From 1st January 2014 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) will discontinue its service of depositing foreign marriage and civil partnership certificates with the General Register Offices in the UK. British nationals overseas will need to make their own arrangements for the safekeeping of these certificates, as they do for other important documents.
This change is being introduced as part of the FCO’s 2013-16 Consular Strategy to provide high-quality, modern, cost effective and efficient support to British Nationals overseas.
The FCO highlights that there is no legal requirement to deposit a foreign marriage or civil partnership certificate with the GRO, or to have a marriage/civil partnership recorded in the UK.
The deposit of a foreign certificate does not make the marriage legal in the UK, nor does it ‘recognise’ the marriage as a valid one. The validity in UK law of a marriage or civil partnership contracted in a foreign country is in no way affected by its having been, or not having been, recorded in the UK.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.
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