Three ways to formalise a relationship

	Marriage	Registered partnership	Cohabitation agreement
Where	Town hall	Town hall	Notary
Fiscal partner	Automatically	Automatically	Possible if conditions are met
Inheritance as spouse	Yes	Yes	Only with a will
Ending it	Through the court	By agreement, without court if no children	By agreement
Recognised abroad	Widely	Less widely	Rarely

Who owns what

Before 2018
Full community of property
Everything you both owned, before and during the marriage, was shared.
Since 1 Jan 2018
Limited community of property
Only what you build up during the marriage is shared; property from before and gifts or inheritances stay your own.
Any time
Prenuptial agreement
Made at a notary to agree a different arrangement, for example for entrepreneurs.

1
Notify the municipality
At least two weeks and at most a year before the date.
2
Choose witnesses
Two to four adult witnesses.
3
Pick a moment
Many municipalities offer a free or low-cost short ceremony at set times.
4
Update your tax position
You become fiscal partners. See fiscal partnership and moving in together.

This article is based on these official pages. If anything here differs from them, the official page is right.

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