Services › Births, Deaths and Marriages - Whanautanga, Matenga, Marenatanga

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Service overview

Births, Deaths and Marriages registers and maintains New Zealand birth, death, marriage, civil union and name change information and provides access to that information by issuing certificates and printouts. The Births, Deaths and Marriages office also appoints marriage and civil union celebrants, and issues certificates of no impediment for people who wish to marry or enter into a civil union overseas.

Read the Births, Deaths and Marriages service overview in:

• Māori
• Arabic
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Hindi
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese
• Samoan
• Spanish
• Tongan

You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 or higher installed on your computer to view the overviews above, the documents are between 35kb and 112kb in size. You can download a free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Adobe site.

• Little Histories
• Forms, fees and information brochures
• Information matching
• Relevant law
• A person's right to access and, where appropriate, correct the information
• Contact us

Little Histories

This publication sets out some of the stories behind the Births, Deaths and Marriages registers. Author Megan Hutching, of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, profiles seven people who have worked closely with the registers. They describe the evolution of record keeping from beautiful old books, painstakingly handwritten, to computerised data systems that can search millions of records and verify the details of any particular one. Little Histories also contains some fascinating images. Among the book’s illustrations are some pictures of the earliest registers from as far back as the 1840s, published for the first time. For more information see Little Histories.

Information matching

Information you supply to us may be used by other specified agencies to allow more effective verification of information and help assess your eligibility for various services. Information matching is carried out under the authority of, and consistent with Part 10 of the Privacy Act 1993 and is monitored by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

• Link here to see a list of authorised agencies and the purposes for matching

Relevant law

View statutes
Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995
Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration (Fees) Regulations 1995
Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration (Prescribed Information) Regulations 1995
Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships (Non Disclosure Direction) Regulations 2008
Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2004
Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (Fees) Regulations 2005
Civil Union Act 2004
Civil Union (Prescribed Information, Fees, and Forms) Regulations 2005
Civil Unions (Recognised Overseas Relationships) Regulations 2005
Marriage Act 1955
Marriage (Fees) Regulations 1995
Marriage (Forms) Regulations 1995
Status of Children Act 1969
Status of Children (Fees) Regulations 1995
Adult Adoption Information Act 1985
Adult Adoption Information (Fees) Regulations 1991