New Ukrainian Passport After Marriage

[dkmfan85 832]

This is waaaay down the road for my fiance and I (still working on I-129f), but she asked me today what to do about her passport after she is in the US and we are married. She is worried about traveling on a passport with her maiden name and is unsure about the process of obtaining an updated passport with her new name. Anyone have any insight on this? I assume it would be similar to the process here in the US.

[Tania09 8]

There is no problem, for traveling buy her tickets for her maiden name (because her main travel document is still her Ukrainian passport) + take her green card (evidence of her legal status) + take you marriage certificate (evidence that she married and change her last name, sometimes the ask it at Borispol airport when you come back to America) that's it.

[Dashinka 24,649]

Tania is absolutely correct.  My wife has not changed her Russian passport and whenever we fly internationally, we buy the tickets in her maiden name.  She always keeps a copy of the marriage license with her, but so far no one has asked to see it.  The only point at which there might be a name conflict is when re-entering the US with a GC in her married name, but CBP usually doesn't scrutinize this as they see it all the time.

 

i can't speak for the Ukraine, but I know in Russia it is very difficult to change the name in a passport.  We researched it a bit, and the first thing my wife would have to do is change the name in her domestic passport.  This requires a legal name change document, and we have heard that many US marriage certificates (those that do not specifically show a name change) do not meet the Russian legal standard (even though they do in the US).  Changing the domestic passport takes time and she would have to do that in country, then she could pursue changing the name in her travel passport.  Since our marriage certificate does not meet the Russian legal standard, we decided to just keep things as is.  

 

Good Luck!

[SteveOlga 29]

When my wife and I  got married last year, she changed her internal passport first then her international passport after.  She is still living there while we wait for CR 1 interview which finally is next week.  I do know that she had to give up her internal passport for two weeks while she waited for the new one which is a major hassle for her. But thankfully nothing major needed to be done during that time. But it has made some things easier for us in terms of sending money and other things plus seeing that our marriage is legit.  

 

But I think she will have to be on Ukraine for a few weeks to be done, but I think it is worth it to make the changes when the time is right.