Getting married in Japan is ridiculously simple. And getting married to a local comes with benefits! The ability to apply for a spouse visa, which has no restrictions on work. Applications for things like credit cards and housing are much more likely to get approved. And other such paperwork-related upsides.
To get married in Japan, there are just a few steps. See below for my experience as an American getting married in Japan. (For two foreigners to get married, your mileage may vary.)
Step 1: visit the embassy
To get married in Japan, you need a document called 婚姻要件宣誓書, or “Affidavit of Competency to Marry”. Japanese law requires proof from your country saying you are eligible to marry in your country. For example, if the minimum age to marry is 20 years in your country, you can’t come to Japan to marry at 18 (the legal age here). This means visiting an embassy or consulate, usually located in big cities like Osaka or Tokyo, to get the document notarized. Don’t worry; your Japanese partner doesn’t need to accompany you.
You must make appointments for the US embassy online; other embassies probably have similar systems. Download the form from their website, and take your passport and cash (in US dollars!) for the application fee. During your appointment, an official will notarize your forms, giving you 3 months to get married. For more information, check out your embassy’s website.
Step 2: fill out your marriage registration
You need another document called a 婚姻届, or konin todoke. Nowadays, this form comes in fun colors and designs not at all appropriate for such an official, law-binding document: from basic hearts, to Hello Kitty and anime. Leave it to Japan to make government documentation cute. Why, you ask? For the engagement pictures, of course. You can’t get married in Japan without taking an abundance of cute couple pictures signing documents.
Even though you must complete the form in Japanese, it isn’t too complicated. However, it does require two “witnesses” to sign as well. Just ask two friends to fill in their address and stamp their hanko. Don’t have any friends? Me neither. Just ask some random person on the street to do it, no one will check. (jk, don’t actually do that…)
Step 3: go to your ward office
Once you have all your documents, take a romantic stroll down to your ward office. Don’t forget ID (i.e., passport) and anything else your specific ward office requires. Some offices, for example, ask for birth certificates. Your Japanese partner must take a recent copy of their family register and ID.
Look for the 戸籍課 section of the ward office and turn in all your forms. To which you get rewarded with more forms to sign! Japanese bureaucracy at its finest. Regardless, it shouldn’t take very long to get everything done. (My “marriage” took 20 minutes.)
Congratulations! You are now legally married! Now go out there and take those instagram pics with your Pikachu marriage registration.
Side quest: name changes
Fun fact: the government stubbornly refuses to allow different last names when getting married in Japan. Of course, this means almost all women change their names after marriage (96% in 2015). However, this law does not apply to international marriages. Why? Japan cannot force a citizen of another country to change their name; this would require a legal name change in your own country.
I was overjoyed to discover this! I love my name, and I certainly don’t agree with outdated patriarchal systems forcing women to change theirs. But I do suffer from the gaikoku disease of having a very long three-word name. (Anyone living in Japan with a middle name can understand this predicament.) Getting married actually led me to find a solution to this problem, which I will outline in another post!
Anyway, while Japanese women must go through the pain in the ass process of changing their names after marriage… foreigners get to play the gaijin card and skip this one out.
That’s all you need to get married in Japan!
What’s marriage like in your country? I chose to get married in Japan because, logistically, it seemed far simpler than marriage in the US. This may not apply to everyone, though. For example, LGBTQ+ couples still need to look elsewhere to marry. (But I have hopes this will change soon!)
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