Issuance of a marriage certificate/international marriage certificate

Up-to-date information on the details included in a marriage certificate, applying for a marriage certificate, costs of issuing a marriage certificate, etc.

General information

Caution

These rules apply to all marriage ceremonies in Austria.

Marriage certificates are one of the four essential civil status documents, along with birth certificates, death certicates and partnership certificates.

The marriage certificate includes

  • the surnames of the spouses following marriage,
  • academic degrees/professional title,
  • forenames,
  • other names,
  • their surnames prior to marriage,
  • date and place of birth,
  • optionally, membership of a legally recognised church or religious community and
  • the date and place of the marriage ceremony. 

On request, there is the option for a multilingual international marriage certificate to be issued.

Requirements

To prevent third parties from freely accessing your data, the right to have a marriage certificate issued is limited to a specific group of people.

The following people can request a marriage certificate, provided that this is not precluded by any overriding interests worthy of protection in respect of the persons to whom the registration relates:

  • persons to whom the registration relates and other persons whose civil status is affected by the registration
  • persons who establish a legal interest in doing so

Competent authority

For marriages after 1 August 1938:

All authorities responsible for civil status, i.e.:

For marriages before 1. August 1938:

  • Here, parish offices of the various denominations, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde for its members of religion and district administrative administrations for members of non-recognized religious communities and persons without religious confession kept the birth registers. 
  • In these cases, therefore, the request for the issuance of the desired certificate or information, for example for the place of marriage Vienna, would have to be addressed to:

Procedure

An application must be submitted to the relevant body for a marriage certificate or international marriage certificate to be issued. Applications can be made in person, in writing or electronically (with a citizen cardGerman text).

A marriage certificate is generally issued immediately if applied for in person.

Required documents

  • for applicants appearing in person: official photo ID
  • if applicable, evidence for the purpose of establishing a legal interest

Costs and fees

For the application

For the issue of a marriage certificate

  • federal administration fee: 7.20 Euro
  • federal administrative levy: 2.10 Euro

There are generally additional costs for sending the marriage certificate. Please inquire about this at the competent registry office.

Further information

For Austrians abroad, it is possible to have the certificate printed out by the Austrian diplomatic representations if all of the required data is available in the Central Register of Civil Status (ZPR). Austrian citizens and stateless persons (with their habitual place of residence in Austria) can apply for a foreign marriage certificate via the Austrian diplomatic representations or the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (acquiring a certificate).

Further links

Legal basis

Translated by the European Commission
Last update: 3 February 2023

Responsible for the content: Federal Ministry of the Interior