7 steps to get your Australian baby onto your Singapore visa

If you are Australian citizens who just had a baby in Singapore, these steps are for you. The goal is to get your baby an Australian passport and then add them onto your Singaporean employment pass as a dependent, and to do it within the 6 week (42 day) deadline! The Singaporean Government has some steps here, but these are more detailed and Australian specific.

1. Baby is born!
2. The hospital will give you a “Notification of Live Birth and Advisory Note“
3. Make an appointment then take the following documents to a Birth Certificate Registration venue, usually in your hospital lobby. You will pay a small fee (~$18) and get a Birth Certificate on the spot:
   1. Notification of Live Birth and Advisory Note (see step 2)
   2. Parent’s passports and IC Cards
   3. Original marriage certificate of parents (plan for this one in advance!)
4. Apply for Australian Citizenship by Descent online through the new Australian Department of Immigration website here. You will need to scan a number of documents, including:
   1. Identity documents – usually parent’s passport
   2. Identity declaration form 1195 – signed by a relevant unrelated person
      1. This form also requires a signed/witnessed passport photo of the baby, which you also need to scan separately
5. Apply for an Australian Passport online through the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs website. You will need a similar set of documents to step 4, with a couple of tricks:
   1. You need the CBD-* number from step 4
   2. You will potentially need a different person to sign the passport photo (so good to have 4 passport photos printed)
6. Then you will scan the following and send to your employer, who will submit to MOM online on your behalf:
   1. ICA letter (from step 2)
   2. Birth Certificate (from step 3)
   3. Australian Passport for your newborn (from step 5) – or at least notification letter if you haven’t received the passport yet
7. Finally your employer will schedule a 15 minute appointment for you to visit the ICA Employment Pass Services Centre (EPSC) in Riverwalk. Here your newborn will again have their photo taken for their new dependent pass card and their visa will effectively be finalised, with their new DP card delivered in 4 business days to your office. You will need to bring:
   1. Australian Passport for your newborn (from step 5) – or at least notification letter if you haven’t received the passport yet
   2. Australian In-Principle Approval (IPA) letter (from step 6)
   3. Original and completed Declaration Letter (from step 6) – printed and physically signed by the pass holder parent and the employer (HR representative)

It’s quite a few steps to complete within 42 days, in particular pieces like getting a passport photo of an infant who cannot lift their head up. There are a few photo places like Kodak Express in Tanglin Mall and Kim Tian Colour Centre near Chinatown that you can email a digital photo to, and they will tidy up the background (the wrinkled white sheet you lay them on for the photo) and print the right size for you to collect (get 4 copies minimum).

If you can’t meet the 42 day deadline, you can apply for a Special Pass extension, but you need to prove that you have applied for a passport which is already step 5 of 7.

Good luck!