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 (Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)the 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)
Notification of a marriage in Japan
Send the notification of marriage with the following documents:
- copies of passports of both spouses
- copies of the Japanese residence card of both spouses (if applicable)
- from the ward office a koseki tohon (if one of or both spouses are Japanese citizens) or a juri shomeisho (if both spouses are non-Japanese). These documents must be legalized with an Apostille
- translation of the Japanese document in English, Finnish or Swedish, also the translation of the document must be legalized with an Apostille if done outside of Finland
Send the documents to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.
You can also send them to the Embassy to be transferred to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. For this service we charge a fee (service fees). In this case, please contact the Embassy before sending the documents to us.