Getting married abroad for Romanian citizens: useful tips

Are you a Romanian citizen? Do you think you may be entitled to direct citizenship, or to citizenship by application? Then read this post, to understand what you need to have in mind when getting married abroad (including in the country of your other citizenship).

Certificates of Celibacy:

Many countries require that persons who are not of their citizenship present a Certificate of No Impediment / Celibacy / Nulla Osta, before they can get married.

Romania does issue such certificates, for anyone who is either:

a. a Romanian citizen; or

b. born in Romania.

The exact form of a "Certificate of Celibacy" issued by Romania is that of an "extract of the mentions on the margin of the birth record". That means, the text that comes up will be as follows:

We confirm that A. B., born on 1 January 1986, in Bucharest, Sector 5, has no mentions on the margin of their birth record, and is therefore single.

The certificate is exclusively in Romanian, and for use abroad must be translated.

It is recognized inside the European Union without an Apostille. Outside, it must be Apostilled.

Romania is not a party to any CIEC Convention for the issuance of multilingual singlehood certificates.

Should you need such a certificate, do not hesitate to ask us, and we will obtain it for you! Click here for a no-obligation inquiry.

Certificates of No Impediment / Certificates of Custom:

Some countries also require, besides the proof of being single, also a proof that you can get married under the rules of your country of citizenship (Romania). Romania does not issue such proofs from any official authority.

However, we can issue such a document for you, that will be accepted abroad, based on your birth record and Certificate of Celibacy.

You only need to inquire for a Romanian Certificate of Celibacy, and we will propose any additionally required explanation as needed. We will draft them in the language required for you, and add Apostilles as needed.

Baptismal record:

For religious marriages, the Catholic Church in particular requests baptismal records from Romania. We can obtain these for you, with the relevant additional procedures [Apostilles, translation] as needed. You can request a Romanian Baptismal record here!

A few things to consider when ordering a baptismal record:

a. please ask or inquire about the exact parish church where you were baptized. There is no overarching register, and no way to find out except from family memory.

b. please ask your intended officiant to tell you whether they will accept the baptism record as such [which is a private document under Romanian law, issued only in the Romanian language], or they need to see an Apostilled version of it [this can be obtained by us].

Filling in the marriage license and certificate:

Once you are ready to get married abroad, it is absolutely essential to have your marriage license and certificate correctly filled in, in all its parts. The Romanian bureaucrats are sticklers to details, to the letter, and any mistake can be corrected very hard, or not at all, later on, with many extra costs.

Please consider:

a. Your name and surname should be in full, exactly in the order as they are under Romanian paperwork. For example, my legal name is Ioan-Luca, surname Vlad. Luca-Ioan Vlad is a different, incorrect name, for the Romanian authorities.

b. Your parents' names should also be complete, and in the order they are in your Romanian birth certificate. For example, Ioan Vlad is not the same as Ioan-Luca Vlad. That would then have to be corrected later.

c. If there is a field for "name / surname after marriage" please fill it in with one of the options recognized by Romanian law (see below).

After the marriage: 2 absolutely essential things

Any Romanian citizen or person of Romanian origin should consider these two absolutely essential things:

A. Your name after marriage

and

B. Getting a valid marriage certificate.

A. Your name after marriage will not be recognized in Romania, unless it conforms with Romanian rules. That means:

1. Your first name must never, ever, change through marriage.

   That includes taking your maiden name as your middle name.

   This is unlawful under Romanian law and blocks you from ever updating your Romanian paperwork or getting a new passport.

   Never do that. You'll have thousands of Euros or USD to pay later to correct this. If you wish to maintain both surnames, put them both in the SURNAME field of your passport.

2. The valid options for your surname by marriage, are (assuming Popescu is your maiden name and Smith your spouse's name):

   Popescu

   Smith

   Popescu-Smith

   Smith-Popescu

   Nothing else will be recognized!

B. A valid marriage certificate will be a long-form, fully unredacted, official marriage certificate. Unless it is from the European Union, it is a good idea to put an Apostille on it. The Apostille is always issued in the same country as the certificate, so get it then and there, before moving on!

Registering your marriage in Romania

As a Romanian citizen, you have the obligation to register your marriage that took place abroad, in Romania. That process is called transcrierea certificatului de casatorie.

The benefits of this procedure, besides being an obligation, are:

1. It is a condition for getting a new Romanian passport.

2. It is a condition for any children within the marriage to have their births registered and get their Romanian passports.

3. It produces a resulting Romanian marriage certificate, that is recognized in the European Union.

4. It allows your spouse to get a non-EU family member residence permit in the European Union, to move with, live and work together with you.

We can do this for you gladly, if you contact us here!

We hope that these points will serve Romanians abroad to make sure that a beautiful moment is not shaded by poor paperwork, and look forward to helping you before and after your marriage.

And please remember: never, ever, change your first or middle name by marriage!