How a Taiwanese married to a German
Step 1. Find a nice German to fall in love with
Step 2. Cycle from Taiwan to Germany to see you both fit each other or not
Step 3. After all the challenges, upgrade the relationship to be official
Step 4. Choose where to register the marriage
If you choose Taiwan, please continue with the next step…
Step 5. Apply for German partner’s Ehefähigkeitszeugnis in the local Standesamt, call first to ask which documents you need.
Normally you will need…
Birth Certificate & German ID
Birth Certificate & Passport & Single Certificate
As a Taiwanese, you can use your Household Registration (戶籍謄本) (issued in the last 3 months) to apply for your Birth Certificate and Single Certificate in the Taipei Office in Germany.
In our case, I only brought my Taiwanese Household Registration (in English) and my passport to the Standesamt.
Luckily, they accepted my Household Registration as Birth Certificate without a German translation. But the Single Certificate is another issue…
So, I got my Single Certificate like this…
We got Stephan’s Ehefähigkeitszeugnis on the same day and we totally didn’t expect that.
Step 6. Vorbeglaubigung (pre-legalisation)
The process differs from state to state in Germany. In our state, Rheinland-Pfalz, we could download and fill a form from the ADD in Kaiserslautern.
After sending it and the Ehefähigkeitszeugnis there, they sent us a bill. After paying that, they sent everything back with a stamp, which confirms that the signature from the Standesamt is real. This process took about one week.
Step 7. Legalisation from Taipei office in Germany
We had to download and fill a form from the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and transfer the fee to the bank account of the Taipei Office Frankfurt (which is accredited to our state).
We sent the form, proof of payment and the Ehefähigkeitszeugnis there. It came back a few days later with a paper in front declaring that this document can now be legally used in the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Step 8. Bring this Ehefähigkeitszeugnis back to Taiwan and translate it to Chinese (you can do it yourself)
Step 9. Bring the Ehefähigkeitszeugnis in Chinese to a public notary (法院公證人) to approve the translation.
Step 10. Register your marriage in the Household Registration Office, you will need…
Passport & Ehefähigkeitszeugnis + Chinese translation & Chinese name declaration
Taiwanese ID & Original Household Certificate (戶口名簿正本) & Two witness signatures and stamps
When you have everything ready, the registration goes very fast.
Step 11. Recognizing the marriage in Germany
To do this, we had to do the legalisation in Taiwan: Bring the marriage certificate to a district court to do a pre-legalisation. Then, bring it to the German Institute Taipei and let them legalize it. Then it had a stamp, saying that it is now a legal document in Germany.
We brought the certificate to our German civil office (Bürgerbüro). They didn’t ask us for a translation, entered the data into their computer and that was it.
Step 12 (optional): Getting a German marriage certificate (Nachbeurkundung)
We went to the Standesamt and brought our ID / Passport, birth certificates and the Taiwanese marriage certificate. They also didn’t ask us for a German translation. They then issued us a German marriage certificate.
Note: This is completely optional, but still very recommended, as any other institutions would be very confused with a Taiwanese marriage certificate.
