Britons in Bahrain will no longer be able to register births and deaths at the British Embassy in Manama from January 14.

As part of a centralisation programme, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has announced that it will be withdrawing the service from all British Consulates overseas, with registrations being carried out instead in a central registration unit in the UK, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

An FCO spokesman told the GDN that no changes were being made to the entitlement to register a birth or death and the processing time should remain the same, although extra time must be allowed for documents to be sent to and from the UK.

"Fees are set in pounds sterling - £105 ($164) for registering the birth or death and an additional fee of £65 for the issue of a certificate," he said.

Consular birth registration is an optional service that is only available to people born overseas who have an automatic entitlement to British nationality at birth.

There is no legal requirement for a consular birth registration and a local birth certificate with a certified translation, if necessary, should be sufficient for all purposes in the UK including applying for a passport.

Bahrain is among the last batch of countries to be affected by the centralisation programme, which will see local in-country registration replaced by a common online application procedure with credit card payment facility when complete. - TradeArabia News Service