Question
For those of you who have done marriage or PDH, what do you do when your state doesn’t offer a certificate of non-marriage or non- impediment? For context: I applied for Pareja de Hecho (in Galicia) but the Spanish government wants proof that I am single in the states.
My state doesn’t offer a certificate, so I wrote a declaración in Spanish saying I’m single and attached it with the letter from the embassy, and my partner and I also went to the Spanish notary and wrote I was single there along with my partner (who is Spanish).
So how am I supposed to offer proof of being single if the state doesn’t offer any certificate?
Answers
These are the answers of Spainguru’s Facebook group members:
“I went to the Notary (in Spain) with witnesses stating that I was single. It was basically just that, saying that I was single and was never married from the age of 17 until now and I had 5 witnesses saying they agreed to it and also signed the documents. When I’m home I can check the layout of the form. So it says ‘Acta de Notoriedad Acreditación de Estado Civil’.”
“You need one in the city you are moving to in Spain. It’s done in person at the notary’s office.”
“I got a statement through my county records office. I think they ended up just doing a records search in their database and printed an official document saying I haven’t ever been married there.”
“I just went through the same issue but was able to request my marriage certificate from my state’s department of records. Since I’m not married, they issue a negative statement of marriage.”
“No state does. You can go on your county clerk of court webpage and search under marriage certificates.
Type in your name. When nothing comes up, take a screenshot of that page. It will show you typed in your name in the search bar for marriage certificates. When ‘no results’ comes up, take that screen shot.”
“I’ve definitely replied somewhere because I did PDH in Galicia a few years ago & my state didn’t have a single status affidavit. To answer here for you & anyone else—I had to send an email to my county clerk, who wrote up a statement saying that I had no registered relationships in my state.
She signed it and I paid for it to get sent to get the Apostille deal & then had it mailed to a family member who then mailed it to me. I had to get it officially translated once I had it here with me in Spain.”
Conclusion
Navigating the requirements for a certificate of non-marriage or proof of single status for the Spain Digital Nomad Visa can be challenging, especially when certain U.S. states do not provide such documentation.
Expats have found various workarounds, including making sworn declarations in Spain with witnesses, obtaining negative statements of marriage from local records offices, or even using notarized screenshots from county clerk websites as proof.
Each solution depends on the specific requirements of the Spanish authorities in the region where the application is made.
