How to change your last name, first name or patronymic in Russia / StatusName

Who has the right to change name

Not all residents of the Russian Federation can change their personal data. The Constitution of the Russian Federation has outlined a number of criteria that the applicant must meet in order to change his last name/first name without any problems.

This:

Citizenship. Only citizens of the Russian Federation can declare a desire to change their last name. This function is not available to foreigners with a residence permit or stateless persons (stateless persons);
Legal capacity. A person must be aware of the consequences of his actions and be responsible for them. If a person is incapacitated, the application is drawn up for him by his legal representative;
Coming of age. A person can independently apply for a change of surname only upon reaching the age of 18. For children from 14 to 18 years old, changing the last name in the passport is possible with the written consent of the parents.

Important! You can change your child’s details even before receiving a passport. Parents must personally submit an application and supplement it with compelling reasons.

Causes

Changing the surname in the passport at your own request can be done after registering the marriage. When submitting an application, a woman makes a decision: whether to keep her previous surname, take the surname of her spouse, or acquire a double surname.

If a woman had a double surname before marriage, then adding the spouse’s surname is not allowed.

The woman's marriage certificate contains a new surname. Based on such a certificate, the woman applies to the passport office and makes changes to the main document.

A man can also take his wife’s surname when getting married, for example, if his previous surname is dissonant, or if it does not suit him for other reasons.

Parents change their little child's last name for various reasons. For this, according to, permission from the guardianship authority is required.

To change the surname of a child over 10 years of age, his consent is required.

The parent with whom the minor lives can change the surname, but this must be solely in the interests of the child. The opinion of the other parent is taken into account, but only if he participates in raising the child and is not deprived of parental rights.

Reasons for changing a surname

The government does not set restrictions on how many times you are allowed to change your name. The reasons may be as follows:

Divorce/marriage;
Adoption of a child;
Determination of paternity;
Refusal of one’s own surname in favor of another (for example, belonging to a guardian or close relative);
The applicant's own wishes.

The last point can be justified by various factors. For example:

Unpronounceable;
Inconsistency with first name/patronymic;
Religious/national beliefs;
Desire to have the same surname as children/parents;
The owner does not like the surname.

Not only girls decide to change this information after marriage, but also men. The applicant for a replacement has the right to indicate in the application any reason that he considers adequate. The application will be considered on an individual basis.

Important! To obtain the surname of the biological father (provided that another person is listed on the birth certificate), you will have to provide official confirmation of paternity.

Conditions for change

Typically, the civil registry office approves any version of the applicant’s new surname. It does not necessarily have to duplicate information about a close relative. Alternatively, you can use any last name you like.

Existing reasons

Common reasons why citizens want to change their data include:

Marriage. Usually the wife takes over her husband's surname, but it can also be the other way around. Having the same last name for the whole family is convenient for processing documents that concern all its members. But spouses have the right, by agreement, to choose a more euphonious surname for themselves.
Divorce is another reason for the ex-spouse to get rid of memories of the past. A good reason for changing a surname is the death of one of the spouses.
A cacophony, a surname can be funny or difficult to pronounce in combination with a first and patronymic, in any case, its bearer has a reason. This can also include national characteristics, for example, the surname is foreign, but a Russian person needs to wear it.
Religious Beliefs.
Other.

The registry office can refuse an interested person if he wishes, for example, to take the name of a famous person (writer, politician, poet, actor, from a family of nobles or princes, etc.).

It will not be possible to change your last name or first name to the name of a locality, historical object, trademark or well-known product, etc. When a refusal occurs from the registry office, it must be issued in writing, since the interested person always has a chance to protest him in court.

Is it possible to change my passport in advance? — The law says that it is prohibited to do this. You have to wait until your birthday. Is it possible to replace a passport online? Read here.

Some of the legitimate reasons for refusal are:

evasion of responsibility by a citizen, he does not want to pay alimony;
debt to the state or other institution of a large amount for state duty or other fee or tax;
an incorrectly completed application;
failure to pay state fees and, accordingly, failure to present a receipt;
negative decision of the guardianship authority regarding changing the child’s name, including the refusal of the minor himself;
cacophony of a new name or surname;
lack of family ties between the applicant and the citizen who is the biological father;
inconsistency of the chosen first or last name with generally accepted norms;
other.

If a citizen received a written refusal, he was not allowed to register a civil status act in the registry office regarding a change of name, since the surname can be changed simply through the FMS, he can file a claim with the court or with a higher authority. Usually the case does not go to court and pre-trial proceedings are sufficient.

Sample passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation

Reason for name change

There are no legal reasons for changing the name; only the personal desire of the citizen matters. He has the right to change a name that is difficult to pronounce or dissonant to a more pleasant one. For example, a child whose parents gave him a rather strange name (Legend, Svyatozar, Cosmos and others) has the right to receive any other name upon reaching the age of 14.

When can I change my first and last name?

Changing your last name is allowed in certain situations:

marriage;
changing the surname of children upon divorce;
adoption of a child.

A man can change his last name and first name at his own request. According to Russian legislation, every citizen has the right to this. In this case, you can change your last name and first name completely or separately. For this, it is important to have a good reason, which can have a positive effect on resolving the issue as quickly as possible.

Usually there are no problems for those who change their surname by marriage or the surname of one of their parents. It is also easy to change the name if the person has already reached the age of majority. In the case of a child, the consent of not only the parents, but also the guardianship authorities is required in advance.

In accordance with Federal Law No. 143 of November 15, 1997 “On acts of civil status of the Russian Federation,” reasons are established that may be significant. Among the most likely reasons are the following:

desire to bear the surname of the other parent;
foreign or dissonant sounding surname;
religious features.

The minimum age for changing first and last names begins at 14 years from the date of receipt of a civil passport. However, parental consent is required before reaching adulthood. After 18 years of age, you can make your own decision. If the initiators are parents, from the age of 10 the child’s consent is required.

If a child wants to change his name, he will have to obtain the consent of both mother and father. In case of adoption, permission from the guardians is required. If there is no such consent, a court decision is necessary, unless the minor has previously been recognized as fully competent in court. In most cases, it is easier to wait until you reach adulthood.

Package of documents for changing your last name

For the procedure to be successful, you need to collect the main package and select additional papers for it.

The documents in the main package include:

Sequencing

In order to quickly solve the task you have set yourself, you must first understand what is needed to change your name in your Russian passport. Regardless of which authority you contact to change your name, be it the MFC or the State Services portal, you cannot avoid going to the registry office, so to save time it is best to go there right away.

To consider an application for a name change, a citizen must provide a number of documents:

Internal passport of the Russian Federation or passport of a foreign citizen with a notarized translation into Russian.
Birth or adoption certificates of minor children (if available).
Marriage certificate (if this circumstance exists).
Citizens under eighteen years of age must also provide written consent from their parents, guardians or adoptive parents, certified by a notary. A court decision may also be suitable - if the minor has been recognized by the judicial authority as fully capable.
A receipt confirming payment of the state duty.

It is also worth clarifying which documents need to be changed when changing the name in the passport, since this decision entails serious consequences.

If you are thinking about changing your name, it is worth reading more about how to replace a passport.

Where to go to change your name

Replacement of personal data occurs in two stages. At each of them, the applicant applies to different authorities:

Civil registry office at the place of registration. A citizen comes there with a request to change his last name, first name or patronymic. You can only come in person or apply through a legal representative if the applicant himself is a minor/incompetent. The same authority issues a certificate of replacement of personal information;
Main Department of Migration Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or MFC. The applicant comes there with the received certificate to issue a passport with a new name. To save time and avoid standing in line, you can submit an application to replace your passport online on the State Services website.

Important! You can change your last name/first name/patronymic name only at the Civil Registry Office offices and only by applying yourself.

How to change your last name at will: instructions for action

Upon reaching the age of fourteen, every person is required to obtain a passport. From this moment on, he can change his last name, first name or patronymic, but only with the permission of his parents or guardian.

Upon reaching the age of eighteen, permission is not required from anyone, and an adult citizen may independently be interested in how to change the last name in the passport.

A process such as changing a surname in a passport requires special step-by-step implementation.

Step 1

An application form of a certain standard is filled out in form No. 15.

The submitter fills out the document with his own hand.

The form contains the following information:

FULL NAME. declared;
requisites;
registration address;
family status;
data from previously registered legal events;
information about each child under eighteen years of age;
the selected surname is indicated;
reasons that prompted the change of name;
a list of attached documentation;
the date of drawing up the application is recorded;
signature of the applicant.

Step 2

The completed application is submitted to the registry office and a decision is awaited.

If the application is drawn up correctly and a complete set of required documents is attached, the answer will be decided positively.

Step 3

Receive a document proving that a new surname has been assigned.

Step 4

Submit a passport with outdated data and a copy of the newly received certificate with updated information.

The entire process, from submitting an application to the registry office to receiving a passport from the Federal Migration Service with new information, takes about 45 days.

The registry office representative is obliged to take the application and register it in the registration register.

Important!

The registry office representative has no grounds for refusing to accept the application if the specified reason for changing the surname corresponds to one of the reasons approved in the list. To implement this process, in some cases, the request may be considered individually with each person who submitted the request.

State duty when changing data

Replacing any personal data is a paid procedure. An applicant for a new surname or first name will have to pay a state fee in the amount of 1,600 rubles.

In addition, you will subsequently need to pay a state fee for replacing documents. It will cost:

300 rub. for issuing a passport;
200 rub. for printing out a birth certificate for a child;
2000 rub. for replacing a driver's license.

If a citizen intends to change his first or last name again, the price is set at 350 rubles. The third and subsequent procedures will cost the same amount.

Important! Money for changing personal information is transferred using the old full name. The recipient is the territorial civil registry office at the place of registration.

What documents will have to be re-registered if I change my last name?

List of documents that need to be re-registered when changing your last name:

At the registry office, reissue the existing birth certificate with another one, where the new, declared surname will be entered.
At the Federal Migration Service, submit an application, collect documents and receive a passport with a new name.You will need to prepare and submit the following documents:
- previous passport;
a copy of the document allowing you to change your last name;
2 photos 3x4;
an application drawn up according to the approved form 1P;
cash receipt for payment of state duty;
military ID.

The fee for exchanging a passport is set at 300 rubles.

Have the tax authorities re-register the TIN with a new surname. The identification number remains unchanged and is assigned only once.
The medical insurance policy is subject to exchange. For working citizens, the policy is changed by a personnel employee of the enterprise.

Those who are not working personally apply to the places where policies are issued.

To obtain a new policy you must submit:

old policy;
a copy of the document allowing you to change your last name.
Pensioner's ID. Each change must be reflected in the pensioner’s personal cash account.
SNILS, citizens working at the enterprise, are changed through the human resources department. Citizens not employed at work apply personally to the Pension Fund.
A document about the employee’s work activity. The work book is not changed, but a record of a change in the holder’s surname is entered into it. To do this, the holder of the work record presents a document to the enterprise confirming that the applicant was allowed to change his surname. After this, the personnel officer will make the necessary entry.
Driver's license.
International passport. You can use this document until the end of its validity period, and then receive a passport with a changed one. Here you also need to keep in mind that when the passports of one owner (foreign and civil) have different surnames, it will be impossible to issue a visa.
Certificates of ownership of movable and immovable property. These documents are not subject to exchange. Upon completion of the purchase and sale, it is enough to show documents on permission to change the surname. Despite such permission, legal experts still advise re-registering the documentation to avoid unforeseen complications, delays and bureaucracy. Moreover, the discrepancy of surnames, to for example, in the license and title, may create some inconvenience for the car owner.
Documents on graduation from educational institutions. It is allowed to present a permit to change the surname along with the document.
Documents certifying the fact of study at a higher or secondary educational institution. Why do they submit permits for changing their last name to the educational department of the institution?
Credit card and passbook. For this purpose, you need to contact the bank where your financial transactions take place. Documents for replacing cards and savings books: petition; permission document to change the surname.
Military ID.
Changes are made to previously concluded agreements and other business and legal documents.

Important!

It is the direct responsibility of the person who initiated such a procedure to notify all relevant institutions about the change of name. In order not to incur various troubles and disagreements, legal experts advise providing information about the change of surname to all service structures.

Using the services of government agencies that deal with the preparation of various types of documents, we are certainly faced with the need to pay certain fees to the state budget. This obligation is enshrined in law, which means that it is assigned to all citizens of the Russian Federation. The procedure for changing personal data is no exception. And although the state fee for changing a surname is a rather symbolic fee, it will not hurt to know how much you need to calculate and how to pay it.

Deadlines for passport replacement

Documents with invalid data must be replaced within a month after receiving a certificate of their change. If this rule is not followed, penalties will be applied to the violator.

These are cash payments in the amount of:

From 3000 to 5000 rub. in Moscow and St. Petersburg;
From 2000 to 3000 rub. in the regions.

The total amount is determined by the inspector individually. It depends on the time period during which the citizen walked with an expired passport.

Reasons why an application for a replacement passport may not be accepted

In order not to be refused when you initially contact the registry office regarding a name change, and so that everything goes well in the future, it is worth finding out in advance what is required to complete this procedure and how much it costs to replace a passport when changing your name.

There are cases when the authorized state body has the right not to satisfy the appeal:

Changing personal data to evade the law. The motive may be evasion of criminal liability or payment of alimony, etc.
Failure to pay state duty.
The guardianship and trusteeship authorities did not agree to change the name of a minor child over 10 years old due to the disagreement of the child himself.
A citizen under the age of 18 has not obtained the consent of parents or guardians to change his name; this is also true for a negative court decision if the issue was resolved in court. However, all this applies to children who were not recognized as independent.
The applicant's new name contains numbers.
A complete set of required documents is missing. Therefore, before going to the registry office, you should carefully check all the papers.

Citizens should know that in case of refusal, the head of the authorized government body must explain the reason in writing. After receiving explanations, the applicant must be returned all documents that were submitted along with the application.

Certificate of change of personal data

An application to change your name is considered within 30 days; in rare cases, the process can take up to 60 days. If the package of documents is incomplete, or the application is completed with errors, the citizen will be notified of this and asked to correct the mistake.

After consideration, the responsible civil registry officer makes a decision. If it is affirmative, the applicant is issued a certificate of change of personal data.

This is an important paper that may be required in the following cases:

When issuing new documents (passport, SNILS, driver’s license);
To prove ownership of real estate, during registration of which old data was indicated;
To enter into an inheritance. There are situations when the testator draws up a will, indicating the initial details of the heir. A certificate of change of personal data will confirm that the citizen with the new surname is the heir;
To confirm the relationship between parent and child. For example, in a situation where the child is registered under the father’s name, and the mother took her maiden name or the surname of her second husband.

Deadlines for obtaining a new passport

After consideration of your application by a civil registry office employee, if a positive decision is made, a certificate is issued, on the basis of which you must change your internal Russian passport within the prescribed time frame; This usually takes 10 days.

It is also worth recalling once again that when minor citizens apply to replace the main state document, parents, guardians or adoptive parents must be present.

If you want to study all the nuances that affect the duration of replacing an identity document, you should familiarize yourself in more detail with all the deadlines for obtaining a passport.

After submitting an application for a replacement passport, an employee of the Main Department of Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will set a date for the document to be ready.

Responsibility for untimely replacement of a passport

The period established by law for replacing a passport due to a change in personal data is 30 days. If during this time an application with a request to replace the document is not submitted, a fine will be imposed on the unscrupulous citizen, the amount of which is determined directly by the migration service inspector, taking into account the reasons that influenced the untimely application.

In some cases, an employee of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs may completely exempt the violator from paying a fine, but there must be good reasons for this. The fine must be paid within 60 days.

Why may they refuse to change your last name?

The Constitution does not list the grounds on which a person may be denied a new surname. Every citizen of the Russian Federation has the right to change personal information at his own discretion.

However, there are a number of reasons why representatives of the Civil Registry Office have the right not to fulfill a request to provide a certificate to replace personal information. This:

Submitting an incomplete package of papers or errors/blurs in the application;
Failure to pay state duty for replacement;
Inability to change the child’s data at the request of the guardianship authorities;
Reluctance of a minor to change his last name (if he is already 10 years old and his parents decide to submit an application without his knowledge);
Lack of parental consent to change the data of a child from 14 to 18 years old;
The presence of an abbreviation or numbers in the requested name.

If a negative decision is made on the application, the citizen will certainly be given a written justification and all submitted documents will be returned.

How to appeal a refusal

If the applicant for a new surname considers the refusal illegal, he has the right to appeal this decision. The algorithm will be like this:

The applicant receives an official written refusal from the registry office employee;
The first pre-trial claim must be written to a superior official. It can be submitted in person or sent through the State Services portal. The application is studied no longer than 10 days;
If the initial claim does not give the desired result, you will have to resort to the help of the court. Attached to the statement of claim are the documents that the applicant submitted to the registry office to change the data.

The court will consider the claim within 30 days from the date of filing. If there is such a need, the court may extend the period for studying the case by another 30 days. If the answer is positive, the civil registry office will have to replace the required data on the day the applicant provides the responsible officer with the court decision.

It is not difficult for a Russian citizen to change his first or last name. It is enough to select adequate data and contact the territorial registry office with an objective justification of the reason.

Statusname

Changing your first and last name is the legal right of a citizen of the Russian Federation, enshrined in Federal Law No. 143-FZ “On Acts of Civil Status” dated November 15, 1997. There are various reasons for changing personal data:

spouses can change their surname after marriage and its dissolution,
people change dissonant, outdated, difficult to pronounce and disliked names and even patronymics: (for example, it is not easy for Porfiry Akakievich, Dazdraperma Avksentievna and Anal Iulianovich to live in the modern world),
You can take a different patronymic for personal reasons: due to a bad relationship with your father, upon adoption, if the father changed his name.

About 80,000 Russians change their names every year. How to become a different person? Contact the nearest registry office!

Changing your last name, first name, patronymic: what conditions must be met?

The answer to the question whether it is possible to change the surname and patronymic is clear: this is permissible in cases and in the manner prescribed by law. From the moment of receiving a passport, any citizen of the Russian Federation can change his full name. A teenager can receive a purple book with a different first name, patronymic or last name with the consent of both parents, trustees or guardians. The basis for making changes is also a court decision or the onset of full legal capacity before the age of 18 (in case of early marriage, emancipation - recognition of a teenager as legally competent upon reaching 16 years of age in the case of official employment and business activities).

Adult citizens submit an application to the registry office indicating the reasons. The period for consideration of applications is up to 1 month from the date of submission (up to 3 months if documents are not submitted in full). You can change the name in your passport by contacting the registry office at your place of residence or temporary registration. It is acceptable to submit documents to any department of the institution, but this will increase the review time to 4 months.

Procedure for changing first name, patronymic and last name in Russia: stages and documents

Before submitting your application, prepare the following documents:

birth certificate;
certificate of marriage or divorce (if available);
children's birth certificates (if both parents change their last name, it is automatically entered into the documents of a minor child; if one of the parents changes their last name, a child over 10 years of age has the right to choose one of the options with the consent of both parents to make the changes).

Attach to the documentation an application indicating your data (full name, date of birth, citizenship, etc.), data of minor children, details of civil status acts previously issued in your name and the names of the children, as well as the reasons for changing the name. In the application, also indicate the last name, first name, and patronymic that you want to use in the future. This point is very important: if you want to get an obscene, exotic name, containing ranks, titles, special characters and numbers, you can be refused (a law prohibiting giving such names to children was adopted in April 2017).

The procedure for changing your name consists of the following steps:

collection of documents;
contacting the registry office;
payment of state duty;
making a decision;
obtaining a certificate of change of name, surname or patronymic.

Many people are interested in how much it costs to change their name? The state duty is currently 350 rubles, and you can pay it at Sberbank or through terminals installed in many registry offices. Please note: the terminals charge a commission and do not issue change (the remaining amount can be transferred to your mobile phone account).

How to change your full name through State Services?

In view of the development of Internet technologies, people are asking the question: how to change their last name, first name or patronymic through the Public Services portal (gosuslugi.ru)? Unfortunately, at the moment the service is provided only in two formats: in person and through a legal representative. It is not yet possible to submit an application to change your name online, but at State Services you can learn more about the nuances of the procedure, the package of required documents and the procedure for considering applications.

However, you can use the Portal to change the name in your passport and even get a discount when paying the state fee (the issuance of a new passport is possible if you have a certificate of change of name).

To send an application for a passport, click the “Get service” button, fill out a 13-point form, upload a current photo, select a division of the Federal Migration Service of Russia from the list of available ones and submit the application for consideration. Soon you will receive a system message inviting you to personally visit your territorial unit to verify data.

Once you find out whether you can change your name and how to do it, do not make hasty decisions: you will have to reissue all documents (passport, marriage registration certificate, birth certificate, property rights, financial and tax papers), notifying employers, creditors, banks where you are being served. Changing your name is not a way to avoid responsibility: it is impossible to evade criminal prosecution and payment of alimony in this way, since the registry office automatically informs the regulatory authorities about the changes made. Think carefully, does your name really play an important role in your life? Perhaps you can become a different person through actions, not documents.

Algorithm of actions through the registry office

The first thing a citizen must do to change his last name in his passport is write an application. The application form has a unified form 15. It is divided into paragraphs, each of which contains information about the applicant.

The table should contain the following data:

description of current full name;
details of the birth certificate;
citizenship;
indication of nationality (optional);
data on marital status;
information about minor children;
the reason for changing personal information;
place of residence;
current passport details.

At the end, the citizen describes all the documents that will be used as an application. You must sign and date the form to complete the form.

List of documents

The list of documents required to change your last name is standard for most government agencies. You can obtain more information about certificates from the civil registry office.

Standard list:

passport;
birth certificate;
application drawn up in Form 15;
a receipt confirming payment of the state duty.

If a citizen has changed his last name several times, he will have to compile an autobiography. It is necessary to describe outdated data and the reasons for their change.

Deadline for receiving the act

In order to check the relevance and correctness of the information, the registry office may take from two weeks to two months, depending on the month when the application was submitted.

After approval of the application, the documents are transferred to the Main Department of Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where within 10 days the procedure for replacing the identity document will be carried out.

Procedure for amending documents

The process of changing the last name of an individual entrepreneur involves making appropriate adjustments to a number of documents. To do this, in turn, you will have to contact various government agencies:

passport office – registration of a new passport within 30 days from the date of issue of the certificate;
Federal Tax Service – changing the TIN, issuing an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs (if necessary);
Pension Fund – change of SNILS;
bank – change of details (after receiving an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs);
insurance – change of compulsory medical insurance policy;
Traffic police - registration of a new driver's license.

It should be taken into account that the events accompanying the change of the surname of an individual entrepreneur must fit within a certain time frame. Thus, corrections to the TIN must be made immediately upon receipt of a new passport. You can change SNILS within 14 days, and compulsory medical insurance - within a period of up to one month after the issuance of this document.

Replacement of documents

So, when the change of surname is actually carried out, the person will have to be issued a special certificate, which will become the basis for replacing the passport. This is the second stage; everything still needs to be documented. To obtain such a certificate, you need to come to the passport office at your place of residence. And in addition to this document, you will need an application for replacement or issuance of a passport, two photographs (of a standard generally accepted sample) and all the papers that are required to put the appropriate marks on a new identity card. This is a birth certificate for children, a military ID, a certificate confirming registration, a marriage or divorce certificate and a foreign passport. And you still have to pay the state fee. But the name change doesn’t end there either.

The fact is that changing your last name or first name is a simple process, but it requires a lot of time. The main difficulty is not so much in submitting papers, but in the fact that you will have to change a whole bunch of documents. In addition to all of the above, you will also need to obtain a new education document. And it’s good if the name change occurs while the person is a student - there will be no special problems in obtaining a diploma.

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Replacement of a foreign passport

How to change the name on a foreign document? So, it's simple. Firstly, this procedure is quite simple, and it can be carried out at any time - our Russian legislation does not limit these periods in any way. And if you have no plans to leave anywhere in the near future, you don’t have to think about it. However, there is no need to delay either.

The application is submitted to the OVIR, and there it is reviewed and approved within a few weeks. Along with this document, you will need to submit your new passport, its photocopies (you must duplicate all pages that have any marks), a certificate of your citizenship (but this is only if it was received after 09/01/1992), four photographs (3.5x4.5), a receipt for payment of the state fee (its size is about a thousand rubles) and, of course, your old foreign document. Then all that remains is to wait until the name in the passport is changed. The person must be informed about this.