
Getting married to your Cuban fiancé/fiancée in Cuba as a foreign citizen is different. Not only do you have the language barrier and cultural differences when applying to get married, you also have to wind your way through a state bureaucracy in a socialist country.
Make no mistake, people do get happily married in Cuba, but you need a clear road map of what has to be done. And in what order. Or else, you’ll find yourself having to fly back and forth between your country and Cuba in order to get your documents certified, notarized, translated, and legalized. And please don’t forget to pay your fees, some of which can be surprisingly costly.
Additionally, when you apply to sponsor your spouse to come to Canada, you may find that IRCC officials tend to be a little more cautious regarding possible marriages of convenience – especially by the Cuban partner. That means a higher possibility of interviews and additional scrutiny in what is already a long and detailed process.
Again, marriage and sponsorship with a Cuban spouse can all be done, as long as you prepare beforehand and are willing to take the time and effort to get things right the first time. So, here’s an overview of the process to help get you started.
Marriage in Cuba
While Cuba is not at all restrictive as to what nationalities or people of what religion can marry, the required documentation is fairly rigorous. That means that before you even start to plan a wedding date and get on that flight to Havana, you need to start gathering the documents you’ll need. And that usually means certifying, translating, notarizing, and legalizing.
What a Canadian (or other foreign nationality) will need:
- You’ll need your birth certificate – a long-form certificate is the safest bet.
- If you’re single, you’ll need a certificate of status which in Canada means a Statement in lieu of a certificate of non-impediment to marriage.
- If you’re divorced, you’ll need both your marriage and divorce certificates.
- If you’re widowed, you’ll need both your marriage certificate and your former spouse’s death certificate.
- And of course, you’ll need your passport and visa or tourist card.
Cuba is not a signatory to the Hague Convention which means it does not recognize apostilles (the seals that give a document legal validity in any member country). Instead, you have to get your documents legalized at the Cuban embassy or consulate.
And before you can get them legalized, they will have to be translated by a certified translator into Spanish, and if you are using copies of your documents, they have to be notarized as well. Documents also have to authenticated at Foreign Affairs in Ottawa.
What your Cuban to-be Spouse will need:
- They’ll need their Cuban ID card
- If they’re divorced, they’ll their divorce certificate or a notarized copy.
- If they’ve been divorced for less than 300 days, they will need a medical certificate showing whether they’re pregnant.
- If they’re a widow, they’ll need their marriage certificate and their spouse’s death certificate.
- If they’ve changed their name, they may also need an affidavit of identity.
- You will also need 2 adult witnesses when you get married. They can be Cuban or foreign but they have to be functional in Spanish. A Cuban witness needs to bring their Identity Card and a foreign witness needs their passport.
- Finally, if you can’t make it to Cuba for the wedding, you can appoint someone to represent you at the wedding ceremony by means of a notarized letter submitted to the Cuban consulate in Canada as proxy weddings are permitted in Cuba. However, it is important to note that proxy marriages are not recognized in Canada. IRCC does not accept marriages conducted via proxy, telephone, fax or any remote means. Therefore, sponsorship applications based on such marriages will not be approved by IRCC.
Location
In Cuba
Seeing you’re also planning on sponsoring your spouse to come to Canada, your wedding must be officiated either at the Consultoría Juridica Internacional in Havana (they have 2 offices in the city) or by an international lawyer if you choose to get married at a resort, for example. A “spiritual” wedding on a beach somewhere in Cuba (unless you have an international lawyer officiating which makes it a legal civil wedding) will not work well with IRCC officials when you begin the sponsoring process. Remember that there are fairly substantial fees involved at this stage if you use a lawyer.
In Canada
This depends on whether you can get a visitor visa for your spouse, or whether they are already in Canada on a study or work permit, for example. Getting a visitor visa for a Cuban national is not easy, so unless they have a study or work permit, the safer bet is most likely to have the wedding in Cuba and begin an outbound sponsorship – as we’ll explain in the next section below.
The Wedding Celebration
Make sure this is the fun part. What we mean is you need to have a reasonable number of guests at your celebration, hopefully some family members from both sides for those wedding photographs, which will help prove the validity of your marriage to immigration officials in Canada. As for the celebration itself, resorts can handle it for a fee course, or your spouse’s family in Cuba can participate finding a place and organizing it, while you get the bill.
A Cuban wedding celebration can be quite wonderful and there are plenty of resorts in Cuba that will take care of this for you, but we’re here to help you start the next part of the process, the spousal sponsorship.
Sponsoring your Cuban Spouse to Canada
The spousal sponsorship process in Canada is now done online, not on paper, unless you qualify for special treatment, including disabilities, that prevent you from applying online. So, you will have to register with and use IRCC’s Online Portal for permanent residence applications (of which spousal sponsorship is one of the main types along with economic applications through Express Entry).
There are several key takeaways to the spousal sponsorship process in Canada:
- You have to apply to IRCC to qualify as a sponsor. That means giving information on your job, income, and savings (as well as other information) to ensure that you can successfully support your spouse and any accompanying dependents when they come to live in Canada. If you are deemed ineligible to be a sponsor, the application is often cancelled, although you can appeal.
- Your spouse has to apply for permanent residence in Canada, which means they have to satisfy all the eligibility requirements that IRCC has in place for permanent residents.
- The forms your spouse fills out are region-specific or even country-specific. In this case, they will have to download and fill out and submit those forms appropriate to a permanent resident application from Cuba.
- You have to decide whether you want to do:
- an overseas sponsorship where your spouse remains in Cuba until your application is successful and they have their PR visa, or
- an inland sponsorship where they get a visitor visa to visit Canada and you apply from inside Canada. You can also apply in Canada if your spouse is on a work or study permit.
- A Cuban national may face difficulties getting a visitor visa to Canada. It may involve delays or even rejection, especially if you state the purpose is to be married in Canada.
- As we suggested above, the safest bet is to get married in Cuba and do an overseas sponsorship application.
- As a sponsor, you should know what your “undertaking” (a contractual obligation to support your spouse) involves and for how long you will be responsible for your sponsored spouse and any dependents.
I have this problem …
In a multitrack process like marriage abroad combined with spousal sponsorship there will almost always be problems with documentation and status, among other things. Here are some typical issues that can slow down your application or even result in a rejection:
- Not enough evidence of a relationship: one of the key alarm signals for IRCC officials is the suspicion that a spousal sponsorship is for immigration purposes only. Not only that, but either party to the marriage may be suspected of using the sponsorship for the wrong reasons. So, it’s essential you convince IRCC your relationship is genuine. As we stated above, this is especially true of marriages with Cuban nationals. You may feel it is unfair, but it is best to be aware of this and to feel confident your future spouse is marrying you for all the right reasons.
- Sponsor’s eligibility: you may feel you will be a responsible and caring sponsor, but there are financial metrics you have to meet. It depends in large part on whether your spouse has dependent children.
- Misrepresentation: it is never a good idea to bend the facts in any application whatsoever when dealing with IRCC. You might get away with it but it is much more likely that a misrepresentation will land you in trouble with IRCC. Cleaning up a misrepresentation is not easy and may sometimes require a waiting period of years.
- Criminality: this is perhaps the toughest one. It will depend on whether a misdemeanor or a felony is involved and means a complex process of appeals to various agencies or departments of the Canadian government.
The key is to prepare as much as possible when putting together your application – and especially when planning and doing your wedding Cuba as well. And that means understanding the admittedly bureaucratic process in Cuba, as well. Be focused, patient, and prepared and make sure your documentation is in order and your sponsorship will go that much better.