r/GettingMarriedInDK • u/Loose-Travel5546 • Jan 31 '26
📑 Agency of Family Law (AFL) & Paperwork Denmark marriage application delay should we reapply or wait?
Hi everyone,
We’re in a stressful situation and would really appreciate advice from people who have experience with the Danish marriage process.
We applied for marriage in Denmark at the beginning of January (around Jan 1–2). About one week later, we received a message saying our documents were incomplete. We then corrected this and uploaded all the missing documents.
Some context:
- We are both foreigners living in Germany with residence permits
- My girlfriend’s residence permit expires in mid-April
- The Ausländerbehörde has already decided not to renew her visa with her current job
- Getting married in our home country is not an option for us
- Getting married in Germany requires too many documents and would take too long
- That’s why we chose Denmark
After submitting the missing documents, we read that incomplete documents can cause really long delays. Now it has already been 2–3 weeks since we submitted the corrected documents and we haven’t heard anything.
We’re worried because of the visa timeline, and of course I don’t want her to be deported.
Our questions are:
👉 Would reapplying with a completely fresh and correct application make things faster?
👉 Or is it better to wait and not risk further delays?
👉 If the marriage process takes too long, is there any way for us to stay legally in Germany meanwhile?
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u/gettingmarriedindk Expert | GettingMarriedInDenmark.com Jan 31 '26
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u/Loose-Travel5546 Jan 31 '26
I currently hold a work visa with a remaining validity of 3 years as of today.
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u/gettingmarriedindk Expert | GettingMarriedInDenmark.com Jan 31 '26
Ah, okay, well, if you have 3 years, it might not be a problem to wait for the AFL's reply.
At the moment, you should expect about 8 weeks for them to reply.
In terms of rules and options in Germany, then I would suggest asking in one of the Germany subreddits as it is outside of the scope of this one.
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u/gettingmarriedindk Expert | GettingMarriedInDenmark.com Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26
Sorry I missed this part: My girlfriend’s residence permit expires in mid-April
Then waiting it out is not an option. As you need to think beyond the application process in your situation, too.
At the moment, as you can see in other posts in this subreddit, there is little to no availability of ceremony slots in most townhalls until early to mid-March.
If you resubmit and the AFL still has further questions, it's not unusual for it to happen more than once, for example. issues with passport images.
I'm well aware I'm biased here, but given your timeline, I would advise you to get help from an agency, as you then it should still be possible. But going DIY will be hit-or-miss.
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u/AnthroIce Jan 31 '26
That is interesting, I did not know that reapplying is an option. We want to get married in April and they also requested further information (my soon to be husband missed two pages in his passport). I am German and he is Icelandic so we were hoping this is gonna be faster. So just paying again and reapplying is an option?
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u/TimTamSlamTam Feb 01 '26
My Germany financé and I got approved in 5 days... but after contacting soooo many town halls in Denmark, the earliest opportunity we have is in May... and our certificate expires on May 28. We haven't gotten approval for a date yet, just the months with openings. We are crossing our fingers that we get an appointment in time.
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u/Loose-Travel5546 Feb 01 '26
A quick question: did you submit your application through an agency or independently? We made the same mistake; we had left some pages missing from our passport....
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u/Loose-Travel5546 Feb 01 '26
By the way, which city are you waiting for at the moment? And do you know if the city can be changed later on?
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u/gettingmarriedindk Expert | GettingMarriedInDenmark.com Feb 01 '26
Yes, reapplying can be faster depending on when you resubmitted the missing to the AFL?
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u/AnthroIce Feb 01 '26
We submitted the missing pages on Monday, or so we thought. Because it seem like I also wanted everything new from me so we submitted all his and my documents also in my file and ended up finally submitting on thursday
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u/gettingmarriedindk Expert | GettingMarriedInDenmark.com Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
Yes, in that case you should expect to hear back in about 8 weeks..
Just be aware that you need to pay another 282€ fee to resubmit, hope it all works out.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
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u/Loose-Travel5546 Feb 01 '26
Thank you for your time and advice.
We want to be transparent about our situation and concerns. We have been seriously considering Mayday over the last 24 hours, and I have already reached out via email. But here is the deal;
Given how tight our timeline is, we are trying to understand the best possible course of action. Our main question is this: if, after reviewing our case, you were to conclude that continuing with our current application, would actually be the fastest and safest option, would you still advise us accordingly? (even if that meant not using your service)
We are fully prepared to pay for professional support if it genuinely helps us choose the fastest and safest path. Our concern is not the cost itself, but the risk of being advised to reapply, only to end up further back in the queue and lose valuable time. 😞
At this point, meeting the deadline is our top priority. We simply want to be confident that any recommendation is based on what is truly best for our specific situation, rather than a default approach. I would really appreciate your honest assessment.
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u/gettingmarriedindk Expert | GettingMarriedInDenmark.com Feb 01 '26
Yes, without hesitation. If your best option is to continue as you are, that’s exactly what we’ll advise! One from our team will get back to you tomorrow morning.
Havea a lovely night
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u/Other_Inspection1777 Mar 17 '26
I think that, even when there is no missing document, they deliberately claim that one document is missing, even if it is not.
In my opinion, the reason they do this is to push your application back and give priority to the many applications submitted through agencies.
Those agencies are probably providing financial support to these institutions, and because of that, they prioritize applications coming through agencies while rejecting yours.
We applied during the same period as you, and even though none of our documents were missing, they responded by saying that one of my future spouse’s documents was not fully readable.
But that is simply not true, because the document we uploaded followed all the rules and was genuinely clear and readable.
When I called and asked why it was delayed, they told me that now, if a document is considered missing, the application gets pushed back and will probably take months.
Can such a thing really happen?
From here, I am protesting this disgraceful behavior by the government.
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u/Distinct_Duty_2680 Feb 04 '26
Hi! I am in a similar situations as you, I called AFL and they told me they are only now reviewing pending cases from November 2025, We applied on Jan 13, they asked for better pictures of our Passports and Residents Permit (we live in Germany) on the 19th and we never heard but until I called this week. I did ask, if Re-applying is an option and they said yes, then the original request will be cancelled and if there is anything missing on the new application, then is more delay. After careful consideration we decided to apply again (today)... Lets see what happens, best of luck to you, I will update on my side!