Registration of Marriage in the Population Information System

If you are a Finnish citizen and you get married abroad, you must notify the marriage to the Finnish Population System.

Ask the person conducting the marriage, what documents are needed when the ceremony is performed before a foreign public authority. A Finnish certificate of no impediment can be ordered in multiple languages from the (Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)Digital and Population Data Agency(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) in your municipality of residence. Documents that are used abroad, must be legalised.

Some priests working among expatriate Finns, who are employed by Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (list in Finnish)(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window), have the right to conduct marriages abroad.

You cannot get married at an embassy of Finland.

Notify the marriage to the Digital and Population Data Agency

When a Finnish citizen gets married outside Finland(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) it must be notified to the Local Register Office. You can also leave the notification at a Finnish embassy or send it there to be posted to the Digital and Population Data Agency.

The original marriage certificate or a copy of it, authenticated at the mission of Finland, must be appended to the notification. The document must be legalised and if it has been issued in some other language than Finnish, Swedish or English, an authorised translation in one of these languages must be provided. Translations made abroad must be legalised. Translations made by an authorised translator in Finland(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) are valid as such.

An Apostille stamp is not required for a marriage certificate, which is issued by an EU country authority and a translation of the certificate is not needed if a multilingual standard form(Link to another website.) is appended to the document.

Form: Notification - Marriage abroad (pdf)(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)

Registration of marriage in the UK

A Finnish citizen married in the United Kingdom must register the marriage to the Finnish population register by submitting the following documents:

The registration form and all the appendices should be posted to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency(Link to another website.)  (address: Digital and Population Data Services Agency, PB 1003, 00531 HELSINKI). If the municipality of residence is Åland, the address is: Statens ämbetsverk på Åland, PB 58, 22101 MARIEHAMN. If the registration documents are submitted via the Consular Section of the Finnish Embassy in London, there will be a fee of 45 euros according to the Decree of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on Fees for Services Produced by the Foreign Service.

If you submit the documents by mail to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, deliver them as legalized copies following the instructions on the website of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency(Link to another website.). Certified copies are not returned. If you deliver original documents to DVV, they will be returned to you as ordinary mail (not registered mail) under your responsibility.

The registration is processed at the Digital and Population Data Services Agency in Finland. All the related enquiries should be sent directly to them. Contact details to the agency offices in Finland: Digital and Population Data Services Agency(Link to another website.).

Each part of the form should be filled in carefully and signed by both spouses. If the spouse’s last name is changed due to the marriage, the name change must also be filled into the previously mentioned notification form. Additional information can be found here: Name change due to marriage(Link to another website.).