One state · both ends of the marriage

What it costs to marry here.
And what you owe if it ends.

Pick a state and get both halves of the same decision: the minimum it legally takes to be married there — in four states that means no officiant, no witnesses and no waiting — and the obligations that state imposes on you if the marriage ends. Read from the statute, with the link and the date. Nobody puts these two things on one page, which is exactly why they should be.

A courthouse corridor at golden hour, two people in black, no guests, no aisle — the whole wedding.Photograph pending
A marriage licence on a bare table beside a pen and a single dark rose.Photograph pending
Hands signing, black lace cuff, no officiant in frame.Photograph pending
Two rings on dark linen, shot from directly above, hard light.Photograph pending

Search a state

Both ends of the same contract. What the state requires to marry you, and what it requires of you if the marriage ends — because the second one is a set of terms you agree to by signing the first.

Cheap to enter · expensive to leave

Every state sells the door in cheap.
None of them price the exit.

Getting married costs tens of dollars. Michigan $20. New Jersey $28. Idaho and Colorado $30. Twelve of the thirty states here will marry you with no witnesses, and four will do it with no officiant at all. It is the cheapest binding contract most people will ever sign.

Filing to end it costs a little more, and the filing fee is the number everybody quotes. Still trivial — which is precisely why quoting it misleads. The filing fee is the cheapest part of a divorce, and the only part with a price tag on the door. The column on the right is what actually decides the money.

Getting married

What it costs to start

$20 – $125The full range of marriage licence fees across all fifty states and DC. Michigan is cheapest at $20; Minnesota dearest at $125, though twelve hours of premarital education cuts that to $50.
  • $0Alabama, which abolished the marriage licence in 2019 — you file a notarised affidavit instead
  • $5Oklahoma, after a four-hour premarital counselling certificate. A 90% discount
  • 12 statesRequire no witnesses at all
  • 5 statesWill marry you with no officiant: Colorado, DC, Montana, Texas — and Alabama, where none exists
  • $18,231Median US wedding, against a licence costing tens of dollars. Every line of it optional
Getting divorced

What it costs to stop

$100 – $400Court filing fees, verified in twenty-nine states. Hawaii cheapest at $100; Louisiana's $400 is an advance deposit rather than a fee. Oregon's $301 is charged per appearance, so a contested divorce is $602.
  • 35%Of the gap between your gross incomes, for up to 80% of the marriage — Massachusetts, by statute
  • 33⅓%Of the payer's net income less 25% of the payee's — Illinois, a real formula
  • 23%Of the income gap, capped at half the marriage — New Hampshire
  • ⅓Of the payer's net income — Louisiana's ceiling, and one of the few that exists
  • 16 statesSet no duration limit whatsoever. A judge decides, and nothing in the statute stops them
Marriage license fees and officiant costs are legal requirements that couples sometimes forget when budgeting… they're necessary for making your marriage official. Zola, "What's the average cost of a wedding", updated 6 March 2026. The officiant half of that sentence is false in Colorado, Washington DC, Montana and Texas.

The highest verified filing cost is Louisiana's $400 advance deposit, though a deposit is not the same thing as a fee \u2014 Minnesota's $390 is the steepest straight filing fee. Licence fees and filing fees are read from statutes and court fee schedules; where a state sets them per county we name the county rather than publishing one county's figure as the state's. Support caps and duration limits come from the statutes themselves. Attorney fees are deliberately absent — every published average for them comes from surveys of the firms selling the service, which is the same problem as the wedding industry costing its own weddings. G.L. c.208 § 53 · La. C.C. art. 112 · S.C. Code § 8-21-310