Legal foundation:
- Law on Marriage and Family 2014;
- Law on civil status 2014;
- Decree 123/2015/ND-CP on guidelines for Law on civil status;
1. Conditions for getting married
According to Article 126 of the Law on Marriage and Family, marriage involving foreign elements are subject to the following laws:
– For marriages between Vietnamese citizens and foreigners, each party shall comply with his/her country’s law on marriage conditions; if their marriage is conducted at a competent Vietnamese state agency, the foreigner shall also comply with this Law’s provisions on marriage conditions.
– Marriages between foreigners permanently residing in Vietnam at competent Vietnamese agencies must comply with this Law’s provisions on marriage conditions.
Therefore, if a foreigner marries a Vietnamese, each party shall comply with his/her country’s law on marriage conditions. At the same time, if their marriage is conducted at a competent Vietnamese state agency, the foreigner shall meet the conditions for marriage specified in Article 8 of the Law on marriage and family.
Concrete conditions for getting married are including:
– The man is full 20 years or older, the woman is full 18 years or older;
– The marriage is voluntarily decided by the man and woman;
– The man and woman do not lose the civil act capacity;
– The marriage does not fall into one of the cases prescribed at Points a, b, c and d, Clause 2, Article 5 of this Law
2. Authority to produce for registering a marriage with a foreigner
Artcle 37 of Law on civil status 2014 stipulates that the authority to perform marriage registration between Vietnamese citizens and foreigners belongs to the People’s Committee of the district where the Vietnamese citizen resides.
In case a foreigner residing in Vietnam requests to register his/her marriage in Vietnam, the district-level People’s Committee of the place where either party resides shall register the marriage.
3. Application for registration of marriage with a foreigner
Documents need to prepare:
- Application form for marriage registration;
- A document certifying marital status of a foreigner is a document which is issued by a foreign competent authority, remains valid, and certifies that the holder is being single. If the foreign country does not issue a document certifying marital status, an equivalent document issued by the foreign competent authority certifying the holder’s eligibility for marriage as prescribed in law of such country is required.If the document certifying marital status of a foreigner has an indefinite term, such document and the certificate issued by the health facility as prescribed in Clause 1 Article 38 of the Law on civil status shall only remain valid in 6 months from the date of issue.
If the foreigner has no passport for presentation as prescribed, he/she may present an international travel paper or a residence card.
- If the partner being Vietnamese citizen obtained divorce or granted marriage annulment at a the foreign competent authority, he/she shall also submit a copy of vital records about such divorce or marriage annulment
In addition to the above documents, depending on the case, the parties must submit a number of corresponding documents
4. Marriage registration procedures
Step 1: The male and female partners shall submit a set of marriage registration documents directly to the Justice Department, if the marriage is registered in Vietnam or the representative agency, if the marriage is registered at the representative mission.
Step 2: Within 15 days after receiving complete papers specified, civil status officers shall verify; if seeing that the law-prescribed marriage conditions are fully met, the district-level Justice Division shall report to the chairperson of the district-level People’s Committee for settlement.
Step 3: Upon marriage registration, both male and female partners must be present at the head office of the People’s Committee, the civil status officer shall ask for opinions of the male and female partners. If seeing that they voluntarily marry each other, the civil status officer shall record the marriage in the civil status book and together with the male and female partners sign in the civil status book. The male and female partners shall both sign in the marriage certificate.
Within 3 working days, The chairperson of the district-level People’s Committee shall hand the marriage certificate to the couple.
Above is the article of Phuc Cau Law. In case there is anything in the article that is confusing or unclear or the information stated in the article makes you not fully understand the problem, we look forward to receiving your feedback to the mail pclawfirm@gmail.com or call center online consultation 0236.777.3979. We are ready to respond!