How Long Until You Hold Your Seychelles Marriage Certificate and Apostille?

The question behind every other question is this one. We are getting married on Wednesday and flying on Sunday. Will we have the paper? Here is exactly what happens to your certificate after you sign the register, who stamps it, how long each stamp takes, and why we commit to five working days.

A wedding abroad is only worth the flight if you come home married in the eyes of your own country, and that depends on a single sheet of paper with a single stamp on it. Couples worry about it more than they worry about the weather, and they are right to, because it is the one part of the day they cannot see. This guide follows the certificate from the sand to your hand luggage.

The paper trail, step by step

1. Day 0
   

   You sign the register on the beach

   At the end of the ceremony you, your two witnesses and the registrar sign the marriage register. The registrar is an officer of the Civil Status Office and that signed act is the legal marriage. Nothing else has to happen for you to be married. Everything below is about proving it abroad.

2. Day 1, morning
   

   The Civil Status Office issues your certificate

   The registrar returns the act to the Civil Status Office at Independence House in Victoria, and the office draws up your marriage certificate from it, usually the next working day. The certificate is in English. Our coordinator collects it in person rather than waiting for it to be sent, which is the first of several places where having a local team saves a day.

   This is also the moment we check every letter. Your names are transcribed from your passports and birth certificates, and a Polish or Hungarian surname with a diacritic, or a French double barrel, is where a typo happens. If we find one, the office corrects it on the spot. That check is the reason we quote a window rather than a day.

3. Day 1, afternoon
   

   The Supreme Court adds the apostille

   Seychelles has been a party to the Hague Apostille Convention since 31 March 1979, and the Registrar of the Supreme Court is one of its designated competent authorities. Apostilles are issued at the Supreme Court at Ile du Port for a fee of SCR 250, which sits inside your package price. The official walk in service runs on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the court’s published turnaround is two business days.

   In practice we lodge certificates as a registered agent and usually have them back the same day or the day after. That relationship is built on years of not wasting the registry’s time, and it is not something we advertise as a guarantee, which is why the window below has room in it.

   

4. Day 2 to 3
   

   The Ministry of Foreign Affairs letter, if your country asks for itoptional

   Most countries accept the apostille alone. A handful ask for an extra letter of authentication from the Seychelles Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which costs SCR 150 per document and takes around two working days. Couples who live in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait also need an embassy attestation on top, which is a further three to six days. Our Gulf residents guide covers that route in full, and our attested documents package, priced on request, handles all of it.

5. Within 5 working days
   

   The certificate is in your hand

   We deliver the apostilled certificate to your hotel or villa. If your flight leaves before it is ready, we push hard to put it in your hand first, and we have handed certificates to couples at the check in desk. When the offices cannot move that fast, we send the original by DHL or FedEx at your cost, about €85. You are married from the moment you sign, and your document always reaches you.

   

6. Later
   

   Extra copies and courier, when neededoptional

   We recommend at least one extra original, each with its own apostille: one is €110 and two are €200. Banks, employers and registration offices often keep the original you hand in and do not always give it back, so you never want to have only one, and a spare means one always stays safe at home. We hand them over with the original or courier them by DHL or FedEx once you are home. Couples registering in two countries, or one partner changing a surname on several documents, usually take two.

What the apostille actually is

An apostille is a standard certificate, the same ten numbered fields in every member country, attached to a public document to confirm that the signature and seal on it are genuine. It was created by the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 so that governments would stop legalising each other’s paperwork through embassies. Once your Seychelles marriage certificate carries the Supreme Court apostille, an office in Warsaw, Oslo, Brussels or Ohio can accept it without asking anyone in Seychelles to vouch for it.

There are around 130 contracting parties as of 2026, which covers every country in Europe, the United States, Canada since January 2024, Australia, India, China since late 2023, Türkiye, Mauritius, South Africa and Brazil. The countries that are not members are where the extra steps come in, and the two we meet most often are the United Arab Emirates and Madagascar. For those, the apostille is still applied, and then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs letter and an embassy stamp go on top. We keep a country by country table in our guide to whether a Seychelles marriage is recognised in your country.

Three things that slow the paper down, and how we avoid them

A name that does not match. The certificate is built from the notice of marriage, which we prepare from your scanned passports and birth certificates two weeks before you fly. If your birth certificate says Katarzyna and your passport says Katarzyna Maria, we ask you which one you want on the certificate before the notice is lodged, not after. That single question prevents most corrections.

A weekend or a public holiday. The Civil Status Office and the Supreme Court keep government hours. A Friday wedding means a Monday certificate. Seychelles also has thirteen public holidays, and the Easter block in particular closes offices for four days. We check the calendar against your date before we confirm it, and we will tell you if a Thursday is a better idea than a Friday.

A previous marriage. If one of you is divorced or widowed, the Civil Status Office needs the apostilled divorce decree or death certificate on file before the notice can be published. Couples who send that document late are the couples whose certificates arrive late. We wrote a separate guide to getting married in Seychelles after a divorce because the question comes up so often.

What to do with the certificate when you get home

This depends on your country, and the honest summary is that most of Europe asks you to register or transcribe the marriage with your own civil registry, while the United Kingdom and the United States ask nothing at all. France requires transcription through the consulate that covers Seychelles. Poland transcribes the act at any registry office or through a consulate, with a sworn translation. Germany does not require registration, though a Nachbeurkundung at your Standesamt gets you a German certificate and saves translations forever after. Hungary, Belgium, Norway, Austria and the Netherlands all have a registration step of their own. Our country by country guide lists each one with a link to the official page.

Whatever the procedure, it starts with the same two things. The original certificate with the apostille attached, and a certified translation into your language if your registry asks for one. Keep the original flat, in the plastic sleeve we give you, and take a photograph of both sides before you hand it to anyone.