First of all, congratulations! Once the initial euphoria of being newly engaged wears off a bit, it’s time to start thinking about the logistics of actually getting married in a foreign country. Below I’ll talk about the steps necessary for two foreigners to marry in South Korea.
Below is the list of documents you need to in order to get married in Korea.
Now that you know what you need, here is more detailed information on how to obtain each of the items on the list above.
I do want to write a quick note/word of caution. Both my (now) husband and I were legal residents of Korea with ARCs at the time of our marriage. We reside in Korea on E-2 visas. As a general rule of thumb, people residing in Korea who possess an ARC are able to marry. However, before undergoing the process of marriage in Korea, you should first check with your local immigration office whether or not you are allowed to marry under your visa designation.
And a secondary word of caution! Not all countries recognize a marriage in Korea, so you will need to contact your country’s embassy to ensure that they will recognize your marriage should you ever decide you want to leave Korea. And some countries have different conditions that need to be met in order for the marriage to be considered legal. Your first action should always be to contact your embassy before starting the marriage process in Korea.
First of all, if you have a specific date that you’d like for your marriage ceremony, you’ll have to keep that in mind when obtaining the necessary documents for your marriage in Korea.
Foreign nationals living in Korea are required to appear at their respective embassies in Seoul. The reason you’ll need to go to your embassy is because in Korea they use a national family registry to determine whether two individuals can marry (no incest, and all that). Since foreign nationals are not in the Korean database, you’ll need an Affidavit of Eligibility from your country as proof that you A) are who you say you are and B) are currently eligible to marry.
Your first step is to schedule an appointment at your embassy. You should be able to do this online quite easily, or you can call your embassy to schedule an appointment. Since I’m an American citizen, I scheduled my appointment online. It took all of 10 minutes, so it’s not difficult. If you’re an American citizen, you can schedule your appointment here. Once you’ve scheduled your appointment, you’ll be sent a summary of your appointment details like the one below.
U.S. Embassy Appointment Confirmation Page
If you scheduled your appointment online, you aren’t required to bring a copy of your appointment confirmation page with you to the embassy. However, I recommend that you print a copy and take it with you, just in case. When I arrived at the embassy, I just showed my appointment printout to the guard outside, and walked right in at my appointed time. I’d also like to note that only the person who scheduled the appointment is allowed inside, which means that your S.O. will have to wait outside. Luckily, Kyobo Books is close by! My fiancé wandered around Kyobo Books during my appointment.
Once you walk through the outer door, you’ll go through a security check. The guards will scan your things, and you’ll be required to check your phone with security. They’ll give you a number tag to hold onto so that you can retrieve your phone after your visit. You’re not allowed anything bigger than a cellphone, so don’t even bother bringing anything with you. I only brought my cellphone, passport, paperwork, and wallet with me when I went to the embassy. You shouldn’t need anything else.
Once inside, you’ll get a second number–this is your queue number that will be called when a window is available. Just wait for your number to pop up, go to the available window, and tell them you need an Affidavit of Eligibility. The clerk at the window will give you the necessary form. You’ll be asked to fill it out and bring it back to the same window when you’re finished.
You’ll bring it back when you’ve finished, and then you’ll pay the consulate’s notarization fee of $50. You can either pay this in cash, credit card, or Korean bank card. After paying the fee, you’ll sit back down and wait for them to call your name. Once your name is called, you’ll go back up, swear an affidavit in front of a consulate officer, and sign the form. They’ll officially stamp it, and then you’re finished. You’re one step closer to being married!
*Please be aware that the American Affidavit of Eligibility is only valid for 3 months after the date it was initially notarized. So you’ll want to get married within three months of going to the embassy, or you’ll have to start the process all over again.
*Americans will receive the Affidavit of Eligibility form at the embassy–it’s not available online.
My fiancé (now husband!) is a U.K. citizen, and he went through pretty much the same process. The only difference for a U.K. citizen is that he needed both his passport and mine to verify the information on his Affidavit of Eligibility that was issued by the British Embassy. You can visit the British Embassy here to schedule your appointment and download the Affidavit of Eligibility beforehand. Also–the British Embassy’s verification seal is so much cooler than the American one. I’m just saying.
U.K. Affidavit of Eligibility Form
You can now get married! Yay! A lot of couples will actually go straight from the embassy to the nearest municipal office and register their marriage. The nearest Seoul office is accustomed to handling marriages for foreigners, and you won’t need to translate any of the documents. However, keep in mind that the day you submit the Korean marriage forms is the official date recorded for the start of your marriage. If you have a specific date in mind, you should wait until that day to register your marriage.
If you decide to marry at your local district office (Gu Cheong/구청), you’ll probably need to have your Affidavit of Eligibility translated into Korean. Strictly speaking, it’s not required, but every local office is different and a translation will help everything go more smoothly in the long run. In our case, we wanted to wait for a specific date and decided to register our marriage at our local district office. They had never processed a marriage between two foreigners before and were confused about what to do. Once we all sorted out the process, they told us we had to bring translated copies of our affidavits so that they would understand the information. Below are translations of both the U.S. Affidavit of Eligibility and the U.K. Affidavit of Eligibility. You can download the printable U.S. version here and the printable U.K. version here.
*If you are reading this and you’re marrying a Korean national, you will need to bring a translated Affidavit of Eligibility.
*Be sure to have someone sign as the translator at the bottom of your form.
Next is actually filling out your Marriage Registration Form. It’s called 혼인신고서 (pronounced hohn-een sheen-go-suh) in Korean. You will be able to get this at the district office where you will register your marriage. You’ll probably be asked to fill everything out in Korean, including your names. Below is the Korean Marriage Registration Form.
Marriage Registration Form (Korean)
Marriage Registration Form Instructions (Korean)
We ended up printing out the English version to use as a reference point for filling everything out correctly. (Actually, we were taking so long trying to read everything and write everything correctly in Korean that the clerk took pity on us and filled out the form for us.) If you’re like us and need some help with the Korean, here’s the English form to reference.
Marriage Registration Form (English)
Marriage Registration Form Instructions (English)
You’ll see #8 on the form is for two witnesses. Generally, the witnesses aren’t required to be there in person to sign the forms. They can just sign the registration form before you take it to the district office. However, it varies from place to place, so I’d recommend calling up the district office where you intend to register your marriage and checking with them.
Technically, your witnesses do not have to be Korean citizens, but they DO need to be legal residents of Korea – possessing ARCs. However, I would recommend asking two Korean friends to serve as your witnesses if possible. It will just make things easier in general, because the staff at local district offices have maybe never married two foreigners. They don’t always know what is allowed and is not allowed. Once you’ve got your witness signatures on the form, you’re ready to go to the district office and get married.
So you’re ready to make it official? Here’s what you’ll need to bring with you to your district office to register your marriage:
*Our local district office’s registration fee was a whopping ₩200 (20¢)!
Once you’ve completed the Marriage Registration Application and have provided the necessary documents, the clerk will do the rest! The clerk will make copies of your passports and ARCs. They will also keep your Affidavits of Eligibility and the translations (as well as proof of termination of previous marriage(s) if applicable). If you are both foreigners, the marriage certificate will be issued right away. It will take about 10-20 minutes to input all of the information into their computers, but then you will receive two documents: a filing receipt (접수증/jup-soo-jeung) and a verification certificate (수리증명서/soo-ree-jeung-myung-suh), which is the same as a marriage certificate. You can see the examples provided below.
Marriage Registration Receipt
Marriage Registration Certificate
If one of you is a Korean citizen, you’ll need to bring a few different items to your local district office.
A different kind of marriage certificate will be issued if the marriage is between a Korean citizen and a foreign resident alien. This will take about 7 days to be issued from the date of marriage application. The document issued in this case is a Korean Marriage Certificate (혼인관계증명서/hone-in-gwan-gae jeung-myung-suh).
Whew! I know that was a TON of information. But I hope it was helpful. Getting married in your home country without the added stress of language barriers can be really difficult and nerve-wracking, but getting married in a foreign country adds another layer of stress and uncertainty. I hope the information I provided helps you to get married in Korea smoothly.
If you are from a country that recognizes Korean marriage as legal, there’s no need to ‘register’ your marriage. As long as you have your marriage certificate, you’re legally married. Both the U.K. and the U.S. recognize marriages performed in Korea, so there was no need for additional steps for us. However, this might not be the case for all countries, and it’s best to check with your embassy regarding this matter. The only other thing you would need to do is have your marriage documents translated from Korean into English (or the language required by your country). But there’s no rush for those translations. You would only need them if you plan on leaving Korea. My husband and I waited until just before we left – almost two years later – to have our marriage documents translated and notarized for use back in our home countries.
One last little tip! If or when you are getting ready to leave Korea, it’s a good idea to have extra copies of your marriage certificate. You can go back to the district office and print out as many copies as you think you’ll need. (It will be difficult to obtain copies once you leave the country unless you plan on going back to Korea for them.) If, in the future, you need to provide proof of marriage, it’s best to be prepared. My husband went back to our local district office before we left and asked them to print out an extra 10 copies of our marriage documents. It took him all of 15 minutes from start to finish!
Before you get married, you might be interested in having a Korean pre-wedding photo shoot to document your marriage. I will talk about our experience in an upcoming post. I’ll talk about the company and photographer we worked with, as well as some tips to make your experience memorable.
