US marriage laws are set almost entirely by individual states, not the federal government, so the rules on who can marry, what paperwork you need, and how the ceremony must happen depend on where you tie the knot. Once a marriage is valid in the state where it took place, every other state and the federal government must recognize it, and it triggers a defined bundle of rights covering property, taxes, inheritance, Social Security, and medical decision-making. The sections below walk through the eligibility rules, the licensing process, and the legal consequences that follow a valid marriage.
Who Can Legally Marry
Every state sets a minimum marriage age. In most states that age is 18. Nebraska sets it at 19 and Mississippi at 21. Some states still let minors marry with parental consent or a judge’s approval, but more than a dozen states have eliminated every exception and require both parties to be at least 18 with no workarounds.
Both people must have the mental capacity to understand what marriage means and what obligations it creates. A marriage entered when one party is incapacitated by illness, intoxication, or cognitive impairment can be voided. Consent must also be genuine. A marriage obtained through fraud or duress is voidable, and a court can annul it as though it never happened.
Every state prohibits marriage between close blood relatives. Siblings, parents, and grandparents are universally barred. First-cousin marriage is legal in roughly half the states and banned in the rest. Bigamy is illegal everywhere, so you must be legally single when you apply for a new license, which means any prior marriage must have ended by divorce or death. Penalties for bigamy range from a misdemeanor with minimal jail time to a felony carrying up to ten years in prison, depending on the state.
Non-citizens can legally marry in the United States. A valid passport generally serves as acceptable identification, and a birth certificate may be required to verify age. Documents accepted vary by county, so calling the local clerk’s office ahead of time saves a wasted trip. Marrying a US citizen does not automatically confer immigration status, but it does open a pathway to a green card through a separate petition. Entering a marriage solely to evade immigration law is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 U.S. Code 1325 – Improper Entry by Alien
Getting a Marriage License
Before any ceremony, you need a marriage license from a county clerk or local registrar. Both applicants usually must appear together, though a handful of states allow proxy applications for deployed military members.
Bring valid government-issued photo identification: a driver’s license, passport, or military ID. Many counties also require a certified birth certificate to verify your age and parentage. A Social Security number is standard on the application, and people who do not have one can sometimes substitute alternative documentation. If either of you was previously married, you need proof the prior marriage ended, which means a certified divorce decree or, if your former spouse died, a death certificate.2USAGov. How to Get a Copy of a Divorce Decree or Certificate
The application asks for full legal names, current addresses, dates of birth, and the names and birthplaces of both sets of parents. Spelling must match your ID exactly. Errors on the application become errors on your marriage certificate, which is a permanent public record you will need for everything from name changes to joint tax returns. Some offices let you start the application online, but the final step almost always requires an in-person visit.
License fees run from about $20 to $110 depending on the county. Some jurisdictions offer a discount of $25 to $60 for couples who complete a premarital education course. The fee is paid at filing, and most offices accept cash, check, or card.
Waiting Periods and the Ceremony
Most states let you hold the ceremony as soon as you have the license. Roughly a third impose a waiting period of 24 to 72 hours between issuance and the ceremony.3Justia. Getting a Marriage License: 50-State Survey Some waive the waiting period for military members or couples who show good cause. Once issued, the license has an expiration date, with validity windows that range from about 30 days to six months. If your license expires before the ceremony, you start over and pay the fee again.
The ceremony requires solemnization by an authorized officiant. Judges, justices of the peace, and ordained or registered clergy all qualify in most states. One or two witnesses must be present, depending on state rules. The officiant and witnesses sign the license immediately after the ceremony. The signed license then goes back to the issuing office, usually within 10 to 30 days, so the clerk can record it and issue the official marriage certificate. That certificate is your definitive legal proof of marriage, and you should order several certified copies for name changes, insurance updates, and benefits claims.
A few states, including Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, allow self-uniting marriages that require no officiant. The couple marries each other, two witnesses sign the license, and the marriage is as legally valid as any other. The option originally developed from Quaker tradition and is now open to anyone in states that permit it.
Common-Law and Covenant Marriage
Most people in the United States are not common-law married simply by living together, no matter how long the relationship has lasted. Only about ten states and the District of Columbia still recognize common-law marriage, and even in those states the requirements go beyond cohabitation. The couple must intend to be married, present themselves publicly as spouses, and live together, and both people must be legally eligible to marry in the first place.4National Conference of State Legislatures. Common Law Marriage by State States that do not allow new common-law marriages will generally still honor one validly established in a state that does.
Three states offer a more restrictive alternative called covenant marriage: Louisiana, Arizona, and Arkansas. Couples who choose it must complete premarital counseling and sign a declaration of intent committing to the marriage. The real difference shows up at the end. Divorce in a covenant marriage is limited to specific fault-based grounds like adultery, abuse, or abandonment, and the couple must attempt counseling first. Standard marriages in most states allow no-fault divorce. Covenant marriages remain uncommon even in the states that offer them.
How Marriage Affects Property Rights
Marriage changes how you own things, and the rules depend on where you live. Nine states use a community property system: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.5Justia. Property Division Laws in Divorce: 50-State Survey In those states, most income and assets acquired during the marriage belong equally to both spouses regardless of who earned the money. Property you owned before the marriage, or received as a gift or inheritance, generally stays yours alone.
The other 41 states and the District of Columbia use equitable distribution. A court divides property in a way it considers fair, which does not necessarily mean 50/50. Judges weigh factors like each spouse’s income, earning potential, length of the marriage, and contributions to the household. Many equitable distribution outcomes land close to even, but the result is far less predictable than in a community property state.
Marriage also protects a surviving spouse from being completely disinherited. Most states give a surviving spouse the right to claim an elective share of the deceased spouse’s estate even if the will leaves them nothing. The share varies by state and commonly falls between one-third and one-half of the estate. Unmarried partners, no matter how long they have been together, have no equivalent protection.
Tax Consequences of Marriage
Marriage changes your federal tax picture, and whether it helps or hurts depends on how your incomes compare. The 2026 standard deduction for married couples filing jointly is $32,200, exactly double the $16,100 single-filer deduction.6Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 At that level there is no penalty. The advantage shows up when one spouse earns most of the household income, because combining a high earner with a low earner pulls more of the household income into lower brackets than the high earner would have faced alone.
The math flips for couples with similar high incomes. The top tax bracket for 2026 kicks in at $640,600 for a single filer but at $768,700 for a married couple filing jointly, which is less than double. Two people each earning $400,000 would face a higher combined tax bill married than they would filing as two single people. This is the classic marriage penalty, and it hits hardest when both spouses earn between $100,000 and $500,000.
Filing separately as a married couple sounds like a fix but comes with steep trade-offs. Married-filing-separately status eliminates or reduces most credits, including the earned income credit, education credits, and the premium tax credit for health insurance. It also cuts capital-loss deductions in half and blocks the student loan interest deduction. For most couples the credits lost outweigh any bracket advantage.
The gift and estate tax side is where marriage pays off cleanly. Spouses who are both US citizens can transfer unlimited amounts to each other during life or at death with zero gift or estate tax. For gifts to a non-citizen spouse the annual exclusion is capped at $194,000 for 2026. Gifts to anyone else are subject to the standard $19,000 annual exclusion per recipient before counting against the lifetime exemption.7Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Married couples can also split gifts, which lets them jointly give up to $38,000 to a single person in one year without filing a gift tax return.
Federal Benefits and Protections for Spouses
Social Security
A married person can claim Social Security benefits based on their own work record or receive up to 50% of their spouse’s full retirement age benefit, whichever is higher. The spousal benefit exists even if the lower-earning spouse never worked. The higher-earning spouse must already be receiving benefits for the other to claim. Divorced spouses qualify for the same 50% benefit on an ex-spouse’s record if the marriage lasted at least ten years, the divorced spouse is currently unmarried, and their own benefit would be smaller. Claiming on an ex-spouse’s record does not reduce the ex-spouse’s payments or affect a current spouse’s benefits.
Surviving spouses can receive 100% of the deceased spouse’s benefit amount, which is often substantially more than their own. The survivor benefit is available as early as age 60, or age 50 with a disability. For someone whose spouse earned significantly more over a career, spousal and survivor benefits can add hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime payments compared with what an unmarried partner would receive, which is nothing.
Retirement Plan Protections
Federal law gives married people automatic protections in employer retirement plans that unmarried partners do not get. Defined benefit pension plans must pay benefits as a joint-and-survivor annuity, meaning the surviving spouse continues to receive at least 50% of the payment amount after the participant dies.8Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Qualified Joint and Survivor Annuity A participant can choose a different payment form only with the spouse’s written, notarized consent. Other qualified plans that do not offer annuities must still name the spouse as the default death beneficiary unless the spouse signs a waiver. These protections override contrary state law or plan provisions.
Healthcare Decisions
Marriage does not automatically give you the right to access your spouse’s medical records or make healthcare decisions for them, though many people assume otherwise. Federal privacy rules defer to state law on this point. In some states a spouse is automatically recognized as a personal representative for healthcare decisions. In others, you need a specific legal document like a healthcare power of attorney or advance directive to have that authority. The safest approach for any married couple is to execute healthcare powers of attorney for each other rather than rely on state default rules.
Prenuptial Agreements
A prenuptial agreement lets a couple define in advance how assets, debts, and spousal support will be handled if the marriage ends. Most states have adopted some version of the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act or a similar framework setting the basic enforceability requirements. The agreement must be in writing and signed by both parties. Both people should have the chance to consult with independent legal counsel. And there must be fair financial disclosure, meaning each person reveals their income, assets, and debts to the other before signing.
Courts will refuse to enforce a prenup if one party can show they did not sign voluntarily, or if the agreement was unconscionable at signing and the challenging party was not given adequate financial information. Provisions that try to limit child support or dictate custody are almost always unenforceable because courts treat those as public policy matters that belong to the judge, not the contract. Timing matters too. An agreement signed the night before the wedding faces much heavier scrutiny than one executed months earlier, because last-minute pressure raises questions about voluntary consent.
Prenups are not just for wealthy people. They are especially useful when one person is bringing significant debt into the marriage, when one or both spouses own a business, or when there are children from a prior relationship whose inheritance the parent wants to protect. Without a prenup, state default rules on property division and spousal support apply, and those rules may not match what either person would have chosen.
Recognition Across State Lines
A marriage performed legally in one state is recognized everywhere in the country. The Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause requires each state to honor the public acts and records of other states.9National Constitution Center. Article IV, Section 1: Full Faith and Credit Clause For marriage specifically, the Supreme Court held in Obergefell v. Hodges that every state must both license marriages between same-sex couples and recognize those performed elsewhere.10Justia. Obergefell v. Hodges
Congress added a statutory backstop with the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law in December 2022. The Act repealed the Defense of Marriage Act and requires the federal government and all states to recognize any marriage that was valid in the state where it was performed.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 1 U.S. Code 7 – Marriage For any federal law, rule, or regulation where marital status matters, your marriage counts if it was between two people and legally valid where it took place. The Act also includes religious liberty protections, so no religious organization is required to perform marriages that conflict with its beliefs.
Common-law marriages follow the same rule. If you established a valid common-law marriage in a state that recognizes them, other states will honor it even if they do not permit new common-law marriages within their own borders. The rights attached to your marriage, including joint tax filing, healthcare decision-making, and spousal benefit claims, travel with you when you move.