If you are a person of Indian origin planning to get married in Belgium, read on this guide will save you many trips to commune & Indian embassy. Before we begin please note that this is not in any way the ultimate source of truth, individual situation could be different and we recommend to get an official opinion from your residence commune to begin with and then follow this guide to get general guidelines and tips.
Below procedure is valid if you want to get married to indian national, belgium citizen or any other country.
Belgian law states following conditions for the couple
- a minimum age of 18
- mutual consent (not being forced to marry)
- not being related by family
- not married already (polygamy)
- Same-sex couples have been allowed to marry in Belgium since June 2003.
Non-nationals : In Belgium, a marriage can take place if one of the future spouses:
- is Belgian at the time of the marriage
- has been living in Belgium for more than three months (with proof)
Step 1 : Visit your commune and get a list of documentation for marriage. The list should look somewhat similar to this
Documents essentially are below (can change according to individual situation)
- Birth Certificate (Original issued from the place of Birth) – If you are born in mardabad india, you should get the certificate issued from muradabad and get it apositiled in india and sent back to your belgian address.
- Certificate of bachelorhood – A certificate certifying that you are bachelor and not married.
- Certificate of nationality
- Certificate of cotume
- Divorce Decree (if married previously)
- Old marriage Certificate (If married previously)
Step 2 : Arranging documents : This step takes time and effort so take good amount of time to finish this requirement. You can keep submiting documents to your commune during this stage so that you can collect the feedback and get the documents checked for errors. Lets deep dive on each documents and how to arrange them
Birth Certificate
- The original document should be issued from your place of birth
- Get the document issued and then get it apostiled in india. If you get document appostiled it in india you dont need to legalize it again in belgium. Find contacts here for appostile.
- After documents are received in belgium you need to get them translated to either dutch or french. Use services from translators listed here
Bachelorhood Certificate
- In India this is issued as an affidavit. Ask contacts here for this document and they will get affedevit done with appostile.
- This document needs to be legalized in belgium. Legalization is a quick process and you need to take appointment here and appear for legalization. Its a quick 10 mins process.
- After document is legalized it needs to be translated again. Use services from translators listed here .
Certificate of nationality
- Get this document from Indian embassy.
- You need to take appointment at the embassy and fill Misc application form with a copy of your passport, photo.
- Link – https://indianembassybrussels.gov.in/caa.php
- After filling the form Embassy will call you after a week to collect the certificate.
- This document needs to be legalized in belgium. Legalization is a quick process and you need to take appointment here and appear for legalization. Its a quick 10 mins process.
- After document is legalized it needs to be translated again. Use services from translators listed here
Certificate of cotume
- Get this document from Indian embassy.
- You need to take appointment at the embassy and fill Misc application form with a copy of your passport, photo.
- Link – https://indianembassybrussels.gov.in/caa.php
- After filling the form Embassy will call you after a week to collect the certificate.
- This document needs to be legalized in belgium. Legalization is a quick process and you need to take appointment here and appear for legalization. Its a quick 10 mins process.
- After document is legalized it needs to be translated again. Use services from translators listed here
After submitting the documents
- You will be assigned a date to get married
- If you dont speak national languages you will need to hire a translator for marriage ceremony
- Both couples will be asked to come sign a final document 15 days before the marriage date