Adoption Contact Register: Contact on Your Terms

Part of: How to Adopt a Child and Change a Life

The Adoption Contact Register is a confidential list kept by the General Register Office for England and Wales, where adopted adults and birth relatives record whether they want contact with each other. It does not search for anyone. A link is made only when both people have joined, as GOV.UK explains. An adopted person pays £15 to join and a birth relative pays £30.

People usually come to it after years of wondering. Often a birthday, a death in the family or a new baby sets it off. This guide covers who can join, what a match brings, how to say no, and the other legal routes to your birth records. It is part of our guide to adopting a child.

Unsure whether to register, or worried about what a link could bring? You can book a free initial consultation with one of our family law specialists.

What is the Adoption Contact Register?

It is a two-part register the Registrar General must keep, so that adopted people and their relatives can say whether they want to hear from each other. Each person joins separately, and nothing happens unless two matching entries meet.

Section 80 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 sets it up. Part 1 holds adopted people who have given notice of their wishes about contact with relatives. Part 2 holds relatives who have given notice of their wishes about contact with an adopted person.

The law keeps it closed. The Registrar General must not give out information from it except in the ways the regulations allow (s.81(3)). Websites that invite you to search an adoption register online are private lists, which the General Register Office does not run.

Who can join the Adoption Contact Register?

Adopted people aged 18 or over can join Part 1 if the General Register Office holds a record of their birth or adoption. Birth relatives aged 18 or over can join Part 2 if they know enough to identify the adopted person’s birth record.

A relative is anyone who, but for the adoption, would be related to the adopted person by blood (including half-blood), marriage or civil partnership (s.81(2)). That covers birth parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Two details catch people out. A relative can register before the adopted person turns 18, according to the GRO guidance notes for Part 2. The adopted person cannot join until then. Also, an adopted person looking for an adopted brother or sister uses Part 2 as well.

The register covers births and adoptions registered in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland keep their own arrangements, so start there if the adoption happened in either.

How do you apply, and what does it cost?

To join the Adoption Contact Register, you fill in a paper form and send it with the fee to the Adoptions Section of the General Register Office. Form CR Part 1 costs £15 for an adopted person, and form CR Part 2 costs £30 for a birth relative.

For Part 1, GOV.UK asks for your original birth name, your date of birth and your birth parents’ full names, if known. For Part 2, the GRO guidance notes ask for the adopted person’s birth name and their birth mother’s name at the time of the birth. A date or year of birth helps. A relative searching for more than one adopted person sends a separate form and £30 for each.

Both forms let you give a third party’s address instead of your own. Then your home address is never sent out. You can change your details or ask to be removed later by writing or emailing the office.

What happens when the register finds a link?

If you both asked for contact, the adopted person is sent the relative’s name and contact details. The relative is told that a link has been made. The relative is not given the adopted person’s details, so the adopted person decides whether and when to get in touch.

That one-way design comes from the GRO guidance notes for Part 1. Suppose an adopted person asked for contact with one named relative. Other relatives who registered are mentioned to them, but are not told of the link. Either way, the office writes to confirm your entry and whether a link exists.

A link is a name and an address on a letter. What you write first, and how much you share, is still your choice. Many people find it helps to talk it through before replying.

Can you say you do not want contact?

Yes. Adopted people and birth relatives can both use the Adoption Contact Register to record a wish for no contact, with everyone or with particular relatives.

The guidance notes explain how that works in practice. An adopted person who records no contact is still told of relatives who register, but those relatives are not told of the refusal. A relative’s no-contact wish is not passed to the adopted person either. The exception is an intermediary agency that asks the office for information. It is told of the no-contact wish, and may still approach you to check it.

Where the adoption was before 30 December 2005, you can also register a veto with your agency, according to GOV.UK. An absolute veto stops intermediary approaches altogether. A qualified veto lets you say which approaches you would accept, such as one from a sibling but not a birth parent.

How do adopted adults get their birth records?

From 18, an adopted person can order their original birth certificate from the General Register Office, or use the Birth certificate Information Before Adoption (BIBA) service if they do not know their birth details, as GOV.UK explains. Anyone adopted before 12 November 1975 who does not know those details must first attend a counselling session with an approved adoption adviser.

The date of the adoption also decides who else holds your records. If you were adopted on or after 30 December 2005, when this part of the 2002 Act came into force, you can ask the adoption agency for the details needed to get your birth record. You can also ask for what the agency told your adoptive parents (s.60(2)).

A court can block the birth record information only on the agency’s application, and only if the circumstances are exceptional (s.60(3)). For those later adoptions you can also ask the court that made the adoption order for copies of certain documents, except protected information (s.60(4) and (5)).

When can an intermediary agency help?

An intermediary agency can trace a birth relative or an adopted person for you where the adoption took place before 30 December 2005. It then asks the person whether they agree to contact, and only passes on their details if they do.

These services rest on section 98 of the 2002 Act, which deals with older adoptions. If the person says no, GOV.UK says the agency will not reveal their name or whereabouts. It may still share some general information, such as their family circumstances or health.

Agencies set their own fees. Joining the Adoption Contact Register is still worth it during an agency search. An agency that applies to the office learns what the other person has recorded there.

Adoption contact register or another route? Find yours

Three questions show which route fits you, what to have ready and where people most often go wrong. Nothing you choose leaves this page.

How is the register different from a contact order after adoption?

The register is a voluntary list for adults, run by the General Register Office. A contact order is a court order about a child, made with the adoption order or later (Adoption and Children Act 2002, s.51A).

Under section 51A the court can require the adopters to allow contact with a named person, or forbid that person from having contact. Birth relatives need the court’s permission to apply. The court weighs any risk that the application would disrupt the child’s life so much that it harms them (s.51A(5)).

Once the adopted person is an adult, contact is their decision, and the Adoption Contact Register is one way of saying yes or no. Our guide to adoption orders explains what an order changes for birth parents.

Adoption contact register: frequently asked questions

General information about the law in England and Wales, not advice on your circumstances.