There is a helpful head start for Filipino couples marrying in Spain: your civil records already come in English. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) issues birth certificates, marriage certificates and the CENOMAR in English, so no one is translating from Filipino. But English is not enough for a Spanish Civil Registry. Two steps still stand between your PSA paperwork and an approved marriage file: a DFA apostille in Manila, and a sworn translation into Spanish done in Spain.
This guide walks through the PSA document package, the free-to-marry question that trips up so many Filipino files, and the order in which to do everything.
The marriage file before the Spanish Civil Registry
A civil wedding in Spain starts with the expediente matrimonial: the file the Civil Registry opens to confirm both partners are legally free and able to marry. For a foreign spouse, Spanish law (Civil Code, article 65) asks for proof of marriageability under the law of your own country. In practice, for a Filipino national that means three PSA documents.
1. PSA Birth Certificate
Your birth certificate on PSA security paper (the SECPA copy), not a local civil registrar photocopy. It establishes identity and filiation. Order a fresh copy close to your submission date, because Registries usually want a recent issue.
2. CENOMAR (Certificate of No Marriage Record)
This is the document that does the heavy lifting. The CENOMAR is the PSA's certificate stating you have no marriage on record — the proof that you are free to marry. Spanish Registries treat it as the Filipino equivalent of a certificate of single status or capacity to marry. Ask for it with the stated purpose "for marriage abroad", and keep it recent: the PSA itself considers a CENOMAR meaningful for around six months.
3. Certificate of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage (if requested)
Some Registries also want a Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage document. Filipinos abroad usually obtain this from a Philippine embassy or consulate rather than the PSA. Whether your Registry asks for it on top of the CENOMAR is a local call — see the next section.
The free-to-marry question, told honestly
Here is the part that deserves care rather than confidence. The Philippines is, together with Vatican City, the only state with no general civil divorce. There is no Filipino divorce decree to present, because the remedy in the Philippines is a court annulment or a declaration of nullity, not divorce.
That has a concrete effect on your paperwork. If you have never married, the PSA issues a clean CENOMAR and the file is straightforward. If you were married before and the marriage was annulled or declared null, the PSA will not issue a plain CENOMAR: instead it issues an Advisory on Marriage, which shows the earlier marriage and its outcome. A Spanish Registry then has to assess whether that Filipino annulment leaves you legally free to marry again under Spanish rules — a question that goes well beyond translation.
We will not pretend to answer it here. If there is a prior marriage, an annulment, or a foreign divorce in the picture, ask your Civil Registry and, where the situation is genuinely complex, a lawyer. What we can promise is a faithful sworn translation of whatever documents that process ends up requiring.
How to get and apostille the PSA documents
Requesting is the easy part and can be done without flying home:
- Online, through PSA Serbilis or PSAHelpline.ph, delivered to a Philippine address (or to a relative who forwards them).
- Walk-in at a PSA outlet, usually with a prior appointment.
Then comes legalisation. The Philippines is part of the Apostille Convention, so PSA documents are made valid abroad with an apostille from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) — no Spanish consular step needed. Since 2026 the DFA also runs an e-Apostille for PSA electronic certificates, ordered online. Only the DFA can apostille a Philippine document; it cannot be done from Spain.
The order that saves a retranslation
The sequence matters, and doing it backwards is the single most common mistake:
- Request the PSA documents (birth certificate, CENOMAR, and any advisory that applies).
- Apostille each one at the DFA. The apostille is part of the document.
- Sworn translation into Spanish, apostille included, done last.
Translate before the apostille exists and you will simply pay to translate again once the apostille is attached. Apostille first, translate after. For the wider picture of these PSA documents, see our note on PSA certificates: birth, marriage and CENOMAR for Spain.
Sworn translation: what Spain accepts
The Spanish Civil Registry accepts translations only from translator-interpreters accredited by the MAEC (Spain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs). A translation notarised in Manila, or one stamped by a private agency, has no standing before the Registry. Every apostilled PSA document in your file — birth certificate, CENOMAR, advisory or legal-capacity certificate — needs that sworn Spanish version.
At Textualia we translate your PSA documents from English into Spanish and deliver an electronically signed PDF with full validity at every Spanish Civil Registry. If your Registry still asks for paper, we send a stamped physical copy by tracked mail.
One more step for later: once you have married in Spain, Filipino citizens should file a Report of Marriage at the Philippine Embassy so the union is registered back with the PSA. That certificate, in turn, may one day need translating the other way.
Exact requirements are set locally
There is no national checklist. Each Civil Registry fixes its own list, its own freshness window, and whether it wants a legal-capacity certificate alongside the CENOMAR. Confirm with the specific Registry handling your file before you order anything, and only then start the request-apostille-translate chain.
Related pages
- Marriage in Spain for foreign nationals — the full Civil Registry procedure.
- PSA certificates: birth, marriage and CENOMAR for Spain — what each PSA document is and when you need it.
- NBI Clearance for Spain: apostille and sworn translation — the Filipino police-record document for residence and nationality files.
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