How to change your name in Germany

After marriage

Marriage changes nothing about your name by itself. § 1355 Abs. 1 BGB says spouses may determine a common family name (Ehename), and that if they determine none, each keeps the name held at the time of the marriage. The choice is a declaration to a Standesamt (Erklärung gegenüber dem Standesamt), made at the ceremony or at any time afterwards; a declaration given later must be publicly certified (§ 1355 Abs. 4 BGB), which the Standesbeamter, a Notar or a German consular officer does when you sign.

Your options under § 1355 Abs. 2 BGB: the birth name (Geburtsname) of one spouse; the family name one spouse holds at the time of the declaration; or, since 1 May 2025, a double name made from both of your names, with or without a hyphen. Where one of those names is itself made of several names, you may bring only part of it in. Chains of three names are still not allowed. The spouse whose name does not become the Ehename may put a Begleitname before or after it under § 1355a BGB — but not where the Ehename is already a double name. A Begleitname can be revoked once, in a publicly certified declaration, and then never declared again.

Since 1 May 2025 your name follows the law of the country where you habitually live (Art. 10 Abs. 1 EGBGB), not your passport. Spouses may instead choose, by declaration to the Standesamt, the law of a state one of them belongs to or habitually lives in (Art. 10 Abs. 2 EGBGB); after the wedding that declaration too must be publicly certified.

Until the declaration reaches the competent Standesamt and takes effect, your legal name is the one you had before the wedding, and that is the name on your Personalausweis, your passport and your payslip. Once it has taken effect, ask the Standesamt for the paper that proves it. This guide calls that paper the Namensbescheinigung, the word Berlin's fee list and the German missions use for it; some Standesämter print a longer title on the same document, and every office below accepts it. It is not a Namensänderungsurkunde. That word belongs to the certificate a Namensänderungsbehörde issues at the end of a public-law change under the Namensänderungsgesetz, which is the separate route described further down, and confusing the two sends you to the wrong office. In Braunschweig the Standesamt charges €30 to take a declaration and €20 for the Namensbescheinigung (2026); every city sets its own fee.

After divorce

A divorce does not give you your old name back. § 1355 Abs. 5 Satz 1 BGB says the divorced or widowed spouse keeps the Ehename, and the German missions put it plainly: the family name of a German citizen does not change automatically through divorce. What you get instead is a one-sided declaration. Under § 1355 Abs. 5 Satz 2 BGB you may declare to the Standesamt — the declaration must be publicly certified — that you take back your Geburtsname, or the name you carried up to the moment the Ehename was determined, or that you put a Begleitname before or after the Ehename you are keeping. The statute sets no deadline, so the declaration is open years later.

The declaration goes to the Standesamt of the place where the marriage was concluded, or to the one where you live. Where there is no German marriage entry at all — a marriage abroad that was never entered in the Eheregister — it goes to the Standesamt for your residence, last residence or habitual residence, and to Standesamt I in Berlin if you have never lived in Germany. Braunschweig charges €30 for taking the declaration and €20 for the Namensbescheinigung (2026).

If the divorce was granted outside Germany, nothing can happen until it is recognised. Until the Landesjustizverwaltung has ruled under § 107 FamFG, German registers still show you as married, and a name declaration cannot take effect. Two cases escape the procedure: a decision from an EU member state other than Denmark in proceedings begun after 1 March 2001, and a Heimatstaatenentscheidung, where both spouses held only the nationality of the state whose court decided — dual nationality is enough to lose that exemption. Where neither former spouse lives in Germany and no new marriage is to be concluded there, the Senatsverwaltung für Justiz in Berlin decides; it charges between €15 and €305, most often around €160, and takes several months. Send the full judgment, or a certified copy, with the finality note (Rechtskraftvermerk, in the United States a certificate of no appeal) and the reasons.

The passport office will not act on a divorce decree. It wants the Standesamt's Namensbescheinigung, or a Personalausweis already issued in the new name. Children are dealt with separately: since 1 May 2025 § 1617d BGB lets a minor living in the household of the parent who drops the Ehename take that parent's changed name, or a double name made of the two, without the old administrative procedure, and an adult child may make the same declaration itself if that parent agrees.

For any other reason

Germany starts from Namenskontinuität: your name is meant to stay put, and a change outside the family events the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch lists is an exception. That exception is the öffentlich-rechtliche Namensänderung under the Gesetz über die Änderung von Familiennamen und Vornamen (Namensänderungsgesetz, NamÄndG) of 1938, still in force.

Who may apply: under § 1 NamÄndG, a German within the meaning of the Grundgesetz, a stateless person or homeless foreigner habitually resident in Germany, or a recognised refugee or asylum holder domiciled in Germany. Where you apply: § 5 NamÄndG sends the application, in writing or on the record, to the administrative authority the Land names, in the district where you — or one of your forebears — have or last had a residence. In Berlin that is the Standesamt of your Bezirk; elsewhere it is the Ordnungs-, Rechts- or Standesamt of the city or Landkreis. § 11 NamÄndG applies the same rules to a first name.

What you must show: § 3 NamÄndG allows a change only where a wichtiger Grund justifies it. The Bundesministerium der Justiz puts the test as a weighing — an important reason exists where the applicant's personal interest in the change outweighs the principles of name continuity. Berlin's Standesamt gives the standard examples: the name sounds offensive or ridiculous, it is a Sammelname, or it is hard to pronounce or to write by common understanding. Disliking a perfectly ordinary name is not, on its own, a wichtiger Grund. One limit is worth knowing before you file: under the administrative regulation to the Act, an Ehename may be changed during a marriage only for both spouses together and in the same form.

There is no deadline on any of this, and no fixed national fee: each Land and municipality sets its own. Berlin's framework runs from €4 to €1,500 for a family name and the same for a first name, with published standard figures — about €330 for a first name or family name where the administrative effort is small, €525 for an Ehename, €720 to €980 (€850 to €1,100 for an Ehename) for a middling case, and €1,110 (€1,300 for an Ehename) for a hard one, plus €25 to €75 for each minor child the change extends to. A withdrawn or refused application is not free: Berlin charges between one tenth and one half of what a successful change would have cost, and normally asks for part of the fee up front. Expect three to six months, because other authorities are consulted.

Two narrower routes avoid all of that. If you only want your existing first names in a different order, § 45a PStG lets you declare that to the Standesamt; it does not allow a change of spelling, or adding or dropping a name. And a person whose gender identity differs from the entry in the register declares the entry and their new first names to the Standesamt under § 2 SBGG; § 4 SBGG requires the declaration to be registered with that Standesamt three months in advance, and the registration lapses if the declaration is not made within six months.

If you married outside Germany

A marriage concluded outside Germany is recognised in Germany without any procedure, so long as the form of the place where you married was met (Art. 11 EGBGB) and each of you satisfied the personal requirements of your own law (Art. 13 Abs. 1 EGBGB). There is nothing to apply for and no deadline to miss. Entering the marriage in a German register is optional: § 34 PStG says the marriage of a German abroad may be recorded in the Eheregister on application (Nachbeurkundung), at the Standesamt where the applicant lives or last lived, and at Standesamt I in Berlin where there is no such place.

You do not need that register entry in order to change your name. A Namenserklärung can be taken by the Standesamt for your residence, last residence or habitual residence — Standesamt I in Berlin if neither of you has ever lived in Germany — on the strength of the foreign certificate alone. That matters, because the two run at completely different speeds: Standesamt I in Berlin confirms a name declaration in about two to three months, while its backlog for a Nachbeurkundung is currently at least three years. Berlin charges €80 to enter a foreign marriage where only German law applies, €125 where foreign law applies to one spouse and €170 where it applies to both, €8 to €80 if the application is withdrawn or refused, and €12 for each Eheurkunde (2026).

What the certificate needs is for the Standesamt to decide, and it is worth asking before you order anything. In the ordinary case it is a certified copy of the marriage certificate from the office that issued it, an apostille from the competent authority of that country or state where the Apostille Convention applies, consular legalisation where it does not, and a certified German translation of both.

One case is settled against the couple. On 25 September 2024 the Bundesgerichtshof decided XII ZB 244/22 (press release Nr. 226/2024 of 27 November 2024) about a couple who, while in Germany, gave their marriage declarations by live video to an authority abroad, under the law of Utah, and held an apostilled certificate. Art. 13 Abs. 4 Satz 1 EGBGB says a marriage in Germany may be concluded only in the form prescribed here, which under §§ 1310 and 1311 BGB means both spouses declaring in person, at the same time, before a Standesbeamter. Where a marriage is concluded is decided by where the declarations were given, not by where the officiant sat. In the court's words: 'Es genügt, dass eine der Erklärungen in Deutschland abgegeben wurde, weil damit ein wesentlicher Teil der Eheschließung im Inland verwirklicht wurde.' And: 'Die Missachtung der gesetzlich vorgeschriebenen Inlandsform hat zur Folge, dass die Online-Eheschließung vor der ausländischen Behörde im Inland unwirksam ist.' So an online ceremony run by an officiant in another country while either of you was physically in Germany is not a marriage in Germany: there is no Ehename to declare, no spousal residence right, and the Standesamt will not register the certificate. The couple in that case were free to give notice at a Standesamt and marry there, precisely because the online ceremony counted for nothing.

If neither of you was in Germany during such a ceremony, the decision does not reach you, and the form is judged under Art. 11 EGBGB by the law of the place where each of you actually was. No published decision settles that question for a video ceremony, and a Standesamt may ask you to show where you were. Ask it before you rely on the marriage for anything that matters.

Build my checklist for Germany

The steps above become a checklist you can work through and tick off, with the office, the form and the fee on every one. It is free, and it is the whole plan if Germany is where your records are.

If you live in the United States

If you are a German citizen living in the United States, your US records change with the US checklist: Social Security, your state driver licence, the IRS and the rest follow the US marriage certificate, the divorce decree or the court order. Your German name does not move with them.

Since 1 May 2025 your name follows the law of the country where you habitually live (Art. 10 Abs. 1 EGBGB), so while you live in the United States that is US law, and spouses may still choose the law of a state one of them belongs to or lives in by declaration to the Standesamt. The German missions draw one practical consequence: for a marriage concluded in the United States on or after 1 May 2025, the married name shown on the US marriage certificate applies in Germany without any declaration, provided the certificate actually names it. A name you formed afterwards — on a driver licence or a Social Security card — carries over without a declaration only for a German-American dual national; a German-only citizen still has to declare it.

Where a declaration is needed, both spouses attend the German mission for your state in person, because your signatures have to be certified there: €85 for the signatures and up to €33 for certified copies (2026). The mission does not decide anything; it forwards the declaration to the Standesamt of your last German residence, or to Standesamt I in Berlin if neither of you has ever lived in Germany. You can also post the declaration straight to that Standesamt with your signatures certified by a notary. Standesamt I in Berlin takes about two to three months, and where there is no German register entry it charges €80 for checking the declaration plus €12 for the Namensbescheinigung. Once the name is confirmed, apply at the mission for a German passport in the new name.

After a divorce the route is the same but one-sided, and the US divorce must first be recognised under § 107 FamFG; where neither of you lives in Germany that is the Senatsverwaltung für Justiz in Berlin, at €15 to €305 and several months. Bring the full judgment with the certificate of no appeal — the Standesamt cannot finish the name declaration until the recognition is in. A name change ordered by a US court is a different matter: the missions say such changes are as a rule not effective for German citizens, so the German change still has to be made at a Standesamt or, where no declaration fits, under the Namensänderungsgesetz. Germany does not need to hear about a marriage abroad at all unless you want the name or a German marriage certificate.

Your US records, from Social Security to your state license and the everyday accounts, change with the US checklist; it prepares each form and letter in the order the agencies check them.

Change Your Name is a self-help form-preparation service, not a law firm; this page is general information about Germany, not legal advice.