What Citizens Advice Scotland is#
Citizens Advice Scotland (registered as the Scottish Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux) is the national body for Scotland's advice network. With its 58 member bureaux and the Extra Help Unit, it describes the network as Scotland's largest independent advice network. The bureaux are independent charities of their own, giving free, confidential and impartial advice in almost 300 places, from city centres to island communities. Citizens Advice Scotland publishes the Scottish public advice pages, which sit in the Scotland section of the Citizens Advice website, and campaigns on the problems people bring to bureaux.
How to get advice#
Its contact page suggests reading the online advice first, then contacting your local bureau, which you find by postcode on the Citizens Advice Scotland website. A bureau can usually advise only people who live or work in its area, by phone, email or appointment, so check whether yours has drop-in times. There is a free phone line that connects you to your local bureau, a British Sign Language service through Contact Scotland, and specialist services for some subjects, such as money advice.
What its guide says about changing your name#
"Changing your name" is written for Scotland and covers more ground than most guides:
- You can change any part of your name at any time, as long as it is not for fraud, and start using it informally. For official purposes you will need evidence.
- Recording the change with National Records of Scotland (NRS) is open to people aged 16 or over who were born or adopted in Scotland, even if they now live elsewhere. It is done on form 24, by post, with a fee, and it changes the name on your birth or adoption certificate. It is not a legal requirement. The guide warns that the change goes on a public register that anyone can see, so it may not be in your interest, for example after domestic abuse.
- Limits. NRS records one change of first name and three of surname over 16, with five years between surname changes, and one of each under 16. You can still change your name past those limits; NRS just will not record it.
- A statutory declaration or deed poll is the route if you cannot use NRS, for example because you were not born in Scotland. A statutory declaration can be witnessed by a notary public, Justice of the Peace or local councillor; for a deed poll it links to GOV.UK.
- Marriage, divorce and trans people. Marriage and divorce documents usually serve as proof, and trans people do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate to change name; it links to Scottish Trans.
- Children. Only a qualified applicant, usually a parent with parental responsibility, can apply, on form 21 or 23 depending on age and what is changing, and everyone with parental responsibilities must agree.
It ends with a list of who to tell, including Social Security Scotland.
The public register, and the private alternatives#
The guide's warning about the public register matters most for anyone staying safe. An unenrolled deed poll, by contrast, is not registered or published anywhere, and it works in Scotland as it does elsewhere in the UK. Enrolment, the optional public record, is a High Court process in England and Wales that GOV.UK lists at £53.05, and it publishes your address in The Gazette.
Compare the Scottish routes#
- How to change your name in Scotland: NRS, statutory declaration and deed poll compared.
- Changing a child's name in Scotland: forms 21 and 23, and the sheriff court.
- Who can see my former name?: public records and private ones.
- Free advice charities that can help with a name change.
This page describes what Citizens Advice Scotland publishes on its own websites, read on 26 October 2026. Citizens Advice Scotland has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
