Power of attorney for Ukraine: getting birth records, citizenship documents and archive searches done without travelling

This article is about one particular kind of power of attorney: the one you sign abroad so that a representative in Ukraine, or in Moldova, can request your family’s birth, marriage and death records, search the state archives, and have the documents apostilled for a Romanian citizenship application. If you need a power of attorney for Ukraine for another purpose, such as selling a flat, managing a bank account or acting in court, different rules apply, and they are not covered here.

When it comes to family records, the power of attorney is what makes the whole process possible without travelling. You stay in New York, London or Haifa, while a representative goes to the registry office or archive counter and acts in your name.

What does a power of attorney actually allow someone to do?

A power of attorney does not create new rights. It transfers to your representative the rights you already have, so the representative can request exactly what you could request in person, and nothing more.

This principle shapes everything that follows. Ukrainian law sets out who may receive each type of document, and the list is different for each one. The useful question is therefore not “can someone get this for me?” but “who in my family is entitled to this record, and is that person the one signing the power of attorney?”

The possibility of acting through a representative is written into the Ukrainian civil registration rules. Certificates may be issued to the representative of a person who is entitled to them, on the basis of a power of attorney certified under the Law of Ukraine “On Notariat” (Ministry of Justice Order No. 52/5, section IV, point 4).

Who signs depends on whose record it is

A birth certificate. A repeat Ukrainian birth certificate, meaning a new copy issued from the register, is given only to the person the record is about, their parents, adoptive parents or guardians (Law No. 2398-VI, Article 19; Order No. 52/5, section IV, point 4). If the record is your own, you sign. If it is your mother’s and she is alive, she signs a power of attorney of her own. Children and grandchildren are not on the list for a parent’s or grandparent’s birth certificate.

A death certificate. Here the circle is wider. A repeat death certificate is issued to the surviving spouse, to the children, to close relatives of the deceased, which the rules define as brothers and sisters, grandchildren and grandparents, and to heirs (Order No. 52/5, section IV, point 4). A grandchild can therefore sign for a grandparent’s death certificate.

A marriage certificate. A repeat marriage certificate is issued to the spouses themselves. Unlike death certificates, it does not extend to other relatives.

As a result, one family often needs more than one power of attorney. To take an example, imagine Rachel in Haifa, whose mother is alive and whose grandfather was born in Bukovina. Rachel signs a power of attorney for her own records and for her grandfather’s death certificate, while her mother signs a separate one for her own birth certificate. A case with one power of attorney from the applicant and another from a living parent is entirely normal, and we work out who signs what before anyone goes to a notary.

Why can’t you get your grandfather’s birth certificate?

This is the point where a power of attorney most often turns out to cover less than people expect, and the reason lies in the rule described above.

If your grandfather has died, and his parents have also died, no living person is entitled to a repeat copy of his birth certificate. A power of attorney from a grandchild does not change this, because the grandchild has no such right to pass on.

What can be obtained for him is an archival document. Ukrainian registry offices keep their register books for 75 years from the date of the entries and then transfer them to the state archive (Ministry of Justice Order No. 2804/5, list of documents, section II, point 6). From then on the record is held by the regional state archive, which answers requests with an archival certificate, an archival copy or an archival extract (Order No. 295/5, section III). A request to an archive may concern the applicant’s close relatives, including grandparents (Order No. 295/5, section I, point 3).

For ancestors born in Bukovina or Bessarabia while those regions were part of Romania, the entries were made by Romanian town halls, and an archival extract reproduces the text in the language of the original entry. The difference between these documents, and which of them Romania asks for, is explained in recovering your ancestor’s records.

How do you sign a power of attorney abroad?

The most common route is to sign before a notary where you live.

Ukraine accepts documents drawn up abroad without legalisation, which is the longer chain of certifications by ministries and consulates, where an international treaty provides for this (Law “On Notariat”, Article 100). The 1961 Hague Apostille Convention is such a treaty: it replaces legalisation with a single certificate called an apostille. The Convention has been in force for Ukraine since 22 December 2003, for the United States since 1981, for Israel since 1978 and for the United Kingdom since 1965 (HCCH status table). Moldova joined in 2007.

In practice, the process works like this:

1. We send you the text of the power of attorney. It names the representative and lists what they may do: request certificates, extracts and archival documents, pay the fees, apply for apostilles and collect the documents.
2. You sign it in front of a notary, who certifies your signature.
3. The document receives an apostille from the competent authority in the country where it was signed. In the US, this is the Secretary of State of the state where the notary is commissioned.
4. You send us a scan, and the original is sent to Ukraine.

Even with an apostille, the power of attorney still has to be read by a Ukrainian official. For this reason, documents in a foreign language are presented to civil registry offices together with a Ukrainian translation certified in the established way (Order No. 52/5, section II, chapter 1, point 7). The translation is made in Ukraine, and a Ukrainian notary certifies either the translation itself or the translator’s signature (Law “On Notariat”, Article 79).

Can you sign at a Ukrainian consulate instead?

Yes. Ukrainian consulates certify powers of attorney themselves (Law “On Notariat”, Article 38). A power of attorney made at a consulate is a Ukrainian notarial act written in Ukrainian, so it does not need the apostille and translation steps.

Consulates can also reissue civil status certificates directly to the person entitled to them (Law No. 2398-VI, Article 19). If the only record you need is your own birth certificate, this can be a route in its own right. Most citizenship cases, however, need several records from more than one office, and in that situation a representative in Ukraine is the simpler option.

Do requests still work under martial law?

Ukraine remains under martial law, which was most recently extended in July 2026 (Law No. 4928-IX). Registry offices and archives outside the occupied areas continue to handle requests. Where a register book is held in territory under occupation, the record cannot be taken from the book itself, and what can be done instead depends on the specific record. For this reason we check where each book is held before you sign anything.

The apostille on the documents you receive

Two separate apostilles are involved in this process. The power of attorney needs one so that it can be used in Ukraine, and the documents obtained with it need their own so that they can be used in Romania.

Apostilles on Ukrainian civil registry and archive documents are placed within the Ministry of Justice system. Since March 2026, Ukraine’s electronic apostille register shows a scan of the underlying document when an apostille is verified, and new apostilles carry a QR code (apostille.minjust.gov.ua). In some requests for additional documents issued in 2026, the Romanian citizenship authority has asked for Ukrainian records issued from April 2026 onwards, with an apostille. This is what we have seen in specific requests rather than a published rule, and we take it into account when planning document requests.

Moldova: a separate power of attorney

Moldovan records need a power of attorney of their own. Under Moldovan law, a duplicate civil status certificate can be issued to a representative holding a power of attorney, as well as to family members and to relatives of a deceased person (Law No. 100/2001, Article 8; Embassy of Moldova in the US).

In practice, we arrange it as follows:

• The power of attorney is written in Russian, or in English and Russian side by side, and is made out to our specialist in Moldova.
• You sign it only in the presence of a notary, not in advance.
• The apostille is placed in the country where you signed. In the US, this is done by the Secretary of State of the state where the notary is commissioned.
• If the notary is in New York, the notary’s signature is first certified by the County Clerk, and only then does the document go to the Secretary of State.
• You upload a scan to your case folder and send the original by DHL to Chișinău.

The Moldovan documents themselves can be apostilled only in Moldova, as the embassy in the US also states.

What does it cost?

Record recovery is priced per document, and we quote the cost per record before any work starts, with the apostille included — see how pricing works on our main page. The final figure is confirmed once we know which records your case needs, because part of it consists of state fees.

Where to start

Before anyone signs a power of attorney, it helps to have a clear map of the case: which records it requires, which office or archive holds each of them, and who in the family is entitled to request each one. To build that map, send us what you have: names as they were spelled at the time, places and approximate years, and photos of any certificates the family has kept, including old Soviet ones. From this we can tell you which powers of attorney are needed, who signs each of them, and in which country.

If you are not yet sure that your family line qualifies, a good place to start is what an eligibility check examines together with how Article 10 and Article 11 differ. Which country holds which record is explained in birth certificates from Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Kazakhstan and Romania. The documents can be gathered without you being present, while the application itself is filed in person, as described in applying in Romania or at a consulate.