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Getting married

Before you can get married in Denmark, you must apply for a certificate of marital status (prøvelsesattest).

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    Whether you must apply for a certificate of marital status from the City of Aarhus or from the Agency for Family Law (Familieresthuset) depends for instance on your citizenship.

    You must apply for a certificate of marital status from the City of Aarhus)if both you and your partner meet at least one of the criteria below.

    Both of you:

    • are Danish citizens
    • are citizens in another Nordic country
    • hold a permanent residence permit in Denmark
    • hold a permanent residence pursuant to the Executive Order on EU Residence

    You apply for a certificate of marital status by filling in a marriage declaration. When the City of Aarhus has received the marriage declaration, we will check whether the conditions for marriage are satisfactory. If so, we issue a certificate of marital status to you.

    The certificate of marital status is valid for four months. Therefore, you should wait to apply for the certificate when there are four months or less to the date of your wedding.

    If your wedding ceremony is to take place in a locality different than the city hall, you will receive the certificate of marital status in the post. It shall be your own responsibility to forward the certificate to the authority that will be in charge of the performance of your wedding ceremony.

    Fill in a marriage declaration (using your MitID)

    If both of you do not meet at least one of the criteria above you must apply for a certificate of marital status (prøvelsesattest) from the Agency of Family Law (Familieretshuset).

    Where you should apply depends on both of your nationalities or your basis for residence in Denmark. 

    Go to the website of Familieretshuset - International marriages

    To enter into marriage you must meet a number of criteria. For instance, you need to document that neither of you are already married.

    • Nordic citizens must show their passport to Citizen Service (Borgerservice)
    • Have you or your partner previously been married outside of Denmark, Citizen Service must be shown the original documents stating that the marriage is dissolved whether this is due to divorce or death. The documents must be translated into Danish and legalised.

    Legalising documents

    Documents from Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand do not have to be legalised.

    Please note that in terms of the legalisation of documents, the following countries do not count as European, and must therefore be legalised:

    • Bosnia-Herzegovina
    • Kosovo
    • Croatia
    • Slovenia
    • Albania
    • Armenia
    • Azerbajdjan
    • Belarus
    • Georgia
    • Kazakhstan
    • Kyrgyzstan
    • Tajikistan
    • Ukraine
    • Uzbekistan
    • Russia

    The purpose of legalising is to get documentation of the authenticity/validity of the document and the validity of the authority who has issued the document. Legalisation, therefore, is not a confirmation of the content of the document.

    For a document or an endorsement of a document to be legalised it must contain a number of signatures which typically looks like this:

    • A signature by the authority superior to those who have signed the document when it was issued. This will typically be the ministry that those issuing the document belong to.
    • Thereafter this signature must be validated by the country's foreign ministry.
    • The signature of the country's foreign ministry must be validated by the Danish representation in the country in question. You may find the addresses of the Danish embassies and consulates on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
    • All signatures must be given directly on the original document or the original certified copy.

     

    If you need help filling in the application for a certificate of marriage issued by the municipality, please call Citizen Service (Borgerservice) at  89 40 22 22.

    Last updated: 14. February 2024