How to get married in Hungary as a foreigner

Please note: currently, getting married in Hungary is possible only for couples made up of one man and one woman. For same-sex couples, only registered partnership is available (look up “bejegyzett élettársi kapcsolat”), which provides similar privileges. A recent ruling of the European Court of Justice requires all member states to recognize marriages concluded in any other member state, including same-sex marriages; it is yet to be seen how this will affect Hungarian regulations.

Civil and religious ceremonies

Getting married in Hungary must involve a civil ceremony in order to be recognized by the state. This is especially important for foreigners who want to base their residency or citizenship application on being married in Hungary. If you are religious and want to have a religious wedding ceremony, you have two options:

• Have a combined religious and civil ceremony
• Have two weddings, one civil ceremony with just a few guests, and one religious wedding with all the friends and family members you want to invite.

In fact, in Hungary it is totally normal to have two weddings. In these cases, people usually have a courthouse wedding first, with just the couple, two witnesses, and the closest family and friends. After that, you can have a religious wedding ceremony, and you will have more freedom in how and when to organize it.

If you don’t want a religious ceremony and want to make the civil ceremony a big event, there are plenty of wedding halls and other venues offering services related to organizing your wedding. They might even be able to help you find an officiant.

Civil ceremonies and courthouse weddings in Hungary

In Hungary, a courthouse wedding will mean that you go to the local registrar’s office (“anyakönyvi hivatal”) and ask for an appointment. The registrar’s office is usually managed by the local municipality, so you can contact it through the mayor’s office or town hall. The officiant will be a representative of the registrar’s office (“anyakönyvvezető”). You will also need two witnesses: these can be any legally competent adults with valid ID documents.

Courthouse weddings should be free of charge if they take place at the courthouse in regular working hours (so Monday through Friday during the day, or in the morning on Saturday – this might vary by municipality). Many town halls have decent sized wedding rooms within the building, which may or may not cost extra to rent. Expect additional charges if you want a civil ceremony outside working hours or at another location. If you need to hire an interpreter, that will cost extra, too.

Getting a marriage license in Hungary

If you want to get married in Hungary and at least one of you is a foreign national, you should start the preparations at least 6 months in advance.

• You might need to request documents from your home country, which you might need to get translated into Hungarian, and that will take time.
• When you have all the documents, you will need to declare your intention to marry at the registrar’s office. This declaration is basically equivalent to a marriage license because it needs to be approved before you can proceed with the preparations. Approval might take up to 60 days, and you might be asked to submit additional documents.
• Once you receive the approval, you can book an appointment at the registrar’s office if you are going for a courthouse wedding. The wedding can first take place 60 days after the date of the approval – you may consider this a mandatory engagement period. (For Hungarian citizens, this waiting period is only 30 days long.) The license will remain valid for 1 year after approval.
  The mandatory waiting period might be reduced to 8 days if you have a sound reason to get married, e.g. health related issues, already booked travel plans, work related reasons. You need to submit an application for the exemption, and it should be evaluated in 8 days. However, you will still need to find an appointment that works for both you and the registrar’s office.

Documents required for getting married

You will need to submit the declaration about your intention to get married together and in person. If either of you doesn’t speak Hungarian, you will need an interpreter too who will attest that you understand what you are signing up for (this can be a friend of yours who speaks both Hungarian and your language). The documents required might vary by municipality, but they will most probably include the following:

• An ID document that has your photo: usually ID card or passport
• Birth certificates of both parties
• Certificates that state that both parties are single (if one of you is Hungarian, the registrar’s office might be able to pull this information from a database); these documents may be obtained from the consulate of your country of origin, which may take time. Foreign language documents will then need certified translation (by OFFI).
• If either party is divorced or widowed, verification of this will be required too.
• From foreign nationals: a declaration that to the best of their knowledge, there are no legal obstacles to the marriage.
• Prenup: Hungarian law regulates how property should be distributed in case of a divorce. If you want a different arrangement, get a lawyer to discuss your options and write the prenuptial agreement, and submit the signed document together with your other paperwork.

Before you start collecting the documents, consult the website of the municipality where you want to get married, or even write to the local registrar’s office.

Other relevant administration

When you get married, you will get a chance to change your name. In Hungary, it is traditional for women to take their husband’s name (either their full name or just the surname), but it is not a requirement. More recently, sometimes both parties change their names and combine their surnames. You can read more about married name options here.

If you decide to change your name, you will need to update all your documents, and notify every authority and provider about the change. There is no strict deadline to do so, and the process is quite simple, but you do have to take care of it regarding each of your documents and every provider (e.g. passport, TAJ card, your employer, banks, utility providers, rental agreement). If you are planning to go on a honeymoon abroad and you buy plane tickets before the wedding, you will want to update your passports only when you are back from your trip.

Being married in Hungary gives you access to various perks. Most importantly, it will improve your options for residency, and possibly citizenship. There are tax benefits for newlyweds (although not available to third-country nationals since 2025). There is a chance that you might be able to apply for loans more easily together, or that you can get better deals from providers like banks, but these are always at the discretion of the providers.

About Helpers Hungary

Helpers provides business and personal services to foreign nationals living, working, and doing business in Hungary. Our mission is to make life easier by helping you navigate Hungarian bureaucracy, understand requirements, and submit paperwork in a way that it will be approved. Our main services include assistance with residency and citizenship application as well as business setup and operation. Should you need help with any of these, feel free to contact us.