Registering a Marriage Abroad in Türkiye

A Turkish citizen who marries before a foreign authority has the marriage entered in the Turkish family register. This is a different procedure from marrying in Türkiye, which has its own page on this site. The rules are in the Civil Registration Services Law and its implementing regulation.

At the consulate or in Türkiye

Where the marriage is notified to a Turkish embassy or consulate on the basis of the document issued by the foreign authority, the mission draws up the marriage notification and the marriage is registered through the system; the Directorate General of Civil Registration and Citizenship describes the same route on its marriage procedures page. The Consulate General in Berlin, for example, asks Turkish citizens who married abroad to apply to it and lists either the international marriage extract (Formula B) or the national marriage certificate; translations to be certified at the consulate must be made by sworn translators attached to it.

If the marriage could not be notified to a mission, the law allows notification at a civil registry office in Türkiye, provided the foreign marriage certificate has been translated into Turkish, duly certified and certified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The regulation describes this route as handing in the original of the duly certified foreign marriage certificate with a notarised Turkish translation to the registry office where the person is. The texts do not explain how the law's Foreign Ministry certification relates to the regulation's apostille rule below, so ask the registry office which form it accepts.

Apostille and multilingual extracts

Multilingual civil status documents with a fixed format issued under the conventions of the International Commission on Civil Status are processed directly, without any certification. Documents from states party to the Hague Apostille Convention are processed with an apostille attached to the original and a Turkish translation certified by a notary. Documents from other states are processed with due certification and a notarised Turkish translation. Documents issued by honorary consulates are not acted on.

If the foreign certificate is also used as an identity document, the original is returned and a certified copy is kept in the marriage register. Missing details about the foreign spouse, or errors such as translation mistakes, are completed or corrected by the Directorate General on presentation of a duly certified document from the spouse's state with a notarised Turkish translation.

We translate foreign marriage certificates into Turkish in Ankara through translators sworn before a Turkish notary, for notarisation. The civil registry decides on registration.