Getting married in Egypt

Geely wrote:

@kittywhistle: Sorry to say it, but I think he is after your money, as more Egyptians do in the Red Sea or Luxor area. Please read more about it before you decide to marry him! Remember: if he is a muslim, he can (officially) marry FOUR women, unofficially (orfi) as many as he wants.

Marrying more than 4 women is against Islamic Sharia, whether Urfi or official

You are right that according to sharia it is not allowed, but since orfi is not official, who can check it?

Hi I would like to hear from other women married to younger Egyptian men. I have been happily married to my husband for 6 years now and I am older than him.

Are there no other women married to younger Egyptian men out there?? It would be nice if you added a comment so that people can see these marriages can work.

mydream wrote:

Are there no other women married to younger Egyptian men out there?? It would be nice if you added a comment so that people can see these marriages can work.

My wife of almost two years is older than me (she's 33, I am 31) ... and we're fine !

Thank you for your reply but i think Geely was talking about larger age gaps. I am much older than my husband but we are still happy, after all age is just a number.

My name is mark I Need an urgent reply please am Nigeria and I live in Ukraine now and will be coming with my fiance who is a Slovakia girl to marry in Egypt please can u tell us what it will cost and what document we have to bring.I have my baptismal card that am Christian and she have too.we have document that we are not married before.we will be coming in with entry visa.what more we need loss.and how can we legalize our marriage after our we might have mArried there.thank u

Thank you for the details guys.

I have a question. Nobody was able to answer to me until now. I want to get married with my Egyptian boyfriend. He is Christian Orthodox but the thing is I don't have a religion. Will I be allowed to marry me or do I have to be Christian as well ?



Thank you !!!!
Regards,


Camille

camillec10 wrote:

Thank you for the details guys.

I have a question. Nobody was able to answer to me until now. I want to get married with my Egyptian boyfriend. He is Christian Orthodox but the thing is I don't have a religion. Will I be allowed to marry me or do I have to be Christian as well ?



Thank you !!!!
Regards,


Camille

You can be Christian "on paper". If you know what I mean.

But I used to be Christian and I asked to leave my Church and not be a Christian anymore.

Is it mandatory to have a religion to marry an Egyptian ?

camillec10 wrote:

But I used to be Christian and I asked to leave my Church and not be a Christian anymore.

Is it mandatory to have a religion to marry an Egyptian ?

A Muslim man can marry only a Muslim, Christian or Jewish woman.

I don't know about Christian men though.

No need to change your religion to marry your boyfriend.

camillec10 wrote:

But I used to be Christian and I asked to leave my Church and not be a Christian anymore.

Is it mandatory to have a religion to marry an Egyptian ?

how long does the paper work normally take?

momoforeva wrote:

how long does the paper work normally take?

depends on so many factors, (e.g.: religion, nationality, marital status, ......etc.)

Could be one day, could be few months !

I know it takes 2-3 months for the Embassy of Switzerland to give you the certificate saying you can get married.

I guess some embassies are quicker than others. But it's long...

Hi all,

I am from the UK and my fiance is from Jordan. We are both living in the UAE (this is where we met). He is Muslim, I am Christian. We want to marry in Egypt. How do we go about this? Where  do we get married? Please help x

carololley wrote:

Hi all,

I am from the UK and my fiance is from Jordan. We are both living in the UAE (this is where we met). He is Muslim, I am Christian. We want to marry in Egypt. How do we go about this? Where  do we get married? Please help x

If you are both living in the UAE, it is much easier to get married in the UAE. Why would you want to get married in Egypt?

Complications of two foreigners getting married in Egypt:

1- both of you will need to get approvals from your embassies and notarize them from the Egyptian MoFA

2- both of you will need to get a stamp of touristic residences on your passports to be able to get married

3- To have your marriage recognized by the UAE government (where you both live), you need to notarize from the Trustee General of Notary Public, Egyptian MoFA, Emirati Embassy in Cairo, Emirati MoFA.

4- To have your marriages recognized by your home countries, you will need to notarize by your respective embassies in Cairo (after notary by the Trustee General and Egyptian MoFA).


If you would like to spend 4-6 weeks of your precious time running between stinky Egyptian government offices and waiting for documents to be ready by embassies ....etc., go ahead .... I'll show you the way .... But I do NOT recommend it at all .....


If the purpose of getting married in Egypt is to have a honeymoon there, you can get the legal marriage done here then fly over there.

sorry I am british and i married my egyptian husband in the ebyptian embassy in the UAE
and we didn't need all these natoaries / signatures.

we have a marriage certificate issued by the egyptian embassy.
for the UK you don't need to get anything signed for the marriege to be 'recognised'.
And we have lived in the UK for 6 years - with the proper indefinite leave to remains for my husband - and there is no issuew with the certificate we have!!!!!

Hi All,

I am a divorcee from uk and would like to marry in cairo. I have my divorce certificate. do I need anything from the british embassy in cairo? and what is exactly required, or how will it work for me

nezo150 wrote:

Hi All,

I am a divorcee from uk and would like to marry in cairo. I have my divorce certificate. do I need anything from the british embassy in cairo? and what is exactly required, or how will it work for me

Your divorce needs to be translated and notarized in order to be recognized in Egypt to allow you to be married.

You will also need an NOC (Non Objection Certificate) from the British Embassy in Egypt to get married (regardless you are divorce or not)

Hello everyone

My first post in this forum and I have to say that I am impressed with all the information provided! I wish my better half and I had seen this before we started proceeding with our official marriage in Cairo couple months ago!

The reason I joined your blog is that I do have a question, but before I ask my question, I'd like to add something that no one seems to know (My better half and I sure did not know about it till we had to!), the thing is, I'm a Christian Egyptian, my wife's a Brit, and for our marriage at the Civil marriage's office in the Egyptian Ministry of Justice to be completed, I had to provide them with a "Non Existence of Impediments" certificate issued by the local church which I'm supposed to be "Attending"! Then the certificate from the local church needed to be authorized from the Patriarchate Cathedral church in Abbasya (That's cause this is the Orthodox Cathedral, for Catholics or other Christian Egyptians, please refer to your Cathedral for authorization), and then the authorized certificate needed to be notarized from Cairo's main Security Office!

That should not take longer than couple days to complete but in our case I did not even have the document (Thanks for the very professional help from the UK Embassy staff! I asked if I'd need the paper and they said I won't!!), and the office in the Cathedral was closed for the weekend, which basically killed 3 good days and we ended up getting married just a few hours before my better half's flight But we're through with this part now and we managed to get it done!

The Civil marriages' office provides both spouses Arabic marriage contracts! My wife and I got our actual wedding few weeks after that, but we were too busy arranging for the wedding and the party after the church and we never had time to look into the paperwork! So now we're preparing to apply for a spouse visa for me to join my better half in the UK, and I got the Arabic marriage certificate translated from the translation department of the Publicity and Notarization office in Ramsis, all stamped in Arabic! And then had it notarized again at one of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' offices, again, stamped in Arabic!

So my question is: Will this translated version of the marriage certificate, provided along with the original Arabic of it be accepted as a proof of our official marriage in Egypt when I apply for the UK spouse visa that we're preparing for now? Or will it need to be notarized/stamped at the UK embassy first? I did try to ask the Consular office at the British Embassy but their automatic answer is that they don't deal with visa inquiries! Which I respect and appreciate, really! But it's not a visa inquiry! I just need to know if the paper will be recognized as a valid document by the UK authorities or not!

If anyone can provide any help, that would be much appreciated

Thank you everyone

Correction : it is NOT a civil marriage, as you can see, it marries Muslims according to Muslim law, and Christians according to Christian law (even according to their specific church) ....

You need to translate, attest, and legalize !

Step 1 : you need to translate at the Trustee General office (مكتب الامين العام للشهر العقاري) which is in Es3af, downtown, and get the translation signed and stamped by the Trustee General as well.

Then you need to attest the stamped English Translation(تصديق) by the Egyptian MoFA (مكتب تصديقات وزارة الخارجية) (any attestation office, Mohandiseen, Heliopolis ...etc.)

Finally you need to Legalize by the British Embassy .. Call them and ask for any documents/fees/working hours .....etc. for this. Let them know that you have already stamped the translated version from MoFA already.

IMPORTANT: Trustee General translators are DORKS. Make sure your names are correctly spelled as per both your passports.

The Egyptian wrote:

Correction : it is NOT a civil marriage, as you can see, it marries Muslims according to Muslim law, and Christians according to Christian law (even according to their specific church) ....

You need to translate, attest, and legalize !

Step 1 : you need to translate at the Trustee General office (مكتب الامين العام للشهر العقاري) which is in Es3af, downtown, and get the translation signed and stamped by the Trustee General as well.

Then you need to attest the stamped English Translation(تصديق) by the Egyptian MoFA (مكتب تصديقات وزارة الخارجية) (any attestation office, Mohandiseen, Heliopolis ...etc.)

Finally you need to Legalize by the British Embassy .. Call them and ask for any documents/fees/working hours .....etc. for this. Let them know that you have already stamped the translated version from MoFA already.

IMPORTANT: Trustee General translators are DORKS. Make sure your names are correctly spelled as per both your passports.

Thank you for the quick reply

They are dorks indeed, I did correct the spellings, ID and passport numbers and double checked everything before I signed for collecting the paper.

I did everything you've mentioned so far, apart from the legalizing part at the UK Embassy, and I was wondering if I had to do that, which I thought I'd need to, and now you seem to confirm my doubts, the UK Embassy's legalization is REQUIRED! Although the UK Embassy's website says it's not! Surprise!

I did call them when I was finishing the paperwork and tried to ask if I needed their legalization and whether they'd allow the Egyptian party to do it (Cause their website says the BRITISH Party/parties can have it legalized in their office, but there's no mentioning of the Egyptian party/parties!) But then the "Lady" at the other end of the phone said they don't deal with visa inquiries! Outstanding behavior!

I'll try and e-mail them to see if I can legalize the translated document at their office or not, cause it sounds really silly to pay tons of money on flights, hotels, and days off work just for my better half to come to Cairo to have it legalized at their office!

Thank you again for your quick informative reply

JustAJ wrote:

The Egyptian wrote:

Correction : it is NOT a civil marriage, as you can see, it marries Muslims according to Muslim law, and Christians according to Christian law (even according to their specific church) ....

You need to translate, attest, and legalize !

Step 1 : you need to translate at the Trustee General office (مكتب الامين العام للشهر العقاري) which is in Es3af, downtown, and get the translation signed and stamped by the Trustee General as well.

Then you need to attest the stamped English Translation(تصديق) by the Egyptian MoFA (مكتب تصديقات وزارة الخارجية) (any attestation office, Mohandiseen, Heliopolis ...etc.)

Finally you need to Legalize by the British Embassy .. Call them and ask for any documents/fees/working hours .....etc. for this. Let them know that you have already stamped the translated version from MoFA already.

IMPORTANT: Trustee General translators are DORKS. Make sure your names are correctly spelled as per both your passports.

Thank you for the quick reply

They are dorks indeed, I did correct the spellings, ID and passport numbers and double checked everything before I signed for collecting the paper.

I did everything you've mentioned so far, apart from the legalizing part at the UK Embassy, and I was wondering if I had to do that, which I thought I'd need to, and now you seem to confirm my doubts, the UK Embassy's legalization is REQUIRED! Although the UK Embassy's website says it's not! Surprise!

I did call them when I was finishing the paperwork and tried to ask if I needed their legalization and whether they'd allow the Egyptian party to do it (Cause their website says the BRITISH Party/parties can have it legalized in their office, but there's no mentioning of the Egyptian party/parties!) But then the "Lady" at the other end of the phone said they don't deal with visa inquiries! Outstanding behavior!

I'll try and e-mail them to see if I can legalize the translated document at their office or not, cause it sounds really silly to pay tons of money on flights, hotels, and days off work just for my better half to come to Cairo to have it legalized at their office!

Thank you again for your quick informative reply

Simply said, what is legalization?

A country's document/seal/stamp is not recognized outside that country, and hence you need to legalize. Also, a UK Home Office officer would not know about the 250+ different formats/signatures/stamps of 250+ countries of the world.

Some countries have signed a treaty to remove the need for legalization (Apostille) ..... If two countries are signatory, the documents signed by the MoFA of the issuing country are valid and legal in the other country.

Unfortunately Egypt is NOT a signatory, for this reason, any document exchanged between Egypt and another country needs to be legalized.

The consulate knows the MoFA authorized signatories signatures, and accordingly gives the stamps to legalize the document.

Anyone can legalize a document, doesn't have to be the British spouse. For instance if you are moving to the UK for a job (not married to a British person), and you need to legalize your documents (marriage certificate, college degree .....etc.) who would legalize them for you?


One last thing, saying "better half" in every sentence is annoying (especially for those of us who have been married for years .... LOL ) .....

I understand the legalization bit, I was following the UK Embassy's "Advice" (After going through so much trouble, multiple times, cause of doing just that, following their advice, I feel stupid that I did ) As their website (Their old, archived one at least) did say that

Once the Egyptian marriage has taken place, the original Arabic marriage certificate and an English translation (with no corrections) may be deposited with the Embassy by the British party or parties and, on payment of Consular Fee No 15 (Sterling £ 35), the documents are forwarded to the Registrar General in the United Kingdom so that certified copies can subsequently be obtained in the United Kingdom. It should be clearly understood that there is no legal obligation to have a marriage recorded in the United Kingdom in this manner.

Source: [url=http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130217073211/http://ukinegypt.fco.gov.uk/en/help-f

And as it shows, it did say that only the British Party/parties are able to do it, hence was me wondering if I could

I'll tell your BETTER HALF that you said that

Thanks for the help mate, it really is much appreciated

LOOOOOL

well, this is not Legalization, this is Registration, which is a completely different story.

To bring it closer to you, let's suppose you got married in the UK, not in Egypt. Let's imagine, you travelled to the UK, got married there at the church/ministry/office/whatever, then you need to come back home.

What would you need to do in Egypt so your marriage is recognized and your wife gets her lawful rights as a wife of an Egyptian national?

1- You need to Legalize - Stamp the documents from the British MoFA then the Egyptian embassy in London, so they are legal and recognized in Egypt.

2- You need to register the marriage, as in go to Civil Status authority (مصلحة الاحوال المدنية) and deposit a legalized copy of the marriage, which would be data-entered into the system, afterwards you can get an Egyptian marriage certificate


What you are referring to from the website, which needs the British party is registration, not legalization.

What you need to do now is legalize the documents before sending them to her to process your visa, as a non-legalized document is worthless outside the jurisdiction of Egypt.


and let's hope few years down the road you'd still call her the better half

That's pretty informative! And less confusing than what the wife and I understood from the "lady" in the Embassy

But now you got me confused on another point! What do you mean I need to legalize the documents before sending them to her to process my visa? We're planning for it the other way around actually, she's working on collecting the documents (Payslips, mortgage papers, tax, etc.) then send them over here so I'd start the application..........What have we missed?

She is the better half mate, trust me

Wow ! too much reading , we have experts here .

getting the UK visa is not just about the payslips / mortgage papers etc. for her  -  they are very hot on how long you have known each other - how long have you been married, etc.
They are very keen on preventing people who have married just for the visa to enter the country

some young boys or nen doing as busniess evry where not just egyptian and it is like deal she want some things and she have money.he want.some thing and he have young amd powerfull body and etc so both woman amd man knoe the deal jusy women allways want to lie her self to do thes under love cover and she know it is  just deal for. . . .

biffy wrote:

getting the UK visa is not just about the payslips / mortgage papers etc. for her  -  they are very hot on how long you have known each other - how long have you been married, etc.
They are very keen on preventing people who have married just for the visa to enter the country

We both understand that, I was just pointing out that our plans are the other way around........ We only got married recently, but that doesn't mean we got married right when we met

I know that I am an Egyptian and I don't have the right to comment on the UK laws, but let's just face it, the UK immigration laws aren't doing much "preventing" anyone from entering the country, specially those who got married just for the visa.........Not yet anyway.......

sorry - but yes they are!!!

You may see alot of immigration - but most of that now is from other 'european countries whom we can't stop.

When my Husband and I decided to leave the UAE - where we met, got married and had our first daughter - we had to jump through hoops.
AFter being in the UK for over 2 years (and another daughter later) the hoops we had to jump through were incredible -and it has been toughened since then.  They virtually wanted our every movement since we had gone to the UK.

The one thing we are unabe to do is stop the influx of other europeans - but that is why the issue of staying in europe or not is becoming such a big issue.

hi i am currently looking into getting married in egypt, i myself am half egyptian half english born in england, i am muslim, i want to marry my partner who is half chinese mayalsian half irish, and get married in egypt , how do we go about this. any help much appriciated

Great job all of you, I could not add more even I did this 2 years

tazman78t wrote:

hi i am currently looking into getting married in egypt, i myself am half egyptian half english born in england, i am muslim, i want to marry my partner who is half chinese mayalsian half irish, and get married in egypt , how do we go about this. any help much appriciated

You will get married in Egypt as an Egyptian national so all you need is National ID Card and health certificate.

Your wife will need to get an approval from her embassy..... Preferably the Irish embassy as it will make it easier.

What are your religions?

Hi, guys
I am so glad I found this topic by luck. I am currently in the situatuion that many people are used to be and I need anybody's help. I plan to marry in Cairo soon and nowadays I am trying to find all the possible information I need for that. My head is in a big mess. Those friends who got married there tell me this, the embassy's web-site tells that, the Internet tells that and so on and so fort. I gotta make it clear for myself finally.
I live in Belarus, as far as I understood all I need to get from my country is the paper I am not married and have never been. Then with this paper I come to Cairo, notarize it in my embassy and then what? I am a muslim and I heard I can make nikah and after it with the marriage contract, both of our passports and photos I go to mugamma to apply for a 6-months visa. After I get it, I can marry in an official way, they say in shara-akari...I guess it is a notary office, is it? Or where should we? I also heard we cannot make nikah, because I am a foreighner, only after getting this fiance visa and we must make an orfi contract, but I don't wanna do it!!
Please, ya gama3, help me with all the steps how it should be done:(
And do we need medical certificates as well?

Did you read this topic from the first page? First page is here: https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=150289

All ex-USSR female citizens cannot get married without having a six-month non-touristic residence visa first, the only way for some people to get is by getting married Urfi and using Urfi contract to get a six months visa, afterwards it can be used for legal marriage

kareelena wrote:

Hi, guys
I am so glad I found this topic by luck. I am currently in the situatuion that many people are used to be and I need anybody's help. I plan to marry in Cairo soon and nowadays I am trying to find all the possible information I need for that. My head is in a big mess. Those friends who got married there tell me this, the embassy's web-site tells that, the Internet tells that and so on and so fort. I gotta make it clear for myself finally.
I live in Belarus, as far as I understood all I need to get from my country is the paper I am not married and have never been. Then with this paper I come to Cairo, notarize it in my embassy and then what? I am a muslim and I heard I can make nikah and after it with the marriage contract, both of our passports and photos I go to mugamma to apply for a 6-months visa. After I get it, I can marry in an official way, they say in shara-akari...I guess it is a notary office, is it? Or where should we? I also heard we cannot make nikah, because I am a foreighner, only after getting this fiance visa and we must make an orfi contract, but I don't wanna do it!!
Please, ya gama3, help me with all the steps how it should be done:(
And do we need medical certificates as well?

The Egyptian wrote:

All ex-USSR female citizens cannot get married without having a six-month non-touristic residence visa first, the only way for some people to get is by getting married Urfi and using Urfi contract to get a six months visa, afterwards it can be used for legal marriage

kareelena wrote:

Hi, guys
I am so glad I found this topic by luck. I am currently in the situatuion that many people are used to be and I need anybody's help. I plan to marry in Cairo soon and nowadays I am trying to find all the possible information I need for that. My head is in a big mess. Those friends who got married there tell me this, the embassy's web-site tells that, the Internet tells that and so on and so fort. I gotta make it clear for myself finally.
I live in Belarus, as far as I understood all I need to get from my country is the paper I am not married and have never been. Then with this paper I come to Cairo, notarize it in my embassy and then what? I am a muslim and I heard I can make nikah and after it with the marriage contract, both of our passports and photos I go to mugamma to apply for a 6-months visa. After I get it, I can marry in an official way, they say in shara-akari...I guess it is a notary office, is it? Or where should we? I also heard we cannot make nikah, because I am a foreighner, only after getting this fiance visa and we must make an orfi contract, but I don't wanna do it!!
Please, ya gama3, help me with all the steps how it should be done:(
And do we need medical certificates as well?

I think i wrote about the ufri contract, i am a muslim and i dont wanna make it like that, so i asked if its possible to make nikah instead of it and obtain 6months visa afterwards?