How to get married in Spain as a foreign couple

The short version

There are four ways a foreign couple ends up married after a wedding in Spain. A civil ceremony in Spain, which in practice needs one of you to be resident. A Catholic church wedding in Spain, which is legally valid and open to non-residents with the right paperwork. A legal marriage somewhere else, at home or in Gibraltar, with the celebration in Spain. Or a symbolic ceremony in Spain with the legal part done quietly at home, which is what most of the couples we talk to do.

None of this affects the venue. A finca in Mallorca or a cortijo in Andalusia hosts the ceremony you invite people to whatever its legal status, and the day is the same. What changes is the paperwork, the timing, and in one case where you spend the night.

Route one: a civil marriage in Spain

A Spanish civil marriage begins with a file, the expediente matrimonial, opened at the Civil Registry (the Registro Civil) or, since the 2011 reform of the registry law, at a notary. The file is opened in the municipality where one of you is registered as living, and the registry asks for the certificate that proves it, the certificado de empadronamiento. That one requirement is what closes the route to most foreign couples: if neither of you is registered as living in a Spanish municipality, there is nowhere to open the file.

The rules are not uniform. Each registry applies them its own way, and several of the firms that handle these cases describe registries asking for a period of residence, often cited as two years, before they will process a foreigner's file. We have not found that figure in national law, which is exactly why you should ask the registry you would use, not the internet. If one of you does live in Spain, the route is open and the documents are these:

• Passports, and the NIE for the resident partner.
• Full birth certificates, issued recently (registries commonly want them under six months to a year old).
• Proof you are free to marry: a certificate of no impediment or marital-status certificate from your home country, and for nationals of some countries a certificate of capacity to marry under the 1980 Munich convention.
• Decrees for any previous marriage, or a death certificate.
• The empadronamiento certificate for the resident partner.
• An apostille on every foreign document, and a sworn translation into Spanish by a traductor jurado.

The registry interviews each of you separately, then approves the file. Allow months, not weeks, and expect the ceremony itself to be conducted by a registrar, a mayor or councillor, or a notary. 19 of the 55 venues we list state on their records that they are licensed for marriage, which is useful if the civil route is open to you and you want the legal ceremony on the estate; ask the venue which authority officiates there.

Route two: a Catholic wedding in Spain

A Catholic marriage celebrated in Spain is recognised in Spanish civil law and registered at the Civil Registry afterwards, and the residency requirement that blocks the civil route does not apply. It is the one way a non-resident couple can hold a legally binding ceremony on Spanish soil, and it is why so many of the historic estates have a chapel.

The paperwork runs through the church rather than the state: baptism certificates, confirmation where it applies, the pre-marriage course, and a file prepared by your home parish and forwarded with its permission to the diocese in Spain that covers the church you have chosen. Mixed marriages, where one of you is not Catholic, are possible with a dispensation. Start a year out; the Spanish diocese sets its own timings and some parishes will only marry couples with a connection to them.

Route three: marry legally somewhere else

At home. The most common choice by a distance. A short registry-office marriage in your own country, before or after the trip, with the wedding in Spain as a symbolic ceremony. There is no Spanish paperwork at all, any celebrant can lead the ceremony, and nobody in the garden can tell the difference. Some couples do the legal part the week before and treat the Spanish ceremony as the wedding; others wait until they are home.

In Gibraltar. For a couple who want the legally binding ceremony abroad, Gibraltar is the answer that works. The Gibraltar Registry marries non-residents under a Special Licence, which also allows ceremonies at approved locations outside the registry and at weekends. You swear affidavits before a Commissioner for Oaths or a notary in Gibraltar, and the law requires at least one night's stay in Gibraltar immediately before or after the ceremony, which you prove with a hotel bill or a host's statement. The marriage is recognised internationally. From the estates of western Andalusia the border is an hour or two away, which is why a Gibraltar morning and an Andalusian wedding are a familiar pairing.

Other religious ceremonies

Spain also recognises marriages celebrated by other registered confessions, including Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Orthodox communities. In most of those cases the couple still needs a certificate of capacity from the Civil Registry first, which brings the residency question back; the Catholic route is the exception because its own canonical file replaces the civil one. If this applies to you, ask the community in Spain how it handles non-residents before planning around it.

What this means for the venue

Choose the venue for the wedding, not for the law. Every venue we list hosts the ceremony as part of the day; the ceremony spaces on each page, the gardens, the terraces and the olive groves, are where the symbolic ceremony happens, and for the few couples with the civil route open, where the registrar or notary comes to. The one practical difference is timing. A legal ceremony in Spain fixes the date to the authority's diary; a symbolic one lets the venue and the light decide, which in a Spanish summer means late afternoon.

If you are planning the legal part around the trip, say so in your enquiry and we will tell you what the venue's couples usually do. For the day itself, start with the collection by region or the venues that sleep your guests.

Sources

Regional Civil Registry pages on the civil marriage file (Generalitat Valenciana, Aragón); Spanish family-law guidance on marriage for foreigners (Klev&Vera, Lexmovea, Borderless Lawyers); the Gibraltar Government's marriage ceremony guidance notes (August 2026). This is general information, not legal advice; confirm the current requirements with the registry, diocese or consulate you will use.