requirements can change, and every situation has its own particulars. For your specific case, please consult a lawyer.
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