Household book reissue / update in Laos: statutory documents, competent authority and legal basis
Who can apply
Lao citizens, and resident aliens or stateless persons who have completed household registration in Laos (Family Registration Law Art. 26); foreigners staying on a visa cannot apply.
Competent authority: Civil registration authority of the public security department
At a glance
Where to apply: The civil-registration body of the public-security sector where you live, under the delegated tiers, with the application filed through your village administration (Household Registration Law, Arts. 25 and 11); in practice the household management and grassroots section of the district public-security command (Art. 41). Do not go to the wrong one: the birth certificate comes from Home Affairs and the family book from Public Security.
Steps:
- A note first: the law does not set out the steps for a family book in a single article. What follows is assembled from Arts. 11, 25 and 42(1) and is not the wording of any one article
- Take your papers to the village administration where you live (Art. 11); in remote areas the village administration forwards the case to the district registration body
- The village administration passes it to the household management and grassroots section of the district public-security command (Art. 41)
How long: Ten days — the public-security registration body must decide within ten days of receiving the application (Art. 25). Note these are calendar days, not working days: Art. 25 says ສິບວັນ with no ລັດຖະການ, whereas Arts. 15 and 23 of the same law say ວັນລັດຖະການ expressly when they mean working days. A general ceiling also applies: registration examination may not exceed thirty days from receipt (Art. 12).
Cost: Here we can only give a range and the reason matters: in Art. 50 of the 2021 fees decree the line for a family book appears seventeen times with amounts from 2,000 to 10,000 kip. The surviving Lao fragments show the original table had a third dimension — Lao-only or bilingual, and the number of pages — so a multi-column table was flattened into one. Picking any single figure would be guesswork. Art. 49, the registration fees, runs to thousands of characters in our copy but is mostly ellipsis placeholders, so the registration fee itself is missing rather than zero. Go by what the counter posts; carry the 2,000–10,000 kip order of magnitude in your head.
Statutory document list
- Existing household book (photo upload) (required)
- Birth certificate (when adding a newborn) (optional)
Statutory requirements
- To enter a newborn into the household registration, a birth certificate must be held (Art. 25).
Common issues
- Do not confuse the two offices: the birth certificate comes from Home Affairs and the family book from Public Security (Arts. 15 and 25) — get the birth certificate first, then go and be entered in the family book
- A newborn must have the birth certificate before being entered in the family book (Art. 25, third paragraph) — the other order wastes a trip
Legal basis (Lao Official Gazette texts)
Excerpt: Article 25 (Amended): Household Registration Household registration is significant for collecting and managing the number of family members and serves as basic information for public security work and the formulation of …
Frequently asked questions
Who can apply for a Household book reissue / update in Laos?
Lao citizens, and resident aliens or stateless persons who have completed household registration in Laos (Family Registration Law Art. 26); foreigners staying on a visa cannot apply. Competent authority: Civil registration authority of the public security department.
What documents are required for a Household book reissue / update in Laos?
1 statutory items: Existing household book (photo upload). Lao family applies to update / reissue the household book. Household books are often handwritten — no OCR; upload manually. Competent authority: Civil registration authority of the public security department.
What is the legal basis for a Household book reissue / update in Laos?
Based on Family Registration Law (Amended) Article 25. The full texts are available in the LaoPaniti law library, sourced from the Lao Official Gazette.
Are there time limits or hard requirements for a Household book reissue / update in Laos?
To enter a newborn into the household registration, a birth certificate must be held (Art. 25).
How much does a Household book reissue / update cost in Laos and how long does it take?
Cost: Here we can only give a range and the reason matters: in Art. 50 of the 2021 fees decree the line for a family book appears seventeen times with amounts from 2,000 to 10,000 kip. The surviving Lao fragments show the original table had a third dimension — Lao-only or bilingual, and the number of pages — so a multi-column table was flattened into one. Picking any single figure would be guesswork. Art. 49, the registration fees, runs to thousands of characters in our copy but is mostly ellipsis placeholders, so the registration fee itself is missing rather than zero. Go by what the counter posts; carry the 2,000–10,000 kip order of magnitude in your head.. How long: Ten days — the public-security registration body must decide within ten days of receiving the application (Art. 25). Note these are calendar days, not working days: Art. 25 says ສິບວັນ with no ລັດຖະການ, whereas Arts. 15 and 23 of the same law say ວັນລັດຖະການ expressly when they mean working days. A general ceiling also applies: registration examination may not exceed thirty days from receipt (Art. 12)..
Can LaoPaniti obtain the Household book reissue / update for me?
LaoPaniti organises the document list, offers online form filling, document upload and pre-check hand-off by staff. It is not a government filing, does not represent acceptance or approval by any authority, and promises neither results nor expedited handling. Formal processing follows the current requirements of the Civil registration authority of the public security department.
Organise documents online and submit for pre-check →
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