A judicial parentage order, adoption order, or corrected birth certificate: what the law says about registering two parents, and how to appeal a refusal.
If you are a same-sex couple and your child is registered under only one parent's name, or you received a birth certificate listing only one mother, you are far from alone. This situation is familiar to families whose child was conceived using anonymous sperm donation, to male couples whose child was born through surrogacy abroad, and to families in which the second parent's status was only established after the birth — by an adoption order or a judicial parentage order.
The distinction most families run into is this: the Population Registry and the birth certificate are not the same thing. You can both be registered as parents in the Registry and on the identity-card annex, and still receive a birth certificate listing only one parent. Below we explain what the law and the procedures provide, what recent case law has held, and what the practical path looks like when the authority refuses.
Two sections of the Population Registry Law, 5725-1965 sit at the center of this issue. Section 20 provides that once a child is adopted, the adopters shall be registered as the child's parents "in the Registry and in every certificate under this law" — broad language that on its face also covers the birth certificate. Section 30(a) is the section under which the certificate itself is issued. Alongside them stands Section 19B, under which a registration particular for a resident registering for the first time is to be recorded on the basis of a public certificate presented to the registration clerk.
Procedure 2.15.0001 (the Birth Certificate Issuance Procedure), the edition of 14 January 2019, governs issuance. Section 4.11 instructs the clerk to ensure that the details on the certificate match the details "as they stood at the time of birth," and prohibits including later changes to the registration of the child or the parents. Note that the Procedure has not been updated since 2019 — that is, it predates the judgments discussed below.
Correcting a registration particular is done under Procedure 2.4.0001 (the Procedure for Making Changes, Corrections, Additions and Deletions to Registration Particulars in the Population Registry), the edition of 20 July 2020, which requires presenting a public certificate from a state authority — for example, a court judgment — and personal attendance at the bureau, and provides that the service carries no fee. When the certificate was issued abroad, Procedure 1.3.0001 requires an original certificate, authenticated by apostille (or by a chain of signatures in states that are not parties to the Hague Convention) and translated by a notarized translation.
The Population Registry is essentially a statistical database, based on declarations and documents that residents present. Since the Funk-Schlesinger precedent (HCJ 143/62 Funk-Schlesinger v. Minister of the Interior) it has been held that the registration clerk was not given judicial authority, and must carry out the requested registration — unless the inaccuracy is "evident on its face" and not subject to reasonable doubt. This rule also applies to the parentage particular, where it is a particular of a registrational character.
The birth certificate, by contrast, is treated by the authority as a special document that is "frozen in time." In HCJ 7978/16 Sirai v. Minister of the Interior (2024), the Supreme Court accepted the argument that the certificate is meant to reflect the state of affairs on the day of birth, but rejected the argument that it reflects biological parentage alone. This distinction is the key to the entire discussion.
Case law recognizes four bases for establishing parentage: a genetic connection, a physiological connection (the person who carried the pregnancy), adoption, and parentage by virtue of a "connection to a connection" — the parentage of the biological parent's spouse or partner. The latter two bases allow parentage to be recognized even without a biological connection to the child.
A judicial parentage order is granted by the Family Court under Section 1(4) of the Family Court Law, 5755-1995. It establishes — rather than merely declares — the parentage of the biological parent's spouse, where the child was born out of joint planning and intent. An adoption order is granted under the Adoption of Children Law, 5741-1981, once the court is satisfied that the order serves the best interests of the adoptee, and under Section 16 it creates the full rights and obligations that exist between parents and their children. This route has not been abolished, and it is the only one available where the couple did not jointly plan the parentage from the outset.
An adoption order generally takes effect from the date it is granted, but Section 17 of the Adoption Law allows an earlier effective date to be set — a power used only sparingly. In judicial parentage orders, by contrast, retroactive effect from the date of birth is common, and this difference carries decisive significance.
In HCJ 7978/16 Sirai v. Minister of the Interior (21 Mar 2024), nine female couples and their children petitioned for corrected birth certificates bearing the names of both mothers. In all the cases, one partner had conceived using anonymous sperm donation, and her partner's parental status was established only after the birth.
Paragraph 53 of the judgment set out three rules. First, where a judicial parentage order has been granted with retroactive effect from the date of birth, new birth certificates must be issued. Second, even where parentage rests on an adoption order, a corrected birth certificate must be issued, in light of the broad language of Section 20 and given that this is a narrow group, concerning mainly cases in which parentage was established up to 2014. Third, where the order takes effect only from the date it was granted, no ground was found for issuing a new certificate.
In paragraph 49, the court left open exceptional cases — for example, an "open" adoption by a relative after a parent's death — in which it may not be appropriate to change the birth certificate despite the grant of an adoption order. The practical lesson: the effective date set in the order by the Family Court will frequently determine whether you receive a corrected birth certificate. As a rule, it is advisable to request effect from the date of birth already in the family-law proceeding.
When the child was born outside Israel — through surrogacy or otherwise — there is no Israeli birth certificate: Procedure 2.15.0001 issues a birth certificate only for someone born in Israel and registered in the Registry. The relevant document is therefore the foreign birth certificate, and the question is whether the registration clerk must register both parents on its basis.
In Adm. Appeal (Supreme Court) 944/24 (29 Oct 2025), the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the Minister of the Interior and the Population and Immigration Authority concerning a minor born in the United States whose birth certificate listed both partners as her mothers. It held that once a valid foreign public certificate has been presented, the registration clerk is, as a rule, obligated to register the additional parent in accordance with its contents. The court cited HCJ 566/11 Mamet-Magad v. Ministry of the Interior, which concerned the registration of parentage for male couples who underwent surrogacy abroad, and distinguished between registering the biological parent — which involves questions of status and citizenship — and registering an additional parent, which rests on the Registry Law's requirement of a public certificate. The appeal was dismissed and the state was ordered to pay NIS 10,000 in costs.
The first step is to apply to the Population Authority bureau for correction of a registration particular or issuance of a birth certificate, together with the public certificate — the judicial parentage order, the adoption order, or the authenticated and translated foreign certificate. Under Section 4.2 of Procedure 2.4.0001, the registration clerk must record the decision, and in the case of a refusal must give reasons and send the applicant a reasoned response.
The Procedure also sets out an internal appeal route: if the resident disputes the decision, the application is referred to the bureau manager; and if there is a further appeal against that decision, it is referred to the relevant desk in the Registry and Biometrics Division at headquarters. Do not skip this stage: it produces a reasoned written administrative decision, which is the basis for the legal proceeding.
The legal proceeding in these matters is not an appeal to the Appeals Tribunal for immigration matters, but an administrative petition to the District Court sitting as the Court for Administrative Affairs. The deadline for filing is set by the rules of procedure and is short, so there should be no delay. In petitions that were granted, the petitioners were also awarded costs — NIS 15,000 and NIS 10,000 in the two cases detailed below.
In Adm. Petition (Tel Aviv) 16736-04-26 (30 Aug 2026), the court considered a family in which each of two daughters had a different biological mother: for the younger daughter, a birth certificate listing both mothers was issued by virtue of a judicial parentage order, while the elder daughter — born before the partners met — had been adopted by her mother's partner, and the authority refused to correct her certificate, relying on the Sirai precedent. The court held that the Sirai precedent does not apply here, since it concerned couples who had jointly planned parentage, and that it could not be inferred that in every other case the adopting parent would not be registered. The petition was granted: the court held that the best interests of the child are decisive — including her right to privacy and the possibility of acquiring foreign citizenship — and the authority was ordered to correct the certificate and to pay NIS 15,000 in costs.
In Adm. Appeal (Supreme Court) 944/24 (29 Oct 2025), it was emphasized that whatever the basis on which parentage is recognized, the registration in the Registry will appear identically, without distinguishing between biological and non-biological parentage. The lesson: once you hold a valid public certificate, the burden of justifying a refusal shifts to the authority.
On the other side, in Adm. Petition (Jerusalem) 55336-10-24 (31 Mar 2025), a petition by a couple seeking to register the genetic mother on the basis of a declaration and documents from a clinic abroad was dismissed. The registration clerk pointed to a mismatch between the date the sperm portion was purchased and the date of fertilization, and to additional credibility concerns, and the court found no ground to interfere with her discretion — though it clarified that the petitioners could apply to the Family Court within 60 days.
By contrast, in Adm. Petition (Tel Aviv) 65582-01-23 (16 Jul 2023), the court ordered the registration of a minor born in Canada through anonymous sperm donation as the son of both petitioners in accordance with the foreign birth certificate, in part because the additional requirement the authority raised became known to them only on the eve of the hearing. The lesson: a requirement that was not communicated to you in real time, and certainly prolonged unresponsiveness, are significant factors in court.
Our office guides families through resolving parentage registration with the Population and Immigration Authority — from building the application and documents at the bureau, through exhausting the internal appeal route, to filing an administrative petition when a refusal does not withstand legal scrutiny. We examine in advance which route fits the circumstances — a judicial parentage order, an adoption order, or reliance on a foreign public certificate — and what effective date it is advisable to request, since this particular often determines whether a corrected birth certificate will be issued. We also keep careful track of the short deadlines that apply to administrative petitions.
Because these are two different documents. The Registry is a database that is updated throughout a person's life, whereas Procedure 2.15.0001 (Section 4.11) instructs the clerk to issue a birth certificate reflecting the details as they stood at the time of birth, without later changes. In HCJ 7978/16 Sirai, it was held that although the birth certificate reflects the state of affairs on the day of birth, it should not be confined to biological parentage alone, and in appropriate cases a corrected certificate must be issued.
The Sirai precedent (paragraph 53) held that a judicial parentage order with retroactive effect from the date of birth justifies issuing a new birth certificate, and so does an adoption order — in light of the broad language of Section 20 of the Population Registry Law. By contrast, a judicial parentage order that takes effect only from the date it was granted does not, under that precedent, give rise to grounds for issuing a new certificate. The effective date you request from the Family Court is therefore critical.
Two levels must be distinguished. Registering the biological parent involves questions of status and citizenship and its own evidentiary requirements. Registering the additional parent in the Registry, by contrast, is based on presenting a public certificate, and in Adm. Appeal (Supreme Court) 944/24 (29 Oct 2025) it was held that once a valid foreign certificate has been presented, the registration clerk must, as a rule, register the parent accordingly. The foreign certificate must be original, authenticated by apostille, and translated by a notarized translation under Procedure 1.3.0001.
Decisions of the Population and Immigration Authority on registry matters are challenged by an administrative petition to the District Court sitting as the Court for Administrative Affairs, not by an appeal to the Appeals Tribunal for immigration matters. Before that, it is advisable to exhaust the internal appeal route set out in Section 4.2 of Procedure 2.4.0001 — the bureau manager and then the desk at the Registry and Biometrics Division. The deadline for filing a petition is set by the rules of procedure and is short, so it is advisable to seek advice as soon as the decision is received.
Procedure 2.4.0001 requires a public certificate from a state authority — for example, a judicial parentage order, an adoption order, or a court judgment — and personal attendance at the bureau, and the service carries no fee. In practice, the most common reason for denial is a problematic evidentiary basis: in Adm. Petition (Jerusalem) 55336-10-24, a petition was dismissed after inconsistencies were found between the dates the sperm was purchased and fertilized, and documents were submitted without translation. Make sure documents are original, authenticated, translated, and consistent.