Effects of Marriage

[Question] Upon marriage to a Japanese national, are there going to be any changes in my “family name” and “nationality”?

[Answer]

You nationality won’t change automatically with marriage to a Japanese. In order to obtain Japanese nationality, you ought to apply for naturalization with your legal affairs bureau. The conditions for naturalization of a spouse of Japanese are less rigid than those required of other foreigners staying with different resident status. To be qualified for naturalization, you should have stayed in Japan for longer than three years or else your should have been married for longer than 3 years and have been staying in Japan for more than one year, while normal naturalization requires five years long continuous residency.

Under the Civil Code, if both husband and wife are Japanese, either of them must change their family name after they get officially married. But this rule does not necessarily apply to marriage between a Japanese and a foreigner. Whether or how your family name changes depends on the requirements in your country’s international law. Namely, which country’s law will be used in the event you marry a foreign national, and what the chosen law says about your family name after marriage. As for the entry to your spouse’s Japanese family registration, in principle, your family name will be used as is. But if you take your spouse’s surname after your marriage, you can change the entry accordingly if you apply for “change to your spouse’s family name” with your city office. To apply for this change, you need to submit official documents to that effect. In a family registration, a name of a foreigner is usually written in katakana but if you take your Japanese spouse’s surname, your surname will also be written in Kanji Chinese characters.

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