How do you update your marital status on your DNI and register your divorce with Reniec?

The order: certificate first, then the DNI

Your DNI (Peru’s national ID card) shows what the civil registry says. So after a divorce there are two procedures at Reniec, the national identity and civil registry, one after the other:

1. Recording the dissolution of the marriage on your marriage certificate (the divorce “annotation”, inscripción de disolución del vínculo matrimonial).
2. Updating the marital status on your DNI.

Reniec’s page puts it this way: once the dissolution is recorded, “you have to change your marital status on your DNI”. How to get the divorce itself, through a notary, a municipality or a court, is covered in divorce in Peru: mutual consent vs. fault-based.

Recording the divorce on the marriage certificate

This procedure is for marriage certificates held in Reniec’s system. You file:

• the request to record the dissolution of the marriage (Reniec publishes a form);
• a plain copy of your ID (DNI, or carné de extranjería, passport or national ID card if you are a foreigner);
• depending on the route: the court records and the court’s official letter, the notarial records, or the mayoral resolution from the municipality where you divorced.

The fees, according to the page updated on 3 June 2025, are paid with code 06610:

Reniec’s FAQ gives the same amounts. You can file at a Reniec office or through the online filing desk (mesa de partes virtual), Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The page says Reniec replies within 10 business days to the email you gave.

Updating the marital status on your DNI

What Reniec’s page (updated on 17 March 2026) asks for, by type of change:

You do not need to bring the certificate if it is already in Reniec’s database. Reniec’s FAQ confirms it: online, the only change possible is “from single to married”. If you were widowed and the death has not been registered yet, see the death certificate.

What it costs. The page lists S/ 35.00 with code 00729 if you have an electronic DNI and S/ 30.00 with code 02121 if you have a blue DNI (the older, non-electronic card). The same page says that if you have a blue DNI the procedure is in person and you will be issued an electronic DNI, and that Reniec now issues only electronic DNIs. Those two statements leave unclear which amount applies in that case: confirm before you pay.

How long it takes and how you collect it. The page says about 10 business days. You follow progress on the DNI status check and collect it when it shows 100%. The electronic DNI is handed over only to you; a blue DNI can be collected by someone else with a simple letter of authorization bearing your signature and fingerprint. The page adds that changing the delivery location costs S/ 5.00 more and that the wait “will be extended by 15 more business days”. For the DNI in general, see DNI: how to get, renew or replace it.

If you married abroad

Reniec’s sources do not say it the same way. The DNI page says you must register your marriage certificate at the Peruvian consulate in the country where you married before you can change your marital status. Reniec’s FAQ says registration must be done at the consulate and that, if it was not, it can be done at any Reniec office. The requirements for that registration are on civil marriage in Peru.

If you divorced abroad

A divorce judgment from another country is not recorded directly. The Civil Code says foreign judgments have in Peru “the force granted to them by the respective treaties” and, if there is no treaty, the force that country gives to Peruvian judgments (art. 2102). Article 2104 sets requirements for them to be recognized, including:

• that the foreign court had jurisdiction;
• that the defendant was summoned under the law of the place of the proceedings and given time and safeguards to defend themselves;
• that the judgment is final (cosa juzgada);
• that it is not contrary to public order or good morals;
• that reciprocity is proven.

That recognition is the exequátur (the Civil Code uses the word in the heading of article 2104), and it is requested in Peru. Peruvian consulates publish model powers of attorney to request it without travelling, such as the one from the Consulate General in Seville. Reniec’s page for recording a dissolution does not mention foreign judgments: it only lists divorces with court, notarial or municipal records. It follows that, once recognized, the judgment is recorded through the court route, but the page does not say so in those words. For this case, a lawyer is worth it.

If you are listed with a marital status that is not yours

If Reniec lists you as married and you are single, its FAQ says there was an “improper declaration of data”: the administrative route applies only to the cases in its TUPA (its official list of procedures) and otherwise you need a court ruling. To prove you are single to someone else, see the single status certificate.