Getting married in Seychelles, the whole truth

The short answer

To marry legally in Seychelles as two foreign nationals you need a valid passport and an apostilled birth certificate each, plus a divorce certificate if you have been married before, or a death certificate if you have been widowed. The banns are published for eleven days before the ceremony. The government fee is 3,000 rupees on Mahe, Praslin or La Digue. There is no residency requirement and no visa requirement. Your certificate is issued within twenty four hours of the ceremony.

Everything else on this page is detail, nuance, and the parts other sites get wrong.

What the Civil Status Office actually asks for

This is the list the Division of Civil Status publishes for a marriage where both parties are foreign. It is shorter than most agencies imply.

• The completed marriage registration form
• Birth certificate of both parties, apostilled
• Clear copies of both passports
• Divorce certificate, if either of you has been divorced
• Death certificate of the previous spouse, if either of you has been widowed
• A sworn translation of anything not already in English or French

The two things almost every other site gets wrong

The first is the celibacy certificate, sometimes called a certificate of no impediment. Seychelles does not ask two foreigners for one. It appears on the official list only where one party is Seychellois. That does not mean you can ignore it, because Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium may want one for their own records once you are home. The honest answer is that it depends on your nationality and not on Seychelles, which is why we built a separate page for it.

The second is the police character certificate. It sits on the Seychellois and foreigner list, not the foreigner and foreigner list, and it is repeatedly reproduced in English-language guides as though every couple needs one. Two foreign nationals marrying here do not.

What changed on 1 April 2025

The Department of Immigration and Civil Status issued a new Standard Operating Procedure for civil marriages involving two foreign nationals, effective immediately. It is a short document and it has barely been written about, but it changes several practical things.

The most quietly useful line in it is the acceptance of the e-apostille. If your country issues apostilles electronically, that is explicitly recognised, which saves weeks in some countries. The most demanding line is that application forms must be submitted in hard copy, by you or by your designated representative.

• Application forms must be submitted in hard copy, by the couple or their designated representative
• An apostille certificate or an e-apostille is required, and e-apostilles are explicitly accepted
• The original documents bearing the apostille must be submitted, and the Civil Status Officer keeps certified true copies
• Originals may be couriered to your representative before you arrive, or brought with you
• Your representative emails the application to the chosen celebrant with the Civil Status Office copied in
• The celebrant emails a draft certificate for checking straight after the ceremony
• The official marriage certificate is issued within twenty four hours, once the government fee is paid

Why the government's own procedure assumes you have a planner

Read the 2025 procedure closely and a designated representative appears in almost every step. They receive the couriered originals. They email the application to the celebrant with the Civil Status Office copied. They receive the draft certificate for verification. They are named as responsible for getting the finished certificate apostilled.

We are not going to pretend that is a legal requirement, because it is not. You can deal with the Civil Status Office yourself at info@civilstatus.gov.sc and people do. But the procedure is written around someone on the island doing those steps, and the government publishes a register of wedding planners for exactly that reason.

What the government charges

These are the official fees, in Seychelles rupees, from the Civil Status Office. They are not what a wedding costs. They are what the state charges for the marriage itself, and almost nobody in this industry publishes them plainly.

The eleven days, and how to marry inside them

Seychelles law requires the banns of marriage to be published for eleven days before the ceremony. That is the only real timing constraint the country places on you, and it is why we ask for scans about a fortnight ahead.

If your papers land later than that, the day is not lost. A special marriage licence can be applied for, subject to the approval of the Chief Officer of the Civil Status, and it costs 500 rupees. The Civil Status Office states it is normally issued within two days of application. That single provision is the entire mechanism behind every express wedding you have read about.

Where you are allowed to marry

Civil ceremonies are conducted on Mahe, Praslin and La Digue as a matter of routine. Other islands are possible and the government fee rises to 4,000 rupees, with the Civil Status Officer's transport, accommodation and meals on top.

One detail worth knowing, because it catches couples out. The Civil Status Office expects you at its office to register the marriage. If you want the registration to happen somewhere else, which is what a beach wedding means, it asks to be told at least a week beforehand. Two witnesses must be present. If you are eloping as just the two of you, we provide them.

Age, and who may marry

The age of majority for marriage is eighteen. Any person may marry in accordance with the laws of Seychelles. Minors need parental consent, and girls aged fifteen to eighteen need notarised written consent where parents are absent.

Two limits are worth stating plainly rather than burying. A religious ceremony on its own has no legal force here, so the civil marriage has to come first, whether the rite that matters to you is Hindu, Muslim or Christian. And a legally binding civil marriage is not available to same-sex couples, because the Civil Code makes a marriage void where the parties are not respectively male and female. We would rather tell you that now than take a deposit.

What we could not verify, and will not pretend to know

Three things came up again and again in our research that we are not willing to state as fact, because the government does not say them.

The first is a minimum stay. German pages say three days and two nights. Italian pages say two working days before and three after. Russian pages say three working days. One English elopement guide says two days as a hotel resident. The Civil Status Office publishes no residency requirement at all for two foreigners, and sets only the eleven day banns period. Our reading is that these are sensible operator scheduling habits described as law. We are asking the Civil Status Office for a written answer and will publish it here with the date.

The second is a claim in several Italian sources that the regulation requires the ceremony to be held indoors, with an outdoor ceremony at the officer's discretion. That would be a strange fit with a country whose entire wedding industry happens on sand, and we have not found it in any government document. Unverified.

The third is the United Kingdom and the certificate of no impediment. The General Register Office is widely cited as the place to get one, but the UK does not generally issue them for Commonwealth countries, and Seychelles is in the Commonwealth. British couples appear to use a sworn declaration instead. We are confirming this before we publish a procedure for it.

How long the whole thing actually takes