Application procedures for registration of marriage to foreigners living in Vietnam and abroad - Thủ tục đăng ký kết hôn với người nước ngoài tại Việt Nam và tại nước ngoài

Nowadays, though marriage to foreigners is not too strange, not everybody comes to thoroughly know procedures for marriage recognition and requirements under which a marriage is legally attested and protected.   Below are application procedures and requirements for marriage to a foreigner which are applied in two following situations:

* 1. Click HERE to see application procedures for registration of marriage to foreigners living in Vietnam.

* 2. Application procedures for recognition of marriage to a foreigner living in his/her resident country:

If you marry a foreigner and all marriage registration procedures are carried out in a foreign country, you will not be required to apply for your marriage registration in Vietnam. In this case, you must observe the following basic regulations:

- Fully meet all requirements set out in the 2014 Law on Marriage and Family;

- Avoid committing any of the prohibited acts defined in the Law on Marriage and Family.

Till the date of marriage registration with a competent foreign entity, if a marriage fails to conform to marriage requirements to the extent of not violating prohibition clauses in the Law on Marriage and Family, and consequences have been mitigated, or keeping a record of such marriage is aimed at protecting a Vietnamese national and a child, on the date of request for recording such marriage in the civil register, that marriage will be recorded in the civil register.   

Processes and procedures for keeping a record of a marriage:

 * Application for keeping a record of a marriage must be filed by either marriage partner to a competent registry in accordance with regulations laid down in clause 1 of Article 48 in the Law on Civil Registration, including the following documents:

- Completed application form (using the form given in the Circular No. 15/2015/TT-BTP): Download the attached file;

- Duplicated copies of documents certifying marriage which are issued by a jurisdictional foreign entity;

- In case of sending application by post, submission of duplicate copies of papers held by both male and female partners, which are prescribed in clause 1 of Article 2 in the Decree No. 123/2015/ND-CP, will be required;

- If a Vietnamese national has already registered his/her divorce or revocation of his/her marriage with a jurisdictional foreign entity, he/she must submit an excerpt showing that such divorce or marriage revocation has already been kept a record in a civil register in accordance with clause 2 of Article 37 in the Decree No. 123/2015/ND-CP.

* Time limit for making a decision to keep a record of a marriage in a civil register is 05 working days of Judicial Affairs Division’s receipt of application.

In case where verification is needed, such time limit will be restricted to 10 working days.

* Procedures for keeping a record of a marriage in a civil register:

- Within a time limit of 12 days of receipt of all valid documents prescribed in clause 1 of this Article and, if all legally prescribed requirements are fully satisfied, civil registration officer must keep a record of a marriage in the civil register. Judicial Affairs Division must petition the Chairman of a district-level People's Committee to grant an excerpt to the applicant. (Clause 2 of Article 50 in the Law on Civil Registration).

- On seeing that the application for entering the marriage in the civil register meets requirements set out in Article 34 in the Decree No. 123, the Head of a receiving Judicial Affairs Division must keep a record of that marriage in the civil register and then petition the Chairman of a district-level People's Committee to agree to grant the original copy of the civil status excerpt to the applicant.

>>> Reading inVietnamese: Thủ tục đăng ký kết hôn với người nước ngoài tại Việt Nam và tại nước ngoài