For a marriage or naturalisation file the nüfus kayıt örneği, the Turkish civil registry extract, is downloaded from e-Devlet, apostilled through e-Apostil and translated into German. The Standesamt, the civil registry office, opens the file and asks for an “internationale Geburtsurkunde”; it either declines the registry extract or wants another document beside it. The holder shows the apostille and the translation; the registrar is not interested. This page explains why the two documents are not interchangeable, which is right in which case, and why a chain built on the wrong document goes to waste. Formula A and the civil registry extract each have their own document page on this site.
The multilingual extract the German office asks for
The document the German clerk wants goes by several names: “internationale Geburtsurkunde”, “mehrsprachiger Auszug” or simply “Formula A”. The holder has brought the civil registry extract, which for Germany needs an apostille and a translation. The clerk wants a multilingual extract, Formula A for a birth, which needs neither. The refusal can also run the other way: Formula A was brought, but the institution’s list names the civil registry extract. In both cases the fault lies not in the apostille but in the document type and in the convention behind it.
Two documents under two convention regimes
The page of the German missions in Türkiye sets out the distinction item by item. Formula A, B and C are issued under the convention of 8 September 1976 on multilingual extracts from civil status records (CIEC 16); Germany and Türkiye have acceded to it, and these documents need neither translation nor apostille in Germany. The civil registry extract lies outside that convention: in Germany it is recognised only with an apostille and a translation by a sworn translator. Information sheet 04F repeats the point for visa files and adds the note “no apostille required” next to Formula A. The difference between the two documents is not a matter of preference; it follows from two separate international regimes.
When the civil registry extract is the right document
The civil registry extract is the right document when the German institution names it in its list; what the extract shows, compared with the formula documents, was not read on an official page in this site’s survey, so the choice rests on the institution’s own wording. In that case the chain is built with an apostille, and a German translation is added. According to information sheet 04F no original is needed when the barcode printout is presented; that sentence concerns the visa file and does not alter the apostille chain. According to the official e-Apostil system, the electronic application for the civil registry extract is open to Turkish citizens only; a foreign national holder is directed to the paper apostille. Formula A is the multilingual birth extract, Formula B the marriage extract and Formula C the death extract; where the institution names one of these, no apostille chain is built for Germany at all.
Is the apostille on the wrong document lost?
What may be lost is the effort, not the document. An apostilled civil registry extract is not a wrong document; it is simply not the document the institution wants in this file. If the institution asks for Formula A, the step is to obtain the relevant formula from the nüfus müdürlüğü, the civil registry directorate; it receives neither an apostille nor a translation, and no e-Apostil application is needed. The apostilled registry extract can stay in the file in case the institution asks for both together. In the reverse case, where Formula A was brought and the civil registry extract is wanted, the civil registry extract is obtained and the apostille and translation chain is built. Which document is wanted is read from the institution’s written list; a general phrase such as “birth certificate” does not say which of the two is meant, and the question is put to the institution.
Unverified points on the formula documents
The CIEC status table, read on 30.09.2026, lists 24 states bound by CIEC 16, Germany and Türkiye among them; in those states article 8 has the formula documents accepted without legalisation or equivalent formality. The convention contains no translation clause, so the German missions’ statement that no translation is needed is a German rule. How each of the other states treats the formula documents in practice was not verified country by country; a holder taking such a document elsewhere reads that country’s rule separately. Which Standesamt wants the civil registry extract and which the formula document in a given file was not surveyed either.
No translation link opens on a formula document
The translation side of this problem has two ends. Formula A, B and C are multilingual by design, so no translation link opens for Germany; for Germany a translation of such a document is unnecessary. On the civil registry extract, by contrast, the translation is a mandatory link: the German missions ask for an apostille and a translation by a sworn translator, and whether that translation also covers the certificate is for the German office to say. In Türkiye the translation is made by a yeminli tercüman, a translator whose oath is on record at a Turkish notary. Whether a translation made in Türkiye is treated by German authorities as a sworn translation could not be verified; a separate page in this section describes that uncertainty. Where both documents are wanted in one file, only the civil registry extract is translated.