Marriage Procedure Chinese in the Netherlands - Shenzhen Life

Marriage Procedure Chinese in the Netherlands

This article explains the procedure for Marriage in the Netherlands between a Dutch guy and a Chinese girl, both living in China: us :)

Hopefully it will help other Dutch-Chinese couples in the future who decide to get married in the Netherlands (the procedure for getting married in China is much simpler - and cheaper!). It helps a lot if you have some family in the Netherlands who can help you (or if one of you is still in the Netherlands). One of the first things you can do is make an appointment for the marriage ceremony. We did this 8 months in advance. After this you can do the pre-marriage (ondertrouw) procedure.We completed the ondertrouw procedure about 3.5 months before our wedding date.

Pre-marriage (ondertrouw) required documents:

For Chinese girlfriend you need:

Unmarried Certificate: We went to the place where people register their marriage in Futian District, filled in one form and hand in Hukou, ID card (original and one copy each). They will check your marriage status in the computer and then print the certificate stating that you are not married during certain period in this registration office.
Birth Certificate: People born before 1996 cannot get Birth Certificate, but the resident committee (Ju Wei Hui) will make a document proving your birth based on the Hukou, ID Card and your parent's Hukou. The parent's hukou is needed when your own hukou doesn't contain any birth information such as in our case.
Passport: copy of the page with name and signature. (easy)

The birth certificate needs to be legalized and translated, the procedure is:

Get the document as described above : quite straightforward
One of the Foreign Affairs Offices in China (or the ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing) can then legalize it
The Dutch embassy (or Consulates in Guangzhou/Shanghai) can legalize it

It turned out that after we got the official papers + translated versions, we just handed them in to the Foreign Affairs Office in Shenzhen and then they send it to the Dutch Consulate; so after we got the papers back, everything was done.

For the Dutch husband you need (I live in China, so the procedure might be different for you):

copy of passport - easy (free)
full extract from birth certificate (volledig afschrift geboorteakte (voor in Nederland geboren personen geldt: geen internationaal uittreksel) - my mother got this in Sliedrecht (few euro)
proof that you are no longer registered in the Netherlands (bewijs van uitschrijving met vermelding burgerlijke staat uit uw laatste woonplaats in Nederland) - my mother also got this in Sliedrecht (4.50 euro)
proof of residence, nationality and legal marriage status provided by the Dutch consulate/embassy in China (verklaring domicilie, nationaliteit en burgerlijke staat afgegeven
door de Nederlandse Ambassade/Consulaat in China). - my parents got GBA (gemeentelijke basis administratie) previously and based on that paper the Dutch consulate can make a proof. In total it consisted of two forms so you have to pay the legal fees (295RMB at the moment) two times.

Together:

a signed letter stating the wish you get married
pay 18.10 euro to Gemeente Den Haag/dienst Burgerzaken o.v.v. “art. 43” and mention both your last names

Sending the papers to the Netherlands:

There are two addresses, a postal address and an address for courier-services. We didn't have good experiences with Chinese Postal services, so we decided to pick EMS and insure our documents for 3000 yuan and get tracking. Tracking number was pointless it turned out, but the documents did arrive very quickly (about 4 days) in the Netherlands. Total cost of sending via EMS with insurance was about 260 Yuan (30 yuan was for the insurance of 3000Yuan).

The postal address:

Dienst Burgerzaken, Landelijke Taken, Postbus 12620, 2500 DL Den Haag.

Courier service (we used this address):

Dienst Burgerzaken, Landelijke Taken, Spui 70, 2511 BT Den Haag.

Papers arrive in the Netherlands

After Den Haag received your papers, they will check everything. In our case, all documents were correct. The Dutch official from Den Haag already checked the Chinese documents and copies from my girlfriend in advance, so that was very helpful! They then immediately forwarded the documents to the city where we want to get married (we made an appointment before we sent all the papers to the Netherlands and included a copy of this marriage date already). In our case Ameide then called my parents to make further arrangements such as deciding which official you would like to perform the ceremony. We also still need to decide on the witnesses (getuigen) that we want to be present during the wedding ceremony.

Witnesses
We have not decided upon the witnesses (getuigen) yet, but there are also some requirements for them. We have to look this up later.

The email address of Landelijke Taken in Den Haag is: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
They also have a good website: http://www.denhaag.nl/home/bewoners/loket/burgerzaken/to-1/Ondertrouw.htm

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