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The good news is that a destination wedding in Vietnam is relatively inexpensive and can be a wonderful event given some of the country’s beautiful locations – including beach ceremonies. However, a destination wedding in Vietnam is NOT a legal wedding and will not provide you with the necessary documentation when you apply to sponsor your spouse to come to Canada.

The not-so-good news is that a legal wedding in Vietnam can be a fairly complex process with a number of steps you have to follow. However, your Vietnamese spouse to-be and their family will obviously be a great help in navigating the process. In all our blogs on marriage and sponsorship in various countries we emphasize planning and patience to ensure your legal marriage goes as smoothly as possible, and this is especially true in the case of Vietnam. So, let’s go through an overview of marriage in the country to help you get started. We, as always, will also include a good summary of the sponsorship process for bringing your spouse to Canada.

GETTING MARRIED IN VIETNAM

The processing of registering your marriage is a little like a spousal sponsorship to Canada: you gather your documents from your home country and have them certified and translated, authenticated, and then legalized (Vietnam does not have apostilles) by the Vietnamese diplomatic mission.

Then you submit your marriage application at a District Justice Office in person and after a number of days (up to 25) your marriage will be approved and you’ll then need to register your marriage.

Let’s go through the process, step by step:

• In Vietnam, the first thing to do is check with your local District Justice Office and Provincial People’s Committee to ensure that you understand all the required documentation, as well as the marriage requirements.

MARRIAGE REQUIREMENTS

• Marriage requirements include:
  • If your spouse to-be is Vietnamese, then you may have to file your marriage application in the district office where they live
  • Both participants must be of legal age: 20 years or older for men and 18 years or older for women.
  • They must be of sound mind and able to voluntarily agree to the marriage and a mental health certificate or medical certificate detailing this is usually required. The medical exam must also check for any infectious diseases and have the doctor’s comments translated into Vietnamese.
  • The participants cannot be closely related or from the same adoptive family and the marriage itself must be geniune and not coerced (it must be voluntarily agreed to in other words).
  • Additionally, it has been reported that one partner will need to be a resident of Vietnam or have resided there for at least 21 days prior to the wedding. Whether this applies to Vietnamese citizens who no longer reside in Vietnam is unclear.
  • Please note that Vietnam does not permit same-sex weddings.
• The foreign (non-Vietnamese) spouse will need the following documents:
  • A Statement in Lieu of a certificate of non-impediment to marriage issued by Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs.
  • For non-Canadians a Certificate of non-impediment to marriage or a similar affidavit
  • A marriage search certificate issued by your province’s (or state’s) Office of Vital Statistics from the applicant’s legal age up to the date of submission of the application for marriage
  • A Declaration of Single Status or a similar Affidavit, certified by a Notary Public or a Commissioner of Oaths
  • A divorce certificate if divorced
  • A death certificate if widowed
  • A Medical Certificate issued by an authorized medical association or a physician, stating that:
    • The applicant has no mental or infectious diseases
    • The applicant has no sexually transmitted diseases
    • It includes supporting blood tests and report of phyiscal examinations
    • The applicant is generally healthy and fit to get married
    • The doctor’s comments need to be translated into Vietnamese but the test results do not.
  • A copy of your Birth Certificate certified by a Public Notary or Commissioner of Oaths
    • If your birth certificate is unavailable you can provide an Affidavit or Statutory Declaration in Lieu of a birth certificate.
  • A copy of your passport or PR card or Landed Immigrant Document
  • A certified copy of any name-change document
  • If you are unable to submit these documents in person in Vietnam you will need to grant a Power of Attorney to your spouse to-be in Vietnam in order for them to submit the documents you send them.
  • All documents must still be valid 6 months from the issue date, so it’s best to gather them within 6 months of submitting your application for marriage.
  • All documents must be authenticated by the Department of Foreign Affairs (or equivalent government department/agency in your home country) and then translated and legalized by the Vietnamese Embassy. You may need to provide them with additional copies they can then notarize. Check with the embassy or consulate.

REGISTERING YOUR MARRIAGE IN VIETNAM

• You submit your marriage registration dossier (all your documents listed above as well as your Vietnamese spouse’s documents – for these your spouse should contact their district office beforehand in order to see what they need) to the local District Office generally located in the Provincial People’s Committee.
• You will fill out your marriage application form which you and your spouse must sign in the presence of the Provincial or District People’s Committee civil status official.
  • A small but important detail: One person only should fill out the form using the same pen throughout.
• After your submission and payment of all fees, your district office may require you to attend an interview to ensure that the marriage is consensual and both sides voluntarily agree to get married.
• The dossier is reviewed at the District Office and then sent to the Provincial People’s Committee for a final decision.
• A marriage certificate will then be issued, signed by the head of the Provincial People’s Committee, and the District Office then arranges a civil marriage ceremony within 5 business days.
• You will have 15 days to register your marriage after submitting your application but this may be extended by 10 days if local authorities needs more time. Processing of your application normally takes from 5 to 7 business days before it is approved.
• At the civil ceremony, you sign your marriage certificate and the marriage is registered in Vietnam’s civil register.

Sponsoring your 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 such as 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 Vietnam.
• You have to decide whether you want to do:
  • an overseas sponsorship where your spouse remains in Vietnam 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.
  • There is always the option of bringing your to-be spouse to Canada to get married, and then they return to Vietnam and begin an overseas application.
  • In this case you’re balancing the difficulty of getting a tourist visa for your spouse (you’ll have to convince IRCC officials they won’t be staying in Canada and you will instead do an overseas sponsorship) against the details of getting married in Vietnam.
• As a sponsor, you should also 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.
• 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 stretch 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 – including for possible interviews – when putting together your application. The process for registering your marriage in Vietnam is quite lengthy and bureaucratic. Be focused, patient, and prepared and make sure your documentation is in order and, if necessary, legalized as Vietnam does not have apostilles. In the end, your sponsorship will be that much easier.