Getting married in Thailand as foreigners: the papers, the district office, same-sex couples

Thailand asks for no period of residence, and none of the official pages we read mentions a notice period: the work is the paperwork, and most of it is done before you reach the district office. This guide is for couples who live abroad, whether both of you are foreigners or one of you is Thai. If you only want a ceremony here, Thailand asks nothing of you for it: see symbolic ceremonies, below.

Legal or symbolic: what counts in Thailand

Couples who want a blessing and a legal marriage do both, the registration before or after the ceremony. You must both be 18 or over — the age was 17 until January 2025 — and anyone under 20 brings a parent or guardian (iLaw; Department of Consular Affairs).

Step by step, from home to the district office

1. 1Choose the province and the month. You can register at any district office in the country, whatever your domicile (Department of Provincial Administration), but your document may tie you to one: the British affirmation names a month and a province, and the district office must be in that province (GOV.UK).
2. 2Get the document that says you’re free to marry — from your embassy in Bangkok or from an authority at home (below). Each foreign partner needs one; a Thai partner brings their national ID card (Department of Consular Affairs).
3. 3Have it translated into Thai. The translation is headed “translation” (คำแปล), follows the layout of the original, translates every signature and stamp, and ends with the translator’s statement that it is correct, signed with their full name in Thai and a phone number (Department of Consular Affairs).
4. 4Have the translation legalised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Consular Affairs: book online at qlegal.consular.go.th, bring the original and the translation, pay at the counter, collect (Department of Consular Affairs).
5. 5Register at the district office: the two of you, your passports, the legalised documents and two witnesses, one for each of you (Department of Consular Affairs). The registrar records the marriage and gives you two identical certificates in Thai (GOV.UK).
6. 6Take the marriage home: ask for the English version of the certificate, have it legalised, and register the marriage with your own country (below).

The document that says you’re free to marry

Thai law asks every foreigner who registers a marriage for two documents: proof of identity, usually the passport, and a certificate of marital status — for some countries an affidavit. The Department of Provincial Administration, which runs the district offices, calls the second the basic evidence that you have no spouse under your own country’s law (circular of 29 September 2025). In May 2026 it told district offices that this evidence need not come from an embassy or a consulate, as long as it comes from an authority competent under your own law, states your status — single, divorced or widowed — and has been translated and legalised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (circular of 26 May 2026).

• From your embassy in Bangkok: it is then translated and legalised in Thailand, with no step at home (Department of Consular Affairs). The British Embassy issues a marital status affirmation: you apply online — £50 for the affirmation and £25 for a certified copy of your passport — and attend an appointment at least seven days later; there are up to 52 a week, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays, bookable 45 days ahead, and waits of up to three weeks at busy times. You give the month and the province of the wedding, two referees who don’t live in Thailand, proof of your address and, if you were married before, the final divorce or dissolution order; your partner doesn’t have to come (GOV.UK, updated 6 November 2025).
• From your own country: a certificate issued at home is legalised first by your country’s foreign ministry and by the Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate there, then translated into Thai and legalised again in Thailand (Department of Consular Affairs).
• Embassies change what they issue. Belgium’s embassy stopped its ‘affidavit for marriage in Thailand’ on 1 July 2025 and now issues a certificate of no impediment (Department of Provincial Administration, August 2025). The U.S. Embassy’s notarial page still lists a marriage affidavit, at $50 a seal (U.S. Embassy Bangkok, April 2026), while the Department of Provincial Administration told district offices that the Embassy stopped notarising it on 1 August 2025 (circular of 29 September 2025): Americans should ask the Embassy and their district office before they plan.
• Its date matters. The British Embassy takes no application more than three months before the wedding, and most district offices accept affirmations dated no more than three months before it (GOV.UK). Ask your district office what it accepts for your document.

Translation and legalisation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Every document in a foreign language reaches the district office translated into Thai, the translation legalised by the Department of Consular Affairs (Department of Consular Affairs). The Ministry checks and legalises; it doesn’t translate for you, though the British Embassy points to translation services at the Legalisation Division on Chaeng Watthana Road (GOV.UK).

• Where: the Legalization Division on Chaeng Watthana Road in Bangkok, its office at Central World in Pathum Wan, and sections in Chiang Mai, Phuket, Pattaya, Songkhla and Ubon Ratchathani; some documents can be sent by post (Department of Consular Affairs).
• How: book online, take a queue card on the day, hand in the originals and the translations, pay, and collect (Department of Consular Affairs).
• Cost and time: 200 baht a legalisation sticker, ready in three working days counting the day you hand it in, or 400 baht for the same day (Department of Consular Affairs, Chaeng Watthana). A translation that needs correcting goes back before 2 pm for the next day; nothing is legalised until it is right.
• From 28 February 2027: Thailand joined the Apostille Convention on 30 June 2026, and it applies there from 28 February 2027 (HCCH). From then on, public documents from another member country should need an apostille instead of the chain of legalisations; the translation into Thai is a separate rule — ask the Department of Consular Affairs how it treats a translated, apostilled document.

At the district office

You can register at any district office — the amphoe in the provinces, the khet in Bangkok — wherever you live (Department of Provincial Administration). You both attend with your passports and the legalised documents, and two witnesses, one for each of you (Department of Consular Affairs). Registering at the office is free; a registrar can also register you at a place you choose, for 200 baht, with transport arranged by you (Department of Provincial Administration, as reported by Thansettakij). The registrar checks your status in the marriage register and, if anything seems unclear, may interview each of you separately (circular of 26 May 2026). You leave with two identical marriage certificates in Thai (GOV.UK).

Same-sex couples

Thailand’s marriage equality law — the Civil and Commercial Code Amendment Act (No. 24) — was published in the Royal Gazette on 24 September 2024: it speaks of two persons instead of a man and a woman and raises the minimum age to 18. The Ministry of Interior opened registrations on 23 January 2025 (iLaw), and the U.S. Embassy confirms that same-sex marriage in Thailand has been legal since that day. A foreign partner still needs a document from home that says they are free to marry, so ask your embassy before you book: GOV.UK’s page still says the British Embassy will help once the Ministry of Interior sets out the procedure (updated November 2025). Then ask at home whether your country will recognise the marriage.

Buddhist blessings, temples and symbolic ceremonies

“Marriage under this Code shall be effected only on registration” (Civil and Commercial Code, s. 1457), and “religious ceremonies are not valid on their own” (GOV.UK). A blessing by monks, a church wedding or a ceremony on the sand can be the heart of the day, but the marriage is the entry in the register.

• In a temple: sleeves, and skirts or trousers below the knee; shoes off before you enter; step over the raised threshold, not on it; feet pointed away from a Buddha image, and never sitting higher than it; hats off; women don’t touch a monk or his robes and hand him nothing directly. Most temples allow photos, but not in the way of anyone praying (TAT).
• A symbolic ceremony needs no documents in Thailand, so many couples marry legally at home first and celebrate here (Expatica): the only paperwork is then your own country’s.
• National parks set their own rules and close some sites every year, often in the rainy months — the Similan and Surin islands from mid-May to mid-October (TAT; national parks’ 2024 list): ask the park before you plan photos there.

What it costs

After the wedding: the certificate, the English version, home

• The certificate is in Thai, in two identical copies (GOV.UK). District offices also issue 30 kinds of registration documents in English, the marriage register among them, so it needs no translation abroad; have it legalised by the Department of Consular Affairs before you use it (Department of Provincial Administration).
• For home: a Thai document is certified by the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs before a foreign embassy will legalise it — Portugal’s embassy, for one, legalises only documents the Ministry has already certified (Embassy of Portugal in Bangkok). From 28 February 2027 an apostille should replace that chain between member countries (HCCH).
• Recognition: the UK recognises a Thai marriage if you followed the correct process under Thai law and the marriage would be allowed under UK law (GOV.UK); other countries have their own rules — ask your registry or consulate before the wedding.
• Married abroad, recorded in Thailand: a Thai partner who married abroad can record the marriage in the family status register (Kor Ror 22) once the certificate is translated into Thai and legalised (Department of Consular Affairs; Department of Provincial Administration).

A timeline, in relative terms

Where your photographer fits in

• The registration is an entry in a register, not a ceremony: ask the district office whether photos are allowed, and plan the portraits around it — the signing and the certificate belong in the story too.
• Witnesses: two, one for each of you (Department of Consular Affairs). Whether your photographer can be one is the district office’s call — ask.
• Light: this close to the equator the sun sets between about a quarter to six and seven all year, and dusk is short — the last light goes twenty to twenty-five minutes after sunset (NOAA solar equations).
• Heat and rain: in April highs reach about 36 °C in Bangkok; from June to October it rains on about half the days on the Andaman coast (WMO normals, 1991–2020). Keep shade, water and a plan B.
• Songkran, the Thai New Year in mid-April, fills the streets with water fights for days (TAT): talk to your photographer before you choose those dates.
• Drones: registered with the NBTC within 30 days of arriving, even if never flown (GOV.UK), and allowed in a national park only on the park’s terms. Then read how to choose a wedding photographer.

Next: the regions — Bangkok & Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai & the North, Phuket, Krabi & Phang Nga, Koh Samui & the Gulf Islands, Hua Hin & Cha-am or all of Thailand — and the wedding day timeline. When you have a date, see the wedding photographers in Thailand or tell us about your day, and see who is free.