Before you book anything
Getting married in Brazil as a foreigner: the legal marriage and the ceremony
Two different things get called the wedding. This page explains what the Brazilian registry actually asks of a foreign couple, how long it takes, and why most couples separate the paperwork from the day.
Please read this first
What this page is, and what it is not
This is general information written for couples planning a celebration with us, checked against Brazilian law and official guidance in September 2026. It is not legal advice. Requirements are applied by the individual civil registry office (cartório de registro civil) and can change, and what your own country needs in order to recognise a foreign marriage is decided by your country. Confirm every step with the registry office where you intend to marry and with a Brazilian consulate before you buy a ticket or book a date.
Two different things: the legal marriage and the ceremony
Almost every difficulty an international couple hits in Brazil comes from treating one event as two things at once.
The legal marriage is an administrative act. It happens at a civil registry office, in Portuguese, with documents, deadlines and a public notice period. It is what changes your civil status and what your own government will eventually record.
The ceremony is the day: the aisle, the celebrant, the vows, the people who flew in. Legally it can be the same act — a Brazilian civil marriage can be celebrated wherever the registry authorises — and for most international couples it is not, because the paperwork has a schedule of its own that does not fit around a plane ticket.
Separating them costs you nothing that shows. Nobody at your wedding can tell which of the two they are attending, and no photograph is different.
The habilitação
The legal route in Brazil, step by step
A civil marriage in Brazil is preceded by a process called habilitação para o casamento — roughly, the qualification to marry. In outline it runs like this.
- Filing. Both of you present the documents required by the Civil Code to a civil registry office. The habilitação runs at the registry of the place where one of you resides — which is the point at which a couple with no address in Brazil most often runs into difficulty, and the first thing to ask the specific registry office about.
- Public notice. The registry publishes a notice (edital de proclamas) so that anyone can raise a legal impediment. Since a 2022 reform this is published electronically rather than in a newspaper; the window for objections is fifteen days.
- Certificate. With no impediment raised, the registry issues the certificate of habilitação.
- Ninety days. The Brazilian Civil Code sets the validity of that certificate at ninety days from the date it is issued. The marriage must be celebrated inside that window. Miss it and the whole process is repeated.
- Celebration and registration. The marriage is celebrated and registered, and the marriage certificate (certidão de casamento) is issued.
Two things follow from that ninety-day window. It is generous enough to plan around — and it starts when the certificate is issued, not when you file, so the clock you actually have to manage is the one before it: getting foreign documents apostilled, shipped, and translated.
Where the time goes
The documents you will be asked for
The exact list is set by the registry office, and it varies. What is common to every list for a foreign national is this:
- Passport, valid, with your entry record in Brazil.
- Full birth certificate, recent, issued by the authority in your own country.
- Proof of civil status — that you are free to marry. If you have been married before, the divorce decree or the death certificate, and the proof that the previous marriage is dissolved.
- An apostille on each foreign document, issued in the country the document comes from. Brazil is party to the Hague Apostille Convention; documents from countries that are not are legalised through a Brazilian consulate instead.
- A sworn translation into Portuguese. This is the step most couples get wrong: the translation generally has to be made by a tradutor público juramentado registered in Brazil. A certified translation done at home is usually not accepted, and registry offices commonly also require the translation to be registered at a Cartório de Títulos e Documentos.
- Two witnesses, and the declarations the registry asks them for.
Apostilles are the slow part, and they are slow in your country, not in Brazil. Start them before anything else, and get a fresh birth certificate rather than apostilling the copy you have had since school — several registry offices require a recent issue.
A common misunderstanding
Religious ceremonies: what they do and do not do
You will read in English-language guides that a religious ceremony has no legal effect in Brazil. That is not quite right, and the difference matters.
Under the Brazilian Civil Code, a religious marriage does have civil effect — but only if it meets the same requirements as a civil marriage, which means the habilitação has been completed beforehand, and only once it is registered with the civil registry. Registration has to be requested within ninety days of the ceremony, by the celebrant or by any interested party.
In practice this means there are two versions of the same church, temple or beachside blessing. One is preceded by the registry process and registered afterwards, and it is a marriage. The other is not, and it is a symbolic ceremony. They can look identical. Decide which one you are having before you book the celebrant, not after.
The symbolic ceremony: what most international couples do
The pattern that English-language planners, photographers and law firms all converge on is the same one: complete the civil marriage at home, in your own language, on a date that suits the paperwork — and hold the ceremony in Brazil.
A symbolic ceremony has no legal effect and no registry process, which means no apostille, no sworn translation, no ninety-day window and no dependency on a registry office you have never met. You choose the celebrant freely, including a friend or a relative. You write the words. You can hold it at any hour, in any language, in two languages, or in a language none of the guests expected.
The one thing to handle carefully is the wording, so the ceremony does not pretend to be something it is not — and the conversation with the family members who will ask whether it “counts”. It counts as the day. The certificate already exists, in a drawer, at home.
Ask before, not after
Will a Brazilian marriage be recognised where you live?
Brazil issues the marriage certificate; your own country decides what it does with it. The usual chain is: obtain the Brazilian certificate, have it apostilled in Brazil, have it translated in your own country by whoever your authorities accept, and then record or register it as they require. Some countries want the record made through their consulate in Brazil instead.
Because the requirements differ by country and change, the only reliable answer is the one your own consulate gives you — and the right time to ask is before the wedding, when the answer can still change your plan.
Same-sex couples
Civil marriage between two people of the same sex is available throughout Brazil. Since a resolution of the National Council of Justice that took effect in May 2013, civil registry offices anywhere in the country may not refuse to celebrate such a marriage or to convert a stable union into one, and a couple no longer needs a court order to be married. Nationality is not a condition: the rule applies to two foreign nationals as it applies to anyone else.
Documents and process are the same as for any other couple. What is not the same is what happens afterwards at home — recognition abroad depends on your own country’s law, which is one more reason to ask your consulate first.
We are the venue
What we do, and what we do not
Além do Sonho Eventos is the place where the ceremony and the celebration happen. We are not a registry office, we are not a law firm, and nothing on this page is a service we sell.
What we do is the day itself: an open-air ceremony area, covered space that takes the ceremony and the reception when it rains, getting-ready suites on the same ground, and a team that runs the event from start to finish. Ceremonies here are held with the celebrant you choose — the house does not provide one — so a symbolic ceremony, a religious one and a civil one all work the same way from our side.
The registry side belongs to the couple, and the house does not handle it. If you want the civil ceremony itself held on the estate, the registry office can send its officer to the venue — a casamento em diligência, which the couple requests from the cartório, usually for an extra fee. We plan the day around it.
Once more, because it is the sentence that matters most on this page: confirm every requirement with the civil registry office and with a Brazilian consulate. Rules are applied locally and they change. This page was last checked in September 2026.
What to read next
With the legal question settled, the two decisions that follow are the month and the travel your guests have to do.
Planning a destination wedding in Brazil · The best time of year for a wedding in Rio · The travel guide to send your guests
Straight answers
Questions about marrying in Brazil
Can two foreigners legally marry in Brazil?
Yes. Brazilian law does not require either of you to be a resident or a citizen to marry, and a marriage celebrated here is a full civil marriage. What it does require is the registry process called habilitação, with foreign documents apostilled and translated by a sworn translator in Brazil. Confirm the exact list with the civil registry office where you intend to marry.
How long does the process take at the cartório?
Plan in months, not days. After the documents are filed, a public notice is published and third parties have fifteen days to raise an impediment. Once the certificate of habilitação is issued, the Brazilian Civil Code gives it ninety days of validity — the ceremony must happen inside that window or the process starts again.
What is a symbolic ceremony, and is it a real wedding?
A symbolic ceremony is the ceremony itself — the aisle, the vows, the celebrant, the guests — without civil registration. It carries no legal effect, which is exactly the point: the couple completes the legal marriage in their own country, where the paperwork is in their own language, and holds the ceremony they will remember in Brazil. It is what most international couples do.
Does a religious ceremony count as a legal marriage in Brazil?
Not by itself. Under the Brazilian Civil Code a religious marriage has civil effect only if it meets the same requirements as a civil marriage — which includes completing the habilitação beforehand — and is then registered with the civil registry. Registration must be requested within ninety days of the ceremony. A religious ceremony held without that process is a symbolic ceremony.
Will a Brazilian marriage be recognised in our own country?
Usually yes, but recognition is decided by your country, not by Brazil. In practice you request the Brazilian marriage certificate, have it apostilled in Brazil, and have it translated in your own country, then register or record it as your authorities require. Ask your consulate what they need before you marry, not after.
Can same-sex couples marry in Brazil, including two foreign nationals?
Yes. Since a 2013 resolution of Brazil’s National Council of Justice, civil registry offices anywhere in the country may not refuse to celebrate a civil marriage between two people of the same sex, and nationality is not a condition. The documents and the process are the same as for any other couple.
Do we need a lawyer or a despachante?
Not by law. Many international couples use one anyway, because the process is conducted in Portuguese, the document requirements are interpreted by the individual registry office, and a rejected document usually means starting again from abroad. If you are doing the legal marriage in your own country instead, none of this applies.
Written by Thatiane Pacobahyba, of the Além do Sonho Eventos team.Updated on .
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