Spouse & Marriage Visa · Vietnam

A file built on a marriage, not on an employer

This file rests on the relationship rather than on an employer: a certificate, and the evidence of a life two people actually share. Asia Relocation Vietnam assembles that evidence without turning it into an interrogation.

Ask for a marriage visa quotation → What the file has to show
Filed at the Immigration Department Certificates, evidence and residence First filings and renewals
3things we read first: the certificate, the evidence, the address
1relationship the file rests on, rather than an employer
3steps a foreign paper generally takes: legalisation, translation, notarisation
1question we always ask: what happens about the work permit

This application starts from a marriage certificate, evidence of the relationship, proof of where you live in Vietnam and a valid passport, and the eligibility consultation reviews those and whatever else your case turns out to need. The file rests on the relationship rather than on an employer, which sounds simpler than an employment case and very often is not.

It is not simpler because the evidence is personal and scattered: photographs on a phone, correspondence in two languages, a certificate issued in a country neither of you lives in any more. Papers issued abroad generally have to be consularly legalised, translated into Vietnamese and notarised, and that chain starts in another jurisdiction, on somebody else's timetable.

Asia Relocation Vietnam begins there rather than with the form. We work out what you already hold, start the foreign documents moving first, assemble the household's evidence into one readable set, file with the Immigration Department, and put the renewal in the diary while you are still thinking about something else.

What it has to show

What a relationship-based file has to show

The evidence here is personal, which is what makes it the difficult part.

Ours to assemble

  • The reading of your situation. The certificate, the evidence and your circumstances in Vietnam, looked at together before anything is requested.
  • The foreign papers. Legalisation, translation into Vietnamese and notarisation, started first because they run on other people's calendars.
  • The evidence, sorted not manufactured. We tell you which of your own records already answer the question, and stop there.
  • The address. Proof of where the household lives in Vietnam, read alongside the certificate and the passports before anything is lodged.
  • The filing and the renewal. Lodged with the Immigration Department, followed up, and diarised the day it issues.

Quoted before a single document is sent for legalisation.

Related questions, answered elsewhere

  • Whether you may work. The labour decision belongs to the Vietnam work permit page, and marriage changes the shape of that question entirely.
  • An employment entry. If a job is the real reason for the move, see LD working visa.
  • A settled status. Most long stays end in a card: temporary resident card, opened on its own page.
  • The longer horizon. Residency history and family ties are weighed at permanent resident card.
  • Somewhere to live. Finding and signing the home itself belongs to home search.

Say which of these matters to you and one coordinator opens it.

Five households

Five households built across two countries

The marriage is the same everywhere. Where the paperwork was made is not.

Married abroad, asking about Vietnam

The certificate was issued in a third country. What that document has to go through, and what it is worth here, is the first question we put — before anyone assumes an answer in either direction.

Married abroad

Married in Vietnam, already living here

The documents are local. The work is organising them, and sorting out an address held in a relative's name.

Married here

A couple regularising after years of extensions

They have been renewing something short for a long time. The relationship was never the weak point; the record of it is.

Regularising

Papers issued in three different places

Born in one country, married in another, living in Vietnam. We start those papers on their way in parallel rather than in sequence.

Three countries

A renewal coming round again

Nothing about the household has changed, which is exactly when a file is left too late. We reopen it from the record we already hold.

Renewal
Order of work

Start with the documents you cannot hurry

  1. Read the situation, not the form

    The marriage certificate, the evidence of the relationship and your circumstances in Vietnam, taken together. That is what tells us where to start.

  2. Send the foreign papers on their way

    Consular legalisation, translation into Vietnamese, notarisation. This is the longest leg and it belongs at the beginning, not after everything else is ready.

  3. Gather the evidence you already have

    Photographs, correspondence, the ordinary record of a shared life. We say what is enough, so nobody spends a weekend assembling more than the file will ever use.

  4. Settle the address

    Proof of where the household lives in Vietnam, read alongside the passports and the certificate before anything is lodged.

  5. File, follow, and diarise the renewal

    Submitted to the Immigration Department and pursued; the renewal date recorded at issue so it is never the reason a settled household has a bad month.

Who files it

Four households whose file rests on a relationship

Spouses of Vietnamese citizens

The situation this page is written for. Their strength is the life they have; their weakness is that nobody ever filed it anywhere.

Spouses whose papers were issued elsewhere

Married to a Vietnamese citizen, but in another country, with certificates and civil-status records that generally have a legalisation chain ahead of them.

Long-settled couples putting things in order

Years in Vietnam on short renewals, and a growing wish to stop repeating the exercise. The file has never been built.

Employers of a married assignee

Mobility teams who discover that one half of a household is covered by their policy and the other half is on an entirely different route.

Papers from abroad

Half of this file was issued in another country

Papers issued abroad are the part of a file that no one can accelerate, and here they are half of it.

A certificate from a registry office in Europe, a birth record from a city neither of you has lived in for a decade, an affidavit sworn at a consulate. Papers issued abroad generally have to be consularly legalised, translated into Vietnamese and notarised, and that chain has never heard of your deadline.

Asia Relocation Vietnam runs the Vietnamese end of that in-house, from Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi or Da Nang, and tells you at the outset which document is going to set the pace. Households that start this chain on the day they decide to move give the papers the time they need; the ones that leave it until the rest is assembled wait for it alone.

FAQ

What spouses ask when the file is about a marriage

What is actually being assessed here?
The relationship, rather than a job. The consultation looks at the marriage certificate, the evidence of the relationship and your situation in Vietnam, which is a very different exercise from reading a contract and an employer's registration.
What counts as evidence of a relationship?
Photographs, correspondence and the ordinary traces of a shared life. We tell you what you already have before asking you to assemble anything, because couples routinely underestimate their own records and then overproduce at the last minute.
Our documents were issued in another country. What happens to them?
Papers issued abroad generally have to be consularly legalised, translated into Vietnamese and notarised, and that chain is the slowest part of the file. We start it first, because it is the one stage nobody can compress later.
Does this let me work in Vietnam?
The work permit question changes shape entirely in a marriage situation, and it deserves a proper answer rather than an assumption in either direction. We check it against your case and your intended role, and we tell you which file that answer requires.
What is the proof of residence for?
It places the household somewhere in Vietnam. We read it alongside the certificate and the passports before anything is lodged, and where a home is held in a relative's name we deal with that at the start rather than at a counter.
Is this the same as a residence card?
No. A card is a different application on its own page. We assess it against how long you genuinely intend to stay and the status behind you, and we say whether yours supports one yet.
We have been married for years and living here already. Is this still worth doing properly?
It is. What is missing is a file that presents in one piece what you already hold. Asia Relocation Vietnam builds that set from your own documents, and keeps the record so a renewal reopens from it.
What does a marriage visa file cost?
Quoted in writing against your case: where the documents were issued, how much legalisation and translation they need, and whether the household is filing as a group. We publish no figure, because two couples with identical marriages can have very different files.
Not what you were looking for?

When the real question is about working

The question marriage raises

The labour decision, which changes shape entirely in a marriage situation.

Vietnam work permit →

Every route, and how they connect

What Asia Relocation Vietnam runs across the silo, and which one a binational household needs.

Visa & immigration in Vietnam →

Send us the certificate and tell us where it was issued

We read the situation, start the foreign papers moving, build the evidence from what you already hold, and quote in writing.

Ask for a marriage visa quotation →
Marriage visa quote The file
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