[Life Administration] How much is the fine if the deadline for birth or death registration has passed? — If you receive a notice from the district office, report within 7 days.

3-Line Summary

1. Birth registration must be done within 1 month of birth, and death registration must be done within 1 month from the date the death was known. The starting points for counting the deadline are different.
2. Hospital birth notification is not birth registration. If no registration is made, the district office will send a notice to register within 7 days, and if still no registration is made, they will record it ex officio with court permission.
3. Registrations that miss the deadline are still accepted, and the fine is 50,000 won or less. If you receive a prior notice, you can explain the circumstances of the delay within the opinion submission period.

Table of Contents

1. Even with the birth notification system, birth registration must be done separately
2. How to count the deadline for birth registration and death registration
3. Two misunderstandings arising from hospital notifications and funeral hall guidance
4. What to do within 7 days if you receive a notice from the district office
5. When a baby’s name contains Chinese characters not on the list of characters for personal names
6. The declarant and attached documents for death registration
7. Fines for late registration and submission of opinions
8. The day of registration and thereafter
9. Administrative agent office services and practical checklist

1. Even with the birth notification system, birth registration must be done separately

I am an administrative agent with an office in Songdo, Incheon. I would like to introduce a consultation I had regarding the deadline for family relationship registration.

It was a day when only 4 days remained of the birth registration deadline set by the district office.

First, an email arrived. It contained one photo of a notice received from the district office, one photo of a birth certificate received from the hospital, and a short question: “I heard that birth registration is handled at the hospital, so why did I receive a notice to register within 7 days?”

The sender was a woman in her late 20s. She was on maternity leave from her job as a researcher at a bio company in Songdo, and her husband was on a long-term business trip to a shipyard in Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do. Eight days after the baby was born, her father, who had been battling a long illness, passed away. A month passed while she was moving back and forth between the postpartum care center and the funeral hall.

The notice stated that, according to the birth notification system implemented in July 2024, the hospital had notified the birth, and since no registration was made by the deadline, a notice to register was being issued. She had misunderstood the word “notification” as “registration.”

Such misunderstandings are not uncommon. What the hospital notifies is the fact of birth, and the birth registration—which involves deciding the baby’s name, surname, and registered base place to be entered into the family relationship register—must still be done by the parents.

2. How to Calculate the Deadlines for Birth Registration and Death Registration

The period for both registrations is one month, but the starting points are different.

For birth registration, the calculation is based on the day the baby is born. Whether the parents were busy or whether they had decided on a name does not factor into the deadline calculation.

For death registration, the calculation starts from the day the person reporting learns of the fact, not the day the person passed away. If a family member was present at the time of death, the day of death and the day they learned of it are the same. If they lived far away and heard the news late, the one-month period starts from that day.

The first task in this consultation was to recalculate these two deadlines as specific dates. The deadline for birth registration had already passed. The client naturally assumed that the death registration was also late.

However, the results were different when calculated. The father passed away 8 days after the baby was born, and the mother was present at the hospital room during his passing. If the one-month period starts from that day, there were still 3 days remaining for the death registration deadline. The registration they thought was late was actually within the deadline, while the registration they thought the hospital had handled had actually passed its deadline.

3. Two Misunderstandings Regarding Hospital Notification and Funeral Hall Guidance

On the afternoon of the scheduled day, the client arrived with his mother. After listening to their story, I found that two misunderstandings had occurred.

One is the hospital’s birth notification. Article 44-3 of the 「Act on the Registration of Family Relationships, etc.」 stipulates that medical institutions must submit birth information to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service within 14 days from the date of birth, and the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service must notify the head of the Si, Eup, or Myeon at the mother’s place of residence. This notification is a mechanism that allows administrative agencies to become aware of the fact of birth. Matters such as deciding the baby’s name and surname, and indicating whether the birth occurred within a marriage, can only be handled through a report.

The other was information heard at the funeral hall. My mother was told by a funeral hall staff member to “get several copies of the death certificate,” and she believed that the death report had been processed together while proceeding with the funeral procedures. While funeral halls assist with funeral and cremation procedures, they do not submit the death report on your behalf. The instruction to obtain multiple copies of the death certificate meant that they should be used separately for the death report and for processing matters with financial institutions and insurance companies.

Both misunderstandings arose not because someone gave incorrect guidance, but because the procedures are divided among various institutions. The hospital provided notification, and the funeral hall advised preparing the necessary documents. It was simply that no one pointed out that the person required to submit the report is the family.

To see the exact situation, I verified two things on the spot. I saw that the basic certificate issued under my mother’s name did not contain the record of death, and I also confirmed that the children were not listed on his family relationship certificate. Both reports had not yet been submitted.

4. What to do within 7 days if you have received a demand notice from the District Office

The head of a Si, Eup, or Myeon who receives a birth notification will check whether the birth registration was completed within the reporting period. If no report is made even after the period has passed, they will demand that the person obligated to report file the birth registration within 7 days (Article 44-4, Paragraph 2 of the same Act). If no report is made even within the demand period, the Si, Eup, or Myeon head will record the birth ex officio after obtaining permission from the supervisory court, attaching the notification data (Paragraph 3 of the same Article).

Ex officio registration is a mechanism to ensure the child is not left out of the registry. However, details such as the name and family name, which parents can determine through a report, will be organized by the administrative agency through a court permission process. It is much simpler for parents to decide on a name and report it directly.

Therefore, the tasks decided on that day were as follows:

1. Complete the birth registration within the demand period. We decided to file it within two days out of the remaining four days. Even if the husband is away on a business trip, the father or mother can report the birth of a child born during marriage (Article 46, Paragraph 1 of the same Act), so the mother can simply become the informant.
2. Submit the death registration on the same day. Since there were only 3 days left, filing it on the same day as the birth registration allowed us to resolve the deadline issues for both reports.
3. Finalize the baby’s name on that day. There was one more issue regarding the name that caused the delay in reporting.

The application for baby allowances can only proceed after the birth registration is completed. Since there are allowances that can be received starting from the month of birth only if applied for within 60 days from the date of birth, the delay in reporting also shortens that period.

5. When a Baby’s Name Hanja is Not in the List of Hanja for Personal Use

The name had already been decided. I was told that my late father, while hospitalized, had opened a dictionary and named his grandchild. It consisted of two Hangul syllables and two Hanja characters.

The problem was one of the Hanja characters. Article 44, Paragraph 3 of the 「Act on the Registration of Family Relationships, etc.」 stipulates that a child’s name must consist of Hangul or Hanja commonly used, and the scope of such Hanja is determined by the Supreme Court Rules (List of Hanja for Personal Use). One of the characters my father chose was not on that list. He discovered this fact while filling out the birth registration form, and by the time the family had discussed the name again, the deadline had passed.

There were three options:

• Keep the Hangul name as it is and change the character to a Hanja for personal use with the same pronunciation and a similar meaning.
• Register only the Hangul name.
• Re-name the child from scratch.

I looked up characters with the same pronunciation in the List of Hanja for Personal Use and compared their meanings one by one. There was one character whose meaning was closest to the one my father had chosen. Upon seeing that character, my mother nodded immediately. The Hangul name remained exactly as my father had named it.

While I was showing the candidates to my husband via video call at his business trip location, there was a small commotion. My husband pushed for a different character with the same pronunciation, but the meaning of that character was “salt.” Through the screen, my husband was the first to laugh and withdraw his suggestion.

6. Death Report: Reporter and Attached Documents

A cohabiting relative is the person obligated to report a death (Article 85, Paragraph 1 of the same Act). A mother who lived with the deceased falls into this category. Paragraph 2 of the same Article states that relatives or cohabitants may also file the report, meaning a daughter can also be a reporter.

We decided who would be the informant for the sake of convenience in filing. My mother’s registered address was Namdong-gu, Incheon, and my daughter’s address was Songdo. Since a death report can be filed at the deceased’s registered base, the informant’s address or current location, or the place of death, having the daughter act as the informant allowed us to file everything at once at the Songdo Community Center, just like a birth registration.

The prepared documents were as follows:

1. Death Report (Signature of the informant)
2. One original copy of the Death Certificate (One of the multiple copies obtained at the funeral hall)
3. Informant’s ID
4. ID for verifying heirs (if applying for the One-Stop Service for Safe Inheritance simultaneously)

While filling out the death report, I also provided guidance on the One-Stop Service for Safe Inheritance. If applied for at the same time as the death report, you can check the deceased’s financial transactions, land, automobiles, taxes, and pension enrollments all at once, and the application can be made within one year from the last day of the month containing the date of death. Since my mother mentioned she did not know how many bank accounts or insurance policies my father had, this inquiry was necessary to organize the next steps.

While cross-checking the death certificate with the report, I noticed that the place of death was written as the old name of the nursing hospital. It appeared to be a case where the certificate form had not been updated after the hospital’s name changed. I decided to write it exactly as stated on the certificate and mention it to the clerk in advance during filing. This is because if the contents of the certificate and the report differ, a verification process will be required at the counter.

7. Fines for Late Reporting and Submission of Opinions

Missing a deadline does not mean you cannot file a report. The report will still be accepted, but a fine of up to 50,000 won may be imposed on the person obligated to report if they fail to report within the period without a justifiable reason (Article 122 of the same Act). The fine is imposed by the head of the Si, Eup, or Myeon (Article 124 of the same Act).

The criteria for imposition are determined as follows according to the period of delay, as specified in Attachment 3 of the “Rules on the Registration of Family Relationships.” The specific amount must be confirmed through the guidance of the competent district office.

In this consultation, the birth registration was submitted 7 days past the deadline, falling into the 20,000 won bracket. The amount is not large. However, the circumstances—the father passing away 8 days after the birth, and the overlap of funeral rites and postpartum recovery—were worth documenting in writing.

To impose a fine, the administrative agency must first notify the party involved and provide an opportunity to submit an opinion within a period of at least 10 days. If there is a significant reason for the opinion, the fine may not be imposed or the notified content may be changed (Article 16 of the “Act on the Regulation of Violations of Public Order”). If you pay the fine voluntarily within the opinion submission period, you may receive a reduction of up to 20% of the fine (Article 18 of the same Act, Article 5 of the Enforcement Decree).

Therefore, I prepared an opinion statement in advance. It contained three things:

• A chronological account of the birth date, the father’s date of death, and the funeral period.
• A copy of the death certificate and a confirmation of funeral hall usage.
• The circumstances regarding renaming the child due to issues with Chinese characters for personal use, and the fact that the report was filed within the notice period after receiving a notice of demand.

Whether a justifiable reason is recognized is a matter for the district office to decide. Since a voluntary payment reduction can only be received if paid within the opinion submission period, we decided to choose between submitting an opinion or voluntary payment after receiving the prior notice.

8. The Day of Reporting and After

Two days later in the morning, the client left the baby with the mother and went to the Songdo Community Center. They submitted the birth registration form, birth certificate, death registration form, and death certificate in order. The hospital name on the certificate was accepted as is after confirming the changed name at the counter. The birth registration was submitted within the maximum period, and the death registration was submitted one day before the deadline.

The “One-Stop Service for Inherited Assets” was also applied for on the spot. The inquiry results arrived from each institution over several weeks, and one installment savings account and one old insurance policy that the mother was unaware of were identified.

About 10 days later, a prior notice of a fine for the delayed birth registration arrived from the District Office. They submitted the prepared written opinion after adjusting only the date. In this case, the District Office accepted the opinion and did not impose a fine. Even under the same circumstances, judgments may vary by District Office.

The baby’s basic certificate was registered with the Hangul name chosen by the grandfather. He even completed the application for allowances in the same week he received the certificate. My husband said he saw that certificate in person for the first time when he returned from his business trip next month.

Administrative procedures demand deadlines during the busiest times. If childbirth and a funeral overlap within a single month, anyone could easily miss a date. In such times, it is important to first check the dates to see what is already overdue and what is still within the deadline.

9. Administrative Agent Office Services and Practical Checklist

Hwang Yunsang Administrative Agent Office prepares family relationship registration forms such as birth, marriage, and death, reviews attached documents, and handles deadline calculations and the drafting of written opinions regarding prior notices of fines. The preparation of family relationship registration forms is an administrative agent service as prescribed in Article 2 of the “Enforcement Decree of the Administrative Agent Act.”

If you are worried about the deadline for birth or death registration

1. Birth registration is calculated as 1 month from the date of birth, and death registration is 1 month from the date the death was known.
2. Registration is not complete simply through a hospital birth notification or funeral home guidance. Check whether the information is recorded using a Family Relationship Certificate or Basic Certificate.
3. If you have received a notice of demand from the district office, file the birth registration within 7 days.
4. Before registering, check the Hanja for the baby’s name against the List of Hanja for Personal Names.
5. If you receive a prior notice of a fine, you may submit a written explanation regarding the circumstances of the delay within the opinion submission period, or choose voluntary payment reduction.

Circumstances vary by case, so individual verification is required.

This content has been reconstructed for better understanding and is not related to any specific person or event.

This is an administrative agent office located in Songdo, Incheon (POSCO Tower Songdo). We handle administrative appeals, licensing/permit/reporting agency services, immigration for foreigners (visas/residency), and regular administrative management. For family relationship registrations with specific deadlines, such as birth, marriage, and death, we assist with everything from document preparation to deadline calculation. If you are facing similar issues in Incheon or Songdo and are curious about similar cases, please feel free to contact us.

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