Delhi Marriage Registration Online (e-District)

What the portal does, and where it stops

The e-District system is the Government of NCT of Delhi's single window for citizen services, and marriage registration is one of the services delivered through it by the Department of Revenue. It is a genuine online system - not a form to download - and the application really is submitted, tracked and the certificate really is downloaded through it.

What it does not do is complete the registration. Delhi requires a verification appearance before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, at which both spouses attend with original documents and with the witnesses their route requires. The portal is how you reach that appointment; it is not a substitute for it.

This matters because there is a steady trade in services offering "100% online marriage registration in Delhi" and "no need to visit any office". Both spouses appearing before the SDM is the part of the process that cannot be delegated, outsourced or done by upload, and it is also the part where files actually fail. Anyone selling you around it is either misdescribing what they will do or is proposing something you should want no part of.

So think of the portal as the queue and the paperwork, and the SDM appointment as the decision. Everything you do online is preparation for a morning that lasts a few minutes and either works or does not.

Step one: citizen registration

Before you can apply for anything you need an e-District citizen account, and this first step catches more people than the application itself.

Registration is Aadhaar-based. You enter the Aadhaar number and complete a CAPTCHA, then fill in the citizen registration form with your personal details. An access code and a password are then sent by SMS to your registered mobile number, and you enter those with a CAPTCHA to finish.

The words "registered mobile number" are doing a lot of work in that sentence, and they are where things go wrong. The SMS goes to the number linked to the Aadhaar, not to whatever number you type into a box. If your Aadhaar carries an old number, a number that belongs to a relative, or no number at all, the access code will not reach you and there is nothing on the portal that can fix it. That has to be corrected at an Aadhaar enrolment or update centre first, and it takes its own time.

The second thing to get right at this stage is the name. Enter it exactly as it appears on the Aadhaar - same spelling, same middle name or absence of one, same order. That name follows you through the application, appears on the tracking screen, and has to reconcile with the name on every document you later upload. A mismatch introduced here is a mismatch you will be explaining at the counter.

One account per person is the sensible approach. Couples sometimes create a second account when the first will not cooperate, and then cannot remember which one holds the live application.

Step two: finding and filling the marriage registration form

Once logged in through the citizen login, the route is Apply Service, then the Department of Revenue, then the registration of marriage service. The portal groups services by department, so if you cannot find marriage registration you are almost certainly looking under the wrong department.

The form itself asks for the particulars of both parties - names, parentage, dates of birth, addresses, occupation - the date and place of the marriage, and the details of the witnesses. None of it is difficult. All of it has to match your documents exactly.

The address you enter is not a formality. It determines which sub-division's SDM your application goes to, and therefore which office you will be visiting. Enter the address that appears on the residence proof you intend to file, not a current address you cannot prove or a family address you no longer live at. Delhi's district map was reorganised on 1 January 2026 - 13 districts and 39 sub-divisions now, where there were 11 and 22 - so if you are relying on any prior knowledge of which office covers you, check it. Our SDM office page sets out the current structure.

The date of marriage matters for a different reason. Order 4(a) of the Delhi (Compulsory Registration of Marriage) Order, 2014 requires the application within 60 days of the final ceremony. If your date is more than 60 days back, you will need a condonation application under Order 6, and it is better to know that while you are filling the form than at the appointment.

Save as you go. Sessions time out, and a form that has to be re-entered from scratch is a form in which fresh typing errors get introduced.

Step three: uploading documents without breaking the file

Uploads are where a surprising number of applications quietly fail, because the portal accepts a file that a verifying officer later cannot use. The rejection happens at the appointment, not at upload, which is why people are blindsided by it.

Scan rather than photograph where you can. If you must use a phone, take it flat, in daylight, with the whole document in frame and no fingers over the corners. A photograph taken at an angle, with a shadow across the date of birth, is technically a successful upload and practically a wasted appointment.

Check every scan by opening it after upload and reading it yourself at normal size. Can you read the name? The date of birth? The address? If you cannot, neither can the officer.

Keep the file names sensible and match the document to the slot it belongs in. An age proof uploaded into the address proof field is a small error that produces a large delay.

And check the substance, not just the legibility. This is the moment to notice that the school certificate says one spelling and the Aadhaar says another, or that a middle name appears on one document and not the other, or that two documents disagree about a date of birth. Those problems are fixable now and expensive later - they are the single most common reason a Delhi marriage registration file is returned.

• Age proof for both - matriculation certificate, birth certificate or passport
• Identity proof for both - Aadhaar, PAN, voter ID, passport or driving licence
• Residence proof for the party in whose sub-division you are applying
• Photographs of the ceremony, showing the rites actually being performed
• Certificate or letter from the priest, pandit, mandir or qazi who solemnised the marriage
• Marriage invitation card, if available
• Affidavits from both parties in the prescribed form, notarised
• Witness identity and address proof and photographs
• Passport-size photographs of both parties
• Divorce decree or death certificate of a former spouse, where either party was married before
• Passport and visa or OCI card where a party is a foreign national or NRI

Step four: the appointment slot, and what to do when there isn't one

This is the wall. It is the point at which most people stop being able to solve the problem themselves, and it is barely written about anywhere - when we went looking for guidance on it, the search results were so empty that a UK council page came back.

After the application is submitted, an appointment is allotted at the SDM office having jurisdiction. Sometimes slots appear immediately. Sometimes the calendar shows nothing at all, or nothing within a period that is any use to you, and there is no obvious button to press.

Some of this is ordinary load. Some of it is this year specifically: the district reorganisation on 1 January 2026 redistributed areas between offices, and load has moved with it. An office that was quiet in 2025 may not be now, and vice versa.

What actually helps, in order of how often it works. Check at different times of day and on different days - slots are released in batches rather than continuously, and an empty calendar at 9 p.m. is not the same as an empty calendar at 10 a.m. Make sure your application went to the sub-division you intended, because a mis-entered address can route you to an office you did not mean to book at. Where both of you have genuine, provable addresses in different sub-divisions, remember that the law permits filing where either spouse resides - so the other sub-division is a legitimate alternative, not a workaround. And where the deadline is real and immovable, the tatkal provision under Order 10 exists, at a government fee of Rs 10,000, though availability varies by office.

What does not help, and what we will not do, is manufacture a residence. Filing on an address you do not live at to reach a less crowded office is a fraud on a public authority, and the certificate it produces can be questioned years later, usually at the worst possible moment. A slot problem is worth a week of patience. It is not worth a defective certificate.

Step five: the appointment itself

Everything online has been preparation for this. The appointment is short and it either works or it does not, and what decides that is almost entirely what you did beforehand.

Both spouses attend, with the original documents, at the SDM office of the sub-division having jurisdiction. The Revenue Department publishes that marriage applications are received between 9.30 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on working days - three and a half hours, working days only. Go early. Arriving at 12.45 with a queue ahead of you is effectively arriving after closing.

The witnesses depend on your route, and this is where the internet is most misleading. For a registration under the Hindu Marriage Act, the Revenue Department states that both parties, along with a Gazetted Officer who attended their marriage, need to be present before the SDM. For the Special Marriage Act, both parties along with three witnesses attend, and the page advises that the witnesses' names be submitted at least one day in advance. Confirm which applies to you, with your office, before the day.

The officer checks identity and age, examines the evidence that the ceremony took place, and records the statements of the parties and the witnesses. If everything reconciles, the marriage is entered in the register and the certificate follows.

If something does not reconcile, ask for the reason in writing. An objection stated across a counter is not something you can act on. A written reason usually turns out to name a document, and a document is fixable.

Tracking your application

The portal has a Track Your Application function, and it wants specific things. You select the department and the service you applied for, then enter the application number and the applicant's name, and complete a CAPTCHA.

Two practical notes. The applicant name has to match what was submitted, exactly - this is the same name-consistency problem that runs through the whole process, arriving in a new place. And keep the application number somewhere other than your browser history; it is the key to everything downstream and people lose it surprisingly often.

Status labels are terse and do not always tell you what to do. A status that has not moved in a fortnight is not automatically a problem - offices process in batches - but a status that has not moved and an appointment date that has passed is worth a call to the office rather than more refreshing.

If you applied through someone else and do not have the application number, that is a conversation to have with them today rather than at the point where a deadline is close. Anyone handling your registration should give you the application number as a matter of course; we do.

Downloading and verifying the certificate

Once the registration is complete, the certificate is retrieved through the portal's Print or Download Certificate function. It asks for the department and service, the application or certificate number, the date of birth, and a CAPTCHA.

The same page also serves a second purpose that is worth knowing about: verification. An employer, a bank, a university or a consulate that wants to satisfy itself that a certificate is genuine can check it against the same system. That is a point in favour of registering properly - a genuine certificate survives being checked, and there is no other kind worth having.

For most official purposes you will still want physical originals from the issuing office, and it is sensible to obtain more than one. Originals spend weeks out of your hands if the certificate is going through attestation and apostille for use abroad, and several authorities want an original rather than a print.

If the certificate is going abroad, do not laminate it. Lamination can make a certificate unacceptable for attestation, because the authorities need to affix seals to the document itself. Our apostille and spouse visa page covers the legalisation chain in full, and the order of it matters more than the speed.

Portal problems and what they actually mean

The recurring failures are boring, which is good news - boring problems have known answers.

• The access code SMS never arrives: the number linked to your Aadhaar is wrong, old, or missing. This cannot be fixed on the portal; it is corrected at an Aadhaar update centre, and it takes its own time
• The name on the portal does not match your documents: correct it at the source before applying rather than explaining it at the counter
• Cannot find marriage registration under Apply Service: you are in the wrong department - it sits under the Department of Revenue
• The form times out and empties: save as you go, and re-check for fresh typing errors after re-entering
• The upload succeeded but the document is unreadable: open every file after uploading and read it yourself at normal size
• No appointment slots at all: try different times and days, verify the address routed you to the sub-division you intended, and consider the other spouse's sub-division if that residence is genuine and provable
• The application went to the wrong office: usually a mis-entered address. Fix the address rather than trying to move the application
• Status has not moved and the appointment date has passed: call the office; more refreshing will not help
• Application number lost: it is the key to tracking and to downloading the certificate. Store it outside your browser
• Two accounts created and you cannot remember which holds the live application: work from the application number rather than the account

Doing it yourself, and when to stop

Plenty of couples complete this on their own, and if you have time, documents that already agree with each other, a straightforward Hindu Marriage Act registration and someone who can act as your witness, you probably should. The portal is usable, the fees are small - Rs 100 for a Hindu Marriage Act registration, Rs 200 under the Delhi Order within 60 days - and there is no legal requirement to involve anybody.

The point at which self-filing stops being sensible is fairly predictable. If your documents disagree with each other on a name or a date of birth. If the marriage is more than 60 days old and needs a condonation application. If either of you has been married before. If one spouse is abroad or a foreign national. If you cannot produce the witness your route requires. If a visa or a joining date makes the deadline real. Or if you have already been turned away once and do not know why.

That last one is worth its own sentence. A file returned at the counter almost never fails for a legal reason - it fails because two documents disagreed, or the wrong witness came, or the office wanted something the internet did not mention. Those are all diagnosable from the documents in an evening, which is exactly what a pre-check is.

We prepare and file these applications across Delhi's sub-divisions: confirming which sub-division your address now falls in under the reorganised map, checking every document against every other one, drafting and notarising the affidavits, settling the witness question with the office rather than assuming it, preparing the condonation application where the marriage is older than 60 days, filing inside the morning window, and following up until the certificate is issued. The review is free and confidential - send your documents on WhatsApp or call, and you will know whether you need us before you spend anything.

A note on how to read this page

This describes the e-District process for Delhi marriage registration as at 2026. Government portals are redesigned, menus are renamed and steps are reordered without notice, so treat the navigation described here as a map rather than a screenshot. If what you see on screen differs from what is written here, the screen is right.

The parts that are stable are the ones worth remembering. Registration is Aadhaar-based and the access code goes to the mobile linked to that Aadhaar. Jurisdiction follows the address on the residence proof you file. The appointment before the SDM is in person and cannot be done online. The counter works 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. on working days. And a file whose documents agree with each other gets through, while one whose documents do not will not - however carefully it was uploaded.

Fees, timelines and requirements should be confirmed at the office you are filing in, including the ones quoted here.