There is no minimum length of marriage required to get a divorce in any U.S. state. How long you have to be married to get a divorce is, legally, not at all: you could file the day after the wedding if you wanted to. What actually controls the timeline is a different set of rules — residency in the state where you file, a mandatory waiting period after filing, and in some states a required period of living separately before the court will grant the divorce. And while the duration of your marriage won’t block you from filing, it can shape what you leave with, especially for spousal support, Social Security, and military benefits.
Residency Is the Real Starting Gate
Before a court will hear your case, you have to prove you’ve lived in the state long enough to give it authority over the divorce. Every state sets its own threshold, and they vary widely. A few states have no minimum residency period and let you file as soon as you establish residence with intent to stay. At the other end, one state requires up to two years of continuous residence if you have no other connection to it, such as having been married there or having lived there as a couple.
Six months is the most common requirement, used by roughly 30 states. A smaller group requires a full year. Many states layer a county rule on top, often 60 to 90 days in the county where you file. If you recently moved, this is the requirement most likely to slow you down. You cannot shop for a state with friendlier divorce laws without genuinely living there first.
Waiting Periods After You File
Most states impose a mandatory waiting period between the day you file the petition and the day the court will finalize the divorce. The purpose is to give both spouses time to reconsider or negotiate. These cooling-off periods range from as few as 20 days to six months, with the most common windows falling between 30 and 90 days. About a dozen states have no mandatory waiting period at all, so an uncontested divorce can be finalized as soon as the paperwork is processed.
The clock runs from the date you file or serve the petition, not from the date you and your spouse separated. If your divorce is contested or involves complex assets, the real timeline will stretch well past the minimum regardless.
Separation Requirements Before Filing
This is the rule that surprises people. More than a dozen states either require or allow a period of living “separate and apart” as grounds for a no-fault divorce. In some of them, you cannot file at all until the separation period has run. The range is significant. Some states require as little as 60 days of separation. Others require a full year, and a few require two.
Separation requirements and post-filing waiting periods are not the same thing. A waiting period starts after you file. A separation requirement must be satisfied before the court will grant the divorce, and sometimes before you can file in the first place. In states that require a year of separation, a completely amicable split can still take more than 12 months from start to finish. If minor children are involved, some states extend the required separation further.
When the Length of Your Marriage Actually Matters
The duration of your marriage won’t stop you from filing, but it shapes what you receive afterward. Three thresholds matter most.
Spousal Support
Marriage duration is one of the most important factors courts weigh when deciding alimony. Short marriages, often defined as under ten years, tend to result in limited or no support. Longer marriages generally lead to longer support obligations, and marriages of 20 years or more can result in indefinite or permanent support in some states. A common rule of thumb is that support lasts for roughly one-third to one-half the length of the marriage, though judges have broad discretion. If you are close to a duration threshold in your state, when you file can carry real financial weight.
The Social Security Ten-Year Rule
This is the sharpest financial cliff tied to marriage length. If your marriage lasted at least ten years, you can claim Social Security benefits based on your ex-spouse’s earnings record once you reach 62, worth up to 50% of their full retirement amount. If the marriage ended at nine years and eleven months, you get nothing from that record.
Federal law defines a “divorced wife” or “divorced husband” as someone who “had been married to such individual for a period of 10 years immediately before the date the divorce became effective.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 Section 416 – Additional Definitions To actually collect, you must also be at least 62, currently unmarried, and not entitled to a higher benefit based on your own work record.2Social Security Administration. Code of Federal Regulations Section 404.331 If you are near the ten-year mark, it is worth thinking through what an earlier filing would cost you in retirement income.
Military Benefits and the 20/20/20 Rule
Former military spouses have their own duration-based threshold. To keep full military benefits after divorce, including TRICARE healthcare, commissary privileges, and exchange access, three conditions must overlap: the marriage lasted at least 20 years, the service member performed at least 20 years of creditable service, and those two periods overlapped by at least 20 years. Federal law defines an eligible former spouse as someone whose marriage lasted “at least 20 years during which period the member or former member performed at least 20 years of service which is creditable in determining that member’s or former member’s eligibility for retired or retainer pay.”3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 10 Section 1072 – Definitions
If the overlap is 15 years rather than 20, a former spouse may still qualify for one year of transitional medical coverage. Below that, military healthcare is lost at divorce. As with Social Security, a few months of timing can translate into tens of thousands of dollars in lifetime benefits.
Covenant Marriage: One Exception to Know
If you live in Arizona, Arkansas, or Louisiana and voluntarily entered a covenant marriage, the general rules above bend. Tennessee passed a covenant marriage law set to take effect in mid-2025. Covenant spouses cannot use no-fault grounds and generally must prove fault such as adultery, a felony conviction, abandonment, or abuse, or complete a lengthy separation period that can run two years or more. Couples with minor children may face an even longer wait. Covenant marriages are a small share of all marriages, but if you’re in one, expect a materially different path.
Annulment Is Not a Shortcut for Short Marriages
People married only briefly sometimes assume they can annul instead of divorce. Annulment is a different legal process: divorce ends a valid marriage, while annulment declares the marriage was never legally valid to begin with. A short marriage does not qualify you for one on its own. You need specific grounds — fraud or misrepresentation by one spouse, bigamy, marriage while underage, mental incapacity or intoxication at the ceremony, duress, or inability to consummate. The question is whether something was wrong with the formation of the marriage, not how long it lasted. Some states also cap how long you have to file for annulment, particularly on fraud grounds, so if you think you qualify, moving quickly matters.
If your short marriage was legally valid and simply didn’t work, divorce is the route. A short, uncontested divorce with few assets is typically the fastest and least expensive kind.
Summary Dissolution for Short Marriages
Some states offer a streamlined process, sometimes called summary dissolution, for couples with short marriages, no children, and few shared assets. Eligibility rules vary but commonly include a marriage under five years, no minor children, limited combined debt, and combined assets under a set threshold. Both spouses have to agree on how to divide everything, and neither can seek spousal support. Not every state offers it. Where it exists and you qualify, it is significantly faster and cheaper than a standard divorce. Standard filing fees generally run between $250 and $400, and a simplified process keeps added costs low.
The real question, then, is not whether you have been married long enough to divorce. You have. It is whether you have been married long enough that the timing of your divorce affects your financial future — and if you are near ten years, twenty years, or a state alimony threshold, that answer deserves a careful look before you file.