Three deadlines run this entire subject, and they are shorter than most people expect. A birth must be registered within two weeks, a death within two weeks, and a marriage within thirty days — Articles 14, 27 and 22 of the Civil Status Law, Royal Decree 66/99. Everything else in this guide is detail hanging off those three numbers.
The three deadlines, and the articles they come from
The Civil Status Law is Royal Decree 66/99, issued on 4 October 1999 and published in Official Gazette 657 on 16 October 1999. It repealed the old Personal ID Card Law, Royal Decree 2/87, and it is still the governing law as at September 2026, amended most recently by Royal Decree 59/2021 of 29 August 2021, which rewrote Articles 1, 3, 19 and 42. The authority that administers it is the Royal Oman Police — Directorate General of Passports and Civil Status, and the executive regulations are issued by the Inspector General of Police and Customs under Article 2 of the decree.
| Event | Deadline | Article |
|---|---|---|
| Birth in Oman | Two weeks | Art 14 |
| Birth abroad, absence over a month | Three months to the Omani mission | — |
| Birth abroad, absence under a month | Fifteen days to the Omani mission | — |
| Death in Oman | Two weeks | Art 27 |
| Death abroad | One month to the Omani mission | Art 28 |
| Marriage or divorce | Thirty days | Art 22 |
Royal Decree 23/2023, issued on 16 April 2023, repealed Royal Decree 58/93 and, in the words of Article I, the decisions issued in implementation of its provisions. RD 58/93 was the instrument that required an Omani to obtain prior permission from the Ministry of Interior before marrying a foreigner. That permission requirement is gone.
But ROP's own civil status service page still lists among the required documents أصل تصريح زواج العمانيين من أجانب الصادر من وزارة الداخلية — the original Ministry of Interior permit for an Omani to marry a foreigner. A royal decree is higher authority than a ministry web page, and RD 23/2023 is also later in time, so the page is almost certainly stale.
We report both sides because the clerk in front of you may be working from that page. If you are asked for the permit, the instrument to cite is RD 23/2023, Article I. Article II of the same decree preserves Sharia, public order, and the provisions that make not marrying a foreigner a condition of holding certain public offices — so the decree removes the permit, not every restriction.
Civil status is not personal status
قانون الأحوال المدنية, the Civil Status Law (RD 66/99), is a different instrument from قانون الأحوال الشخصية, the Personal Status Law (Royal Decree 32/97). People conflate the two constantly and end up queueing in the wrong building.
A marriage touches both. The contract — who may marry whom, dower, witnesses, guardianship — is Personal Status law, handled at the Notary Departments and, in dispute, by the courts. The registration of that marriage in the civil register is Civil Status law, handled by ROP. You need both, in that order, and the thirty-day deadline attaches to the second one.
Registering a birth
Two weeks from the date of the birth. Article 14 reads خلال أسبوعين من تاريخ حدوث الميلاد. If the birth happened outside Oman you report it to the Omani mission instead: three months if you have been abroad for more than a month, fifteen days if you have been abroad for less.
- The health institution issues an electronic birth notification. It reaches the civil status system directly — you are not carrying a paper form between buildings.
- The father attends the civil status counter. Article 16 sets an order of priority — the father if present, then relatives, then members of the household, then medical staff, institution directors and community leaders — but in practice it is the father in person, or a legal representative.
- The registrar checks the parents' documents against the record and issues the certificate over the counter. gov.om publishes the service time as 5 minutes.
What to take with you
- The electronic birth notification from the hospital or health centre
- Both parents' originals — ID card, residence card or passport, as applicable
- The original marriage certificate, where no family link is already on record
- Attestation on any foreign-issued document
The fee is OMR 2 for the first issue and OMR 1 for each additional copy. A lost or damaged birth certificate is replaced for OMR 5, in person at the Directorate General, with the authorised person attending. One naming point worth knowing before you fill the form: ROP states that an Omani newborn's given name should match Omani culture and traditions.
If neither parent is Omani
The route and the fees are identical. The birth registration service explicitly covers foreigners residing in the Sultanate, at the same OMR 2 and OMR 1. The divergence comes afterwards: the child then needs a residence card, which is a separate ROP service with its own fee and its own renewal cycle. That is where a non-Omani family incurs a cost an Omani family does not — not at the birth counter. On residence card fees the published figures themselves disagree: ROP's web page gives OMR 6 for one year and OMR 11 for two, while ROP Decision 78/2025 gives OMR 5, OMR 10 and OMR 15 for one, two and three years, and ROP Decision 157/2025 extends validity to up to ten years at OMR 5 per year. The gazette decisions postdate the page.
You will find pages quoting a specific rial penalty for missing the fourteen days. None of them can source it, because the law does not contain one.
Articles 57 to 59 set court-imposed maxima, not an administrative late fee. Article 57: imprisonment and/or a fine of up to OMR 500 for false statements, forged documents or misuse of a card. Article 58: imprisonment of up to one year and/or a fine of up to OMR 200 for breach of the registration obligations. Article 59: a fine of up to OMR 200 for any other breach of the law or its regulation. Article 60 allows settlement before judgment.
The contrast is what proves the absence is real rather than a failure to look. For residence cards, ROP does publish a flat administrative late fee — OMR 10 for each month of delay, on its own web page. Where a flat penalty exists, ROP publishes it. For late birth registration it publishes none.
Registering a death
Two weeks from the date of death, under Article 27 — خلال أسبوعين من تاريخ حدوث الوفاة. If the death occurred abroad, Article 28 gives one month to report it to the Omani mission: خلال شهر من تاريخ الوفاة.
Article 30 sets who reports, in order: family members, then physicians, then directors of institutions, then officials. The legally qualified person attends in person.
- The first death certificate is free. Article 36 is explicit — تصدر شهادة الوفاة ... بدون رسوم — and ROP's own service page confirms it.
- Each additional copy is OMR 1.
- A lost or damaged death certificate is replaced for OMR 1, with a published service time of 5 minutes.
One thing to know in advance: if you are asking for a death certificate more than a year after the event, it is not handled as an ordinary issue. It goes through the Modify Civil Status Records service instead, which is a different process on a different timescale — see the corrections section below.
Registering a marriage
Registration is a two-step route, and only the first step involves you standing anywhere. The contract is concluded and documented at the Notary Departments (كتاب العدل). The notary then transmits it to ROP's Directorate General of Civil Status for registration in the civil register.
- Conclude and document the contract at the Notary Departments.
- The notary transmits it to civil status. Either spouse, or either parent, may make the notification — Article 22.
- Civil status registers the event within the thirty days Article 22 allows: خلال ثلاثين يوما من وقوع الزواج أو الطلاق. The same thirty days apply to a divorce.
- The original marriage contract, or the original divorce document
- The original residence card, where one party is Omani
- Original ID for both parties
- Attestation on any foreign-issued document
Registration itself carries no fee. ROP's Arabic page states لا توجد against the fee, and gov.om states 0, with a published service time of 5 minutes. Two qualifications: gov.om scopes the registration service to cases where one party is Omani, and late registration remains possible through the civil status sections with the original documents. Missing the thirty days does not close the door.
An Omani marrying a foreigner
The position changed in April 2023 and most of what is written about it online predates the change. Documentation now runs through the Notary Departments under the Supreme Judicial Council, electronically. The procedure differs for marriages concluded before and after 26 April 2023, so say which side of that date yours falls on when you ask — it is the first question that will be put to you.
One approval does still exist, and it is easy to confuse with the abolished one: the foreign spouse needs approval from their own country's embassy, under Article 12 of the Civil Transactions Law, Royal Decree 29/2013. That is an embassy approval, not an Omani Ministry of Interior permit, and the distinction is the whole point. No fee is published for notary documentation of an Omani-to-foreigner marriage; we could not find one anywhere.
What the certificates cost
| Service | Fee | Published time |
|---|---|---|
| Birth certificate — first issue | OMR 2 | 5 minutes |
| Birth certificate — each extra copy | OMR 1 | 5 minutes |
| Birth certificate — lost or damaged replacement | OMR 5 | 5 minutes |
| Death certificate — first issue | Free (Art 36) | Not published |
| Death certificate — each extra copy | OMR 1 | 5 minutes |
| Death certificate — lost or damaged replacement | OMR 1 | 5 minutes |
| Marriage or divorce registration | No fee | 5 minutes |
| Modify Civil Status Records | No fee | 15 days |
Two of those figures sit oddly next to each other. A replacement birth certificate is OMR 5; a replacement death certificate is OMR 1. Both are ROP services, both published on gov.om, both official. We report them as published rather than harmonising them into one number. Separately, and usefully: no 2025 or 2026 instrument was found changing birth, death or marriage certificate fees at all. The OMR 2 / OMR 1 / free structure appears unchanged.
Corrections, name changes, and the one service that is online
Article 40 is strict: لا يجوز إجراء أي تصحيح أو تغيير في قيود واقعات الأحوال المدنية المقيدة في السجل المدني إلا بناء على قرار يصدر من لجنة تشكل بقرار من المفتش العام — no correction or change may be made to a civil status entry except by a decision issued by a committee formed by decision of the Inspector General of Police. The law contains no article headed change of name. A name change runs through that committee like any other correction.
Article 41 is the exception that matters. Changes based on court judgments or official documents issued by competent authorities bypass the committee — nationality, religion, profession and marital status fall here. If you are holding a judgment, you are on the Article 41 track, not the Article 40 one, and that is a materially faster place to be.
In practice the service is called Modify Civil Status Records. It covers date of birth, name, permanent address, adding or amending a surname, and profession for residents. The fee is zero and the published time is 15 days. It is available online through a gov.om personal account, signing in with the THEQA national digital identity — and it is the only civil status service we found that does not require you to attend in person. One adjacent service worth knowing: age estimation, for a first-time ID card or passport applicant with no birth certificate, where a form signed by the sheikh and the wali is issued through the Ministry of Health, with no fees.
Using an Omani certificate abroad
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs no longer attests at its own counters. The ministry's own wording is that attestation services are no longer offered directly through the Consular Department or through any attestation office of the ministry, and that all services are now provided via Oman Post — online, or at around nine selected branches. If a guide sends you to the ministry building, it is out of date.
| Document | MOFA fee |
|---|---|
| Marriage contract — original | OMR 10 |
| Marriage contract — duplicate | OMR 10 |
| Divorce certificate — original | OMR 20 |
| Divorce certificate — duplicate | OMR 10 |
| Death certificate | OMR 10 |
| Birth certificate | Not listed |
The birth certificate is missing from that table. Marriage, divorce and death are all priced. The birth certificate — the single most commonly attested civil document for a family moving abroad — is not listed at all. That is a genuine gap in the published information, not an omission in this guide.
Oman Post charges on top of the ministry fee, and the two sets of figures do not reconcile. Oman Post states government fees from OMR 5 to OMR 150 per transaction, an administrative fee fixed at OMR 15 per transaction, and stage-three civil documents from OMR 5 to OMR 15 depending on type, with a turnaround of 4 to 7 minutes for a walk-in. Administrative fees on marriage and divorce attestation took effect on 18 February 2024. So MOFA's table says a death certificate is OMR 10, while Oman Post's own FAQ points at OMR 5 to OMR 15 plus the OMR 15 administrative fee. The two are not reconcilable from published sources, and no single all-in figure for attesting a birth or death certificate exists in public anywhere. Oman Post's remote submission route, its page updated on 22 February 2025, operates in more than sixty countries with express-mail return.
What a Sanad centre can and cannot do with these
Sanad centres are privately owned offices licensed by PASMED, not government offices. The current regulation is PASMED Decision 443/2022 of 13 October 2022, Gazette 1464, which repealed Decision 16/2014. Article 2 says a centre may be established to provide the services listed in the system, by licence from the Authority — and that list lives in an electronic system rather than in the Gazette. Neither the 2022 regulation nor the repealed 2014 annex lists الأحوال المدنية, or birth, death or marriage certificates, among those services.
The operative constraint, though, is not the licence list. It is personal attendance. Every ROP and gov.om civil status page we examined requires the applicant or a legally authorised person to appear: birth registration, the death certificate, marriage and divorce registration, birth certificate replacement, the first residence card. The single exception is Modify Civil Status Records, which is online. So the honest position is this — these are counter transactions that the law and the published procedures expect the person concerned to attend for, and PASMED's authorised service list for Sanad centres is not published anywhere we could reach. Ring a centre and ask what it is permitted to do for your specific case rather than assuming in either direction. We run one, and that is still the advice.
Jordan operates a government app named سند / Sanad, and it does issue birth, death and marriage certificates electronically — precisely the service Oman's Sanad centres do not provide. An Arabic search combining سند with شهادة ولادة returns Jordanian results at the top. A reader can go quite a long way into a Jordanian procedure before noticing it is not Omani.
Jordan's civil status authority is also called دائرة الأحوال المدنية والجوازات, almost exactly the Omani directorate's name. Saudi نظام الأحوال المدنية and Saudi Ministry of Interior civil affairs pages surface on Omani queries, UAE Personal Status Law material appears on searches for Omani amendments, and Egyptian, Kuwaiti and Yemeni birth certificate fee pages turn up too. A UAE commercial attestation agent even publishes a page titled Oman MOFA Attestation.
Two practical tests. If a page tells you that you can obtain an Omani birth certificate through an app without attending, check the domain before you act on it. And if a page describes a تصريح زواج procedure for an Omani marrying a foreigner, it is describing something RD 23/2023 abolished.
What no official Omani source publishes
- Any flat fine for late birth registration. Articles 57 to 59 give court-imposed maxima only. Any page quoting a fixed rial penalty for missing the fourteen days cannot source it.
- The attestation fee for a birth certificate. MOFA's table prices the marriage contract, the divorce certificate and the death certificate, and simply omits the birth certificate.
- The prior-attestation chain before MOFA. Neither MOFA, nor Oman Post's service page, nor its FAQ states whether a birth or death certificate must first be stamped by ROP, the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Justice. MOFA directs enquirers to email contact@fm.gov.om — which tells you the answer is not written down.
- Any single all-in figure for attesting a birth or death certificate, combining the ministry fee and the Oman Post charges.
- The PASMED-approved Sanad centre price list. Centres must comply with it under Article 20(11) of the regulation, but it is not in any gazette or on any accessible official page, so what a centre may charge as a service margin is not publicly sourceable. Sanad's authorised service list is not in the gazette at all.
- The notary fee for documenting a marriage between an Omani and a foreigner.
- A processing time for birth registration. ROP's own pages do not state one. The five minutes on gov.om is over-the-counter issuance, not registration.
- The consolidated executive regulation with its fee annex, which we could not locate as a standalone document. Only the amending ROP decisions are available — 27/2016, 128/2019, 235/2021, 78/2025 and 157/2025.
How long do I have to register a birth in Oman?
What is the fine for registering a birth late in Oman?
Do Omanis still need a Ministry of Interior permit to marry a foreigner?
How much does a death certificate cost in Oman?
Can a Sanad centre get my birth certificate for me?
Where do I get an Omani birth certificate attested for use abroad?
If you are reading this because someone has died, the only two things you need to hold on to today are the fourteen days and the fact that the first certificate costs nothing. The rest will keep. Our office in Al Ghubra can tell you which of these a Sanad centre is permitted to handle on your behalf and which you will have to attend for yourself — ring first, because for most of them the answer is that you attend.