Even if you held a wedding ceremony and banquet, you must obtain a marriage registration certificate: Unregistered couples are not legally married, and you have no spousal inheritance rights if your partner passes away

Holding a wedding banquet without registering does not establish a legal marriage; legally, it is classified merely as cohabitation. If one partner dies, the surviving partner cannot inherit property as a legal spouse. If you separate, courts will not process it as a divorce. Completing retroactive registration resolves this issue, and legal marital validity applies retroactively to the date when statutory conditions were first met.

Zero monetary cost. Both partners simply visit the local marriage registry together, taking several dozen minutes.

Under Article 1049 of the Civil Code, "The marital relationship is established upon completion of marriage registration. Those who have not registered marriage shall complete registration retroactively." The Supreme People's Court Judicial Interpretation categorizes couples living together as husband and wife without registration into two categories. Cohabitations meeting statutory conditions prior to February 1, 1994, are treated as de facto marriages. For those formed after that date, the court must advise parties to complete retroactive registration; if they refuse, the relationship is legally adjudicated as cohabitation. If one party passes away and the survivor claims inheritance as a spouse, this same statutory distinction governs: legal spouses are first-order statutory heirs, meaning an unregistered partner is legally excluded from spousal inheritance. Regarding cohabitation relationships, courts will not accept petitions simply seeking "dissolution of cohabitation," accepting only disputes over property division and child custody. Once retroactive registration is completed, the legal validity of the marriage retroactively applies "from the time both parties met all substantive statutory requirements for marriage specified in the Civil Code." Children's rights remain unaffected: statutory inheritance laws explicitly define "children" to include non-marital children, granting them identical first-order inheritance rights as children born in wedlock.

If an unregistered partner dies, you are not a statutory heir, but you are not entirely barred from financial recovery. The Civil Code provides that an individual outside the statutory heir list who provided "substantial maintenance and care" to the deceased "may be granted an appropriate share of the estate." However, you bear the evidentiary burden of proving your care in court if other heirs dispute it. First-instance civil proceedings take at least 6 months, attorney fees are paid out-of-pocket, and the allocated share is determined at judicial discretion. Therefore, complete retroactive registration while both partners are alive. Retroactive registration requires both partners to appear in person with valid identification documents, as detailed in Chapter 10, Rule 13. For betrothal gifts (bride price) return rules when marriage registration was never completed, see Chapter 8, Rule 24. Beneficiaries are you and your partner.

全国人大 (2020). 民法典（第一千零四十九、一千一百二十七、一千一百三十一条）. https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/fl/202006/t20200602_463888.shtml；最高人民法院 (2020). 关于适用《民法典》婚姻家庭编的解释（一）（法释〔2020〕22 号，第三、六、七、八条）. https://www.court.gov.cn/fabu/xiangqing/282071.html