Consultancy on Official Marriage Procedures with Foreign Nationals

Couples wishing to marry a foreign national in Türkiye must obtain the documents to be submitted to the marriage registry office in a form that complies with both their own national legislation and Turkish legislation. Foremost among these is the certificate of capacity to marry, showing that the foreign national is single and that there is no impediment to their marriage.

Once the paperwork is prepared, the presence of an interpreter on the wedding day is mandatory; marriage alone, however, does not confer citizenship, as it has conditions of its own. The steps that usually follow: marriage ceremony interpreting, apostille and consular certification and Turkish citizenship consultancy.

Documents obtained abroad must bear an apostille certification or consular attestation and must be given a sworn translation. At BKT we draw up the document list according to your nationality, handle the apostille and translation process, and also meet your need for an interpreter at the marriage ceremony.

Who is it for?

• Foreign nationals who will marry a Turkish citizen
• Two foreign nationals who wish to marry each other in Türkiye
• Couples who will register a marriage concluded abroad in Türkiye
• Those who will complete their marriage formalities before a family residence permit application
• Couples preparing a marriage file for a citizenship application
• Couples who need a sworn interpreter at the marriage ceremony

Where is the application made?

An application to marry is made by both parties going together to the marriage registry office of the place where one of them resides. Where one of the spouses is a foreign national there is an important detail here: a local headman cannot solemnise this marriage. Where one of the spouses is a foreign national, the Marriage Regulation gives the authority only to municipal marriage registry offices and to civil registry directors.

For that reason, Turkish citizens whose place of residence is a village and who are marrying a foreign national also apply not to the village headman's office but to the municipal marriage registry office of their place of residence, or to the civil registry directorate of that place. The number of couples who lose days by going to the wrong authority is not small.

The application itself may be made by proxy; a special power of attorney has to be drawn up for this. The marriage itself, however, cannot be solemnised by proxy — both parties must be present in person during the ceremony.

Required documents

The list below is for a typical case. Additional documents may be requested depending on your nationality, the type of application and the practice of the relevant authority; the definitive list is given to you in writing at the initial consultation.

• The foreign national's passport and its notarised translation
• Certificate of capacity to marry (certificate of no impediment) and its translation
• Birth certificate or civil registry extract
• Apostille certification or consular attestation
• Passport-size photograph and medical report
• If divorced, the divorce judgment with the annotation of finality, and its translation
• Marriage registry office application form

Where is the single status certificate (certificate of capacity to marry) obtained?

In the legislation the document showing that there is no impediment to the foreign party's marriage is called a certificate of capacity to marry and in everyday language it is known as the single status certificate. It can be obtained by two routes: from the competent central authority of the person's own state, or from that state's mission in Türkiye. The Regulation accepts both; what matters is that the document is obtained directly from the authorities of the state of nationality.

In practice two points lead to a file being sent back. The first: no procedure is carried out on the basis of documents issued by honorary consulates — the document has to be obtained from the official mission. The second: the original of the certificate of capacity to marry is kept in the marriage file, which means the registry office is given the original copy, not a photocopy.

A document coming from abroad is required to be certified in due form. If your country is a party to the 1961 Hague Convention this is provided by an apostille; if it is not, the consular certification route is followed. A Turkish translation of the foreign-language document is also required. Related pages: apostille and consular certification and notarised translation.

No additional document is requested for the address: the address declared by foreign nationals in the declaration form is taken as the basis. If you are looking for a certificate of residence, there is no need for one.

Where is the marriage health report obtained?

A marriage cannot be solemnised without a health report; the Marriage Regulation states this expressly. The report may be obtained from a primary healthcare institution — your family doctor — or from an official or private health institution.

Which tests will be required is not set out in the legislation as a fixed list. The Regulation leaves the procedures and principles to a circular of the Ministry of Health, and practice differs from province to province according to the decisions of the Provincial Public Health Board and the instructions of municipalities. Pre-marital screening for hereditary blood disorders (haemoglobinopathy) is one of the programmes carried out in this context.

For that reason we do not give you a general list compiled from the internet for the health report: we confirm which tests the registry office that will solemnise the marriage is requesting at that time, and notify you of them in writing. The period of validity of the report is not regulated in the legislation either and depends on the practice of the registry office — which is why it should be obtained close to your appointment date.

The period of validity of the file and the documents

The period of validity of the marriage file is 6 months from the date on which the certificate of capacity to marry was issued. If the marriage does not take place within this period, the file is removed from processing and cancelled, and the process has to be set up again from the beginning.

If the marriage is to be solemnised elsewhere, the marriage permit obtained for that purpose is likewise valid for 6 months from the date of issue. The passport photographs to be attached to the declaration form are required to have been taken within the last six months.

The subtlety here is this: the 6-month period runs not from the date of the marriage but from the date on which the single status certificate was issued. Couples who obtain the certificate early and are then delayed while gathering the other paperwork use the period up without realising it. We order the file according to this timetable and leave the single status certificate to one of the last steps.

The process step by step

1. 1

   List by nationality

   The list of required documents is drawn up according to the foreign national's nationality and marital status.

2. 2

   Obtaining the documents

   The certificate of capacity and the civil registry records are obtained; where necessary, guidance to the consulate is provided.

3. 3

   Apostille and translation

   Apostille certification is obtained for the documents, and the sworn translation and notarisation are completed.

4. 4

   Marriage registry office application

   The file is submitted to the marriage registry office and an appointment for the ceremony is obtained.

5. 5

   The ceremony and afterwards

   Where required, a sworn interpreter is provided at the marriage ceremony; afterwards, guidance on the family residence permit is given.

Is an interpreter required at the ceremony?

Yes, if the foreign party does not speak Turkish. The Regulation states that the marriage registrar may use an interpreter who knows the language, provided that it is the first official language of a state recognised by the Turkish state, and that the interpreter is to be made available at the place of the ceremony by the parties in advance. In other words, the registry office does not provide the interpreter; you bring one.

The legislation does not require the interpreter to be sworn; many marriage registry offices, however, ask for a sworn translator in practice. For that reason, when the marriage appointment is being booked, we confirm in advance what the registry office requires. For detail: marriage ceremony interpreting.

What procedures are carried out after the ceremony?

The ceremony is the middle of the process; after it, three matters begin that have to be followed up separately.

1. 1

   Civil registry record and the family booklet

   The marriage is notified by the marriage registry office to the civil registry directorate of that place within 10 days and registered in the family register; for marriages contracted before a consulate or abroad this period is 30 days. Every couple who marries is issued with a family booklet.

2. 2

   Family residence permit

   The foreign spouse applies for a family residence permit in order to remain in Türkiye. According to the statement of the Presidency of Migration Management, this permit may be issued for a maximum of 3 years at a time.

3. 3

   Citizenship timetable

   Marriage does not confer citizenship directly; at least three years are required before an application can be made. The conditions are set out in the section below.

The same registration step is also required for a marriage contracted abroad to take effect in Türkiye: the marriage of couples who marry before a foreign authority cannot be relied on before Turkish institutions until it has been entered in the civil registry record.

There is one ground of cancellation for the family residence permit that is frequently overlooked: staying abroad for more than 180 days in total within the last year. If you are going to be outside Türkiye for a long period, this has to be planned for from the outset.

Marriage-of-convenience checks and the residence permit risk

We put this heading on the page deliberately, because it is the subject that is most often misunderstood. Law No. 6458 expressly requires, for a family residence permit, that the applicant "has not entered into the marriage for the purpose of obtaining a residence permit", and it gives governorships a power in two stages: before the permit is granted it is investigated whether the marriage was entered into solely for the purpose of obtaining a residence permit, and after the permit has been granted checks may also be carried out.

The consequence is severe. If the condition is not met, or ceases to be met later, the family residence permit is not granted; if it has been granted it is cancelled; and permits that have expired are not extended. What is more: residence permits obtained by way of a marriage of convenience and subsequently cancelled are, in the aggregation of the residence periods provided for in the Law, not taken into account — that is, those years are disregarded in the calculation for a long-term residence permit or for citizenship.

It should also be borne in mind that a genuine marriage may come under strain in a check: living at separate addresses, the absence of any record showing a shared life, contradictory statements at the interview. Building the file consistently from the start is far easier than appealing afterwards.

Common mistakes

• Bringing the certificate of capacity without apostille certification
• Missing the validity period of the documents and having to obtain them again
• Applying without obtaining the annotation of finality on the divorce judgment
• Having the translation done by someone other than a sworn translator
• Not planning in advance for the need for an interpreter on the day of the ceremony

Turkish citizenship through marriage

Marrying a Turkish citizen does not grant citizenship on its own. An application for Turkish citizenship through marriage can be made provided that the marriage has lasted at least three years and is a genuine family union in which the couple actually live together; the marriage must still be subsisting at the time of the application. The assessment examines whether the family union is genuine.

While we prepare your marriage file, we also map out the timeline for citizenship through marriage from the very beginning: the family residence permit to be obtained after the wedding, the calculation of the three years and the documents that will be requested at the time of the application are planned as a whole. That way you are not starting to collect documents from scratch at the end of the third year.

Can a foreigner who has overstayed or is staying illegally get married?

Whether foreigners who are staying illegally can get married is one of the questions we are asked most often. For the ceremony, the marriage registry office requires a valid passport, a certificate of no impediment to marriage and a birth certificate; holding a residence permit is not a condition of marriage. However, if a visa or a residence period has been overstayed, the administrative consequences of that breach — a fine, an entry-ban code, a ban on entering the country — apply regardless of the marriage and have a direct effect on the residence permit application made afterwards.

That is why we work through files like these in reverse order: we first establish the status of the breach and any entry-ban code, and then plan the marriage and residence permit steps accordingly. At the initial consultation we tell you plainly which route your file can take; we do not present something as possible when it is not.

Can two foreign nationals marry in Türkiye?

Yes. Two foreign nationals of different nationalities may marry before a competent Turkish marriage registrar; the substantive and procedural provisions of the Regulation relating to the marriage of Turkish citizens apply to these marriages as well.

Two foreign nationals who are citizens of the same state may, if their own national law so permits, marry before that state's mission in Türkiye; and if they wish they may equally marry before the competent Turkish authorities. A foreign couple who marry before a competent Turkish authority are issued with a family booklet and, on request, with a multilingual marriage certificate as well. That document is of use at the stage of having the marriage recognised in their own countries.