Spain changed the civil-registry pathway for overseas surrogacy births in May 2025. Spanish families now need a written plan for filiation and the newborn’s travel document before treatment, not after the Georgian birth certificate is issued.
Spanish Law 14/2006 makes a surrogacy contract null and says maternity is determined by childbirth, while preserving a possible paternity claim for the biological father. Since 1 May 2025, Spanish civil and consular registries may not use a foreign birth certificate, medical declaration or foreign judgment as the title for registering a surrogacy birth and its filiation. The 2025 instruction points instead to ordinary Spanish routes after arrival, making the baby’s lawful document for travel from Georgia a critical pre-treatment question.
The Spanish starting point is Article 10
Article 10 of Law 14/2006 states that a contract under which a woman carries a pregnancy and renounces maternal filiation for a contracting person is null, whether paid or unpaid. It also provides that filiation of a child born through surrogacy is determined by childbirth and leaves open an ordinary action to establish the biological father’s paternity. These provisions shape the Spanish analysis even when treatment and birth occur in Georgia.
A Spanish opinion should therefore examine the biological facts, the existing legal relationships, the intended parents’ family status and the steps contemplated before and after birth. Georgian law may support local intended-parent registration, but it does not replace Spain’s rules about who is treated as the mother, how paternity is established or whether a second intended parent may later adopt.
The May 2025 registry instruction materially changed the route
The Directorate-General for Legal Security and Public Faith revoked the earlier 2010 and 2019 instructions from 1 May 2025. Its new direction says that Spanish Civil Registries, including consular registries, must not accept a foreign registration certificate, a simple declaration accompanied by a medical birth certificate, or a final foreign judgment as the title for registration of a surrogacy birth and filiation. It also applies the new approach to applications pending when the instruction was published.
This means a Georgian birth certificate or judgment should not be marketed as a direct consular-registration solution for Spain. The instruction states that filiation can later be determined by ordinary Spanish mechanisms, including biological filiation for an intended parent where appropriate and subsequent adoptive filiation when the required family setting and safeguards are proved. A Spanish lawyer should explain which route is realistically available to each intended parent and how long it may take.
The newborn’s route to Spain must work before the later family case
The 2025 instruction says applicants may obtain a local passport and corresponding permissions, where available, so that the child can travel to Spain; the ordinary Spanish filiation process then takes place in Spain. That sentence does not guarantee that Georgia will issue the child a Georgian passport. Birth in Georgia does not ordinarily make a child Georgian, and Georgia’s special citizenship provision for some surrogacy births is narrow and requires case-specific interpretation.
Before treatment, Spanish and Georgian advisers should identify which authority could issue the baby’s actual passport or travel document, what citizenship or immigration basis supports it, and whether Spain will admit the child on that document. If the proposed answer depends on a special Georgian citizenship application, emergency document or discretionary consular decision, the required evidence and likely timing need written confirmation rather than an optimistic estimate.
Georgia imposes its own two-parent departure condition
Even after the child has a passport or accepted travel document, Georgian law permits departure after a surrogacy birth only when both parents’ data appear in the birth record issued by the Public Service Development Agency. The family must therefore align the intended parents’ names and identity details across the agreement, clinic file, hospital evidence and Georgian registration. A document obtained for entry to Spain does not waive this Georgian condition.
Transit countries add another layer. The airline and border authorities may need to see the baby’s travel document, visas or entry permissions, and evidence that the accompanying adults may travel with the child. Flexible flights and accommodation are essential because no coordinator can control registry, nationality, immigration or passport decisions.
Build the Spanish case file before the child is born
The file should preserve the intended parents’ Spanish civil-status and nationality records, the identity and consent of the surrogate, the Georgian agreement, the source of each gamete, donor information, laboratory chain of custody, transfer records, hospital evidence, Georgian birth record and certified translations. If biological filiation will be relied on, Spanish counsel should say whether and how officially acceptable genetic evidence is obtained.
SurrogateMother.ge can coordinate records, clinical communication, translation and the Tbilisi birth period. It cannot confirm Spanish filiation, adoption, nationality or entry. For Spanish families, good marketing must be honest about the central practical risk: the child may be safely born and correctly registered in Georgia while the route to a usable travel document and later Spanish parentage still requires careful, independent work.
Questions people ask about Guide for Spanish citizens
Clear answers for real decisions: what to prepare, who is responsible and what can change the plan.
The 28 April 2025 instruction says foreign registration certificates, medical declarations and foreign judgments are not accepted as the title for registering a surrogacy birth and filiation in Spanish civil or consular registries.
No. It refers to a local passport and permissions where available. Georgian citizenship and document eligibility must be confirmed separately for the actual child.
Both parents must appear in the Georgian birth record, and the child must also hold a passport or accepted travel document plus any permissions needed for Spain and transit.
Spain’s Civil Registry instruction of 28 April 2025, effective from 1 May 2025, changed the administrative treatment of foreign surrogacy birth records. A foreign judgment or birth certificate should not be assumed to produce direct registration through the earlier route. Spanish parents need current advice on the filiation, genetic-parent or adoption-related pathway that may apply to their facts, and should prepare that route before treatment rather than after the child is born.
Departure from Georgia and later registration in Spain are not the same decision. Georgia requires both parents’ data in the surrogacy birth record, while the child also needs a valid travel document and permission to enter Spain or the destination country. Spanish counsel and the competent consular authority should confirm the available document route. The family should budget for a longer stay if the authority requests genetic, consent or additional civil-status evidence.
Related guidance
International Intended Parents in Georgia
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Newborn Documents After Surrogacy in Georgia
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Leaving Georgia With a Newborn: Checklist
A practical checklist for newborn health, Georgian birth records, citizenship, passport and travel readiness after surrogacy in Georgia.
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