Russian adoption procedures

The Russian government maintains a database of children without parental care. Children are required to be entered within the databank for eight months before they are eligible for international adoption. Any prospective parents must first apply to a regional Ministry of Education office for permission to adopt within a specified locale. The Ministry of Education, upon approving the application, then directs the approved couple to an orphanage.

All adoptive parents must travel to Russia to meet their prospective adoptive children. With the assistance of their accredited adoption agency, they will make arrangements to visit the identified orphanage. A child is pre-selected by the agency in cooperation with the local Ministry of Education. The couple will receive any appropriate medical and biological information about the selected orphan. If they do not bond with that child, they can ask for another referral.

After prospective parents identify their chosen child, they will fill out an adoption application obtained at the Russian court where the appropriate hearings will occur. They may then return to the U.S. or remain in Russian and await four to six weeks for the court date. However, the child must remain in country during this time, and often the parents are not allowed to spend time with the orphan prior to the court decision.

After the court hearing, the new parents will obtain the adoption certificate and a new birth certificate from the civil registration office. They will also need to acquire the child’s Russian passport from the visa and registration department. Once these documents have been issued, parents then can contact the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to apply for the orphan’s immigrant visa. Couples can review the instructions on how to apply for the visa at the Embassy’s website.

The adoptive parents are then required to register their child with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If this occurs prior to departing Russia, U.S. citizen families should do so after the adopted child has received their immigrant visa to the U.S. Such documents as the parents” passports, letter of release from the orphanage, letter from the Russian Ministry of Education and adoption certificate are required for the registration process to be complete.

Upon returning home, the new parents will need to provide the Ministry of Education with required, periodic reports on how the adopted child is doing with his or her American family. The first report is due six months after the court decision went into effect.

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