4 Financial Challenges of Marrying a Foreign Spouse

My husband and I met in college. I was a United States citizen, and he was a student from Japan studying in the United States. After knowing one another for seven months, we started dating. After nine months of dating, we got engaged and were married ten months later. We’ve been married for over twenty years. However, marrying someone from a different country isn’t easy. We had many financial challenges, some specifically because we weren’t born in the same country.

4 Financial Challenges of Marrying a Foreign Spouse

There are four financial challenges of marrying a foreign spouse that we have experienced.

Lawyer Fees

Once we were married, my husband applied for a permanent resident card. Unfortunately, this required hiring an immigration lawyer, which cost us thousands of dollars throughout the three-and-a-half years it took for him to get permanent resident status.

You can try to apply for permanent residency without a lawyer, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The laws are too complex, and you don’t want to jeopardize your spouse’s application by making mistakes.

When the lawyer completed all the paperwork, we had to drive to an immigration office to have an interview. (This is done so the immigration officer can verify that your relationship is legit and not a fake marriage so someone can get a green card.) Depending on how far away the immigration office is, this trip is another expense.

Income Level

When you marry a foreigner, you must prove that you have enough income to support the individual. If you don’t, you can also use the income your potential spouse will make and any support he may receive from his family.

If you get divorced before ten years of marriage, you’ll be required to continue to support your foreign spouse until the ten years is up.

Renewal of a Passport

If your foreign spouse chooses not to become a United States citizen, you’ll face other expenses when it comes time to renew her passport.

For instance, when we lived in Arizona, the closest Japanese embassy was in Los Angeles. We had to drive six hours there and stay a few days in a hotel waiting for the new passport. That trip cost us several hundred dollars plus the cost of the passport.

Visiting Their Home Country

Finally, your spouse will want to visit their home country and family regularly, so you’ll need to budget for traveling abroad. Unfortunately, you may find that visiting your spouse’s home country takes most of your travel money, so you may not get to travel to other destinations as frequently as you would like.

Other Considerations

The expenses above are for someone marrying a foreign-born spouse already residing in the United States. If you want to marry someone living in another country, you’ll likely face more expenses and even more government rules and regulations.

Final Thoughts

There are many financial challenges of marrying a foreign spouse. However, if you have a strong relationship and want to commit to marriage, the economic difficulties are worth it.

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