No. 07 · Paperwork
The paperwork, in plain terms
Foreign nationals can marry in Croatia on the same terms as Croatian citizens. It is not difficult, but it is specific, and almost nobody sets it out properly. Here is the short version, and then the part that catches people out.
What you have to produce
A birth certificate extract, no older than three months. A certificate of free marital status, showing there is no impediment to the marriage and that it will be recognised at home. Photo identification and your passports. If either of you has been married before, the document that ended it.
Two of those do not exist under that name in every country. British citizens obtain a Certificate of No Impediment from the British Embassy in Zagreb. Australians obtain one from their embassy, alongside a state or territory single status certificate. The United States does not issue certificates of no impediment at all, so American citizens sign a notarised affidavit of eligibility to marry instead.
Apostille and translation
Documents from outside the EU (the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand) need an Apostille from the authority that issued them. Documents issued in another EU member state should not need one under EU Regulation 2016/1191, but registrars do not all read it the same way, so confirm it with the office rather than assume it.
Everything not in Croatian has to be translated by a certified court interpreter. There are two ways around the cost. An EU multilingual standard form attached to the original removes the need for a translation. So does an international multilingual extract issued under the 1976 CIEC convention, which most European countries will give you if you ask for that version rather than the domestic one.
Where you apply, and when
Both of you apply in person at the registry office responsible for the place where you are marrying. On this island that means the registry office in Hvar town for Hvar and the western end, and the office in Stari Grad for Stari Grad, Jelsa and Sućuraj. The date is then set, as a rule, between the thirtieth and the forty-fifth day after that application, and can be pushed out to ninety days.
The trap: your documents are only valid for three months, and the notice period is at least thirty days. That leaves a usable window of roughly six weeks between collecting the paperwork at home and standing in front of the registrar. Order the documents too early and they expire; order them too late and you miss the notice. This is the single most common way a foreign wedding in Croatia goes wrong, and it is entirely avoidable.
On the day
Two witnesses, both over eighteen, with passports. They do not need to be Croatian. If neither of you speaks Croatian, a certified court interpreter has to be present for the ceremony itself, and the registrar records who they were.
A civil ceremony can be held somewhere other than the registry office: a terrace, a garden, a bay. The law allows it, the registrar decides whether the place is suitable, and there is a separate statutory fee that rises with distance, with the hour of the day, and again if it falls outside county working hours. A Saturday evening in a villa is the most expensive version of it, and the one almost everyone wants.
One practical warning. The registry offices on the island do not work five days a week; small offices run on set office days fixed by the county. Published sources disagree about which days those currently are, so the date of your appointment is worth confirming by telephone before you book flights around it. We do that call for you.
Civil, church or symbolic
A Catholic ceremony has full civil effect in Croatia. You collect a certificate from the registrar first, it is valid for three months, the priest sends the signed record back within five days and the marriage is entered in the state register. Several other religious communities have the same standing. On Hvar this is the route through the cathedral on the square or the church of the Franciscan monastery.
A symbolic ceremony has no legal effect whatsoever, and that is often exactly the right choice. Many couples marry quietly at home a few days before or after, and keep the ceremony here for the people they love: no documents, no interpreter, no registrar’s calendar to work around. We are happy either way and will tell you honestly which one is less work for you.
Croatian law defines marriage as a union of a woman and a man. Same-sex couples can enter a registered life partnership in Croatia, but not a marriage.
Back at home
A Croatian marriage is recognised in the United Kingdom with nothing further to do, since the certificate deposit service was discontinued in 2014. Australia recognises it and cannot register it. Germany recognises it, and the entry in the German register is optional, though a change of surname is not automatic. In the United States recognition is a matter of state law.
Ask the registrar for the international multilingual extract of the marriage record on the day, not months later. Ordering it afterwards from abroad takes weeks, and you will want it for passports, banks and name changes.
We deal with the registrar and the consulate for you and tell you exactly which documents to bring and when. Send us your nationalities and the month you have in mind and we take it from there.