Minimum marriage age and exceptions by state
What is the youngest age someone can legally marry in this state, and what exceptions exist? Sixteen states and DC set an absolute minimum of 18 with no exceptions. The remaining states allow marriage below 18 through some combination of parental consent, judicial approval, emancipation, or pregnancy exceptions, with age floors ranging from 15 to 17 -- and a handful of states set no statutory age floor at all. This area is changing fast: Oklahoma eliminated its no-floor status in May 2026, Oregon's 18-minimum ban took effect in 2026, and California AB 1267 is pending for the 2026 session. The best existing compilation (Tahirih Justice Center, September 2025) is already stale on these changes and is a PDF. One record per state, each quoting the statutory text verbatim -- taken from the state's own code where the compilation is stale, and otherwise from the compilation's reproduction of that text. Answers 'can a 16 year old get married in Texas', 'minimum marriage age in California', 'which states allow child marriage', 'states that ban marriage under 18'. This is a statutory reference, not legal advice.
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The data
| Exception type | State | Minimum age | Age with parental consent | Additional conditions | Statutory citation | Age with judicial approval |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parental consent | Alabama | 16 | at least 16 years of age | the consent of a parent or guardian of the minor to the marriage shall be required | Ala. Code § 30-1-4 | |
| Judicial approval | Alaska | 16 | the other party to the marriage is not more than three years older | Alaska Stat. § 25.05.171 | the age of 16 | |
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | American Samoa | 18 | ||||
| Parental consent | Arizona | 16 | at least sixteen years of age | the person’s prospective spouse is not more than three years older than the person | Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 25-102 | |
| Parental consent and judicial approval | Arkansas | 16 | at least seventeen (17) years of age | the female is pregnant | Ark. Code Ann. § 9-11-103 | older than sixteen (16) years of age |
| Parental consent and judicial approval | California | No age floor set by statute | Cal. Fam. Code § 303 | |||
| Judicial approval | Colorado | 16 | Pregnancy alone does not establish that the best interests of the party would be served. | Colo. Rev. Stat. § 14-2-108 | sixteen or seventeen years of age | |
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Connecticut | 18 | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-20a | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Delaware | 18 | Del. Code tit. 13, § 123 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | District of Columbia | 18 | D.C. Code § 46-411 | |||
| Parental consent | Florida | 17 | at least 17 years of age | The older party to the marriage is not more than 2 years older than the younger party to the marriage. | Fla. Stat. § 741.04 | |
| Emancipation only | Georgia | 17 | At least 15 days shall have passed since such emancipation shall have occurred by operation of law or pursuant to a petition filed with the court; | Ga. Code Ann. § 19-3-2 | ||
| Pregnancy | Guam | No age floor set by statute | 19 Guam Code Ann. § 3202 | |||
| Judicial approval | Hawaii | 15 | Hawaii Rev. Stat. § 572-1 | under the age of sixteen years, but in no event under the age of fifteen years | ||
| Parental consent | Idaho | 16 | under eighteen (18) and not less than sixteen (16) years of age | A minor under eighteen (18) and not less than sixteen (16) years of age may not contract marriage with a person of the age of majority where there is an age difference of three (3) years or greater between them. | Idaho Code Ann. § 32-202 | |
| Parental consent and judicial approval | Illinois | 16 | the age of 16 years | 750 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/203 | ||
| Emancipation only | Indiana | 16 | one (1) of the individuals is not more than four (4) years older than the other individual if the other individual is sixteen (16) or seventeen (17) years of age; | Ind. Code § 31-11-1-5 | ||
| Parental consent and judicial approval | Iowa | 16 | sixteen or seventeen years of age | Iowa Code § 595.2 | ||
| Judicial approval | Kansas | 15 | Kan. Stat. Ann. § 23-2505 | 15 years of age | ||
| Emancipation only | Kentucky | 17 | Ky. Rev. Stat. §402.020 | |||
| Parental consent and judicial approval | Louisiana | 16 | A minor sixteen or seventeen years of age may not contract marriage with a person of the age of majority where there is an age difference of three years or greater between them. | La. Child. Code § 1545 | sixteen or seventeen | |
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Maine | 18 | Title 19-A, §652 | |||
| Parental consent and judicial approval | Maryland | 17 | 17 years old | Md. Fam. Law Code Ann. § 2-301 | ||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Massachusetts | 18 | Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 207, § 7 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Michigan | 18 | Mich. Comp. Laws § 551.51 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Minnesota | 18 | Minn. Stat. Ann. § 517.02 | |||
| Judicial approval | Mississippi | No age floor set by statute | the parents or other person in loco parentis of the person or persons so under age consent to the marriage | Miss. Code Ann. § 93-1-5 | ||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Missouri | 18 | ||||
| Judicial approval | Montana | 16 | Mont. Code Ann. § 40-1-202 | 16 years of age | ||
| Parental consent | Nebraska | 17 | the age of seventeen years | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 42-102 | ||
| Parental consent and judicial approval | Nevada | 17 | 17 years of age | Nev. Rev. Stat. § 122.025 | ||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | New Hampshire | 18 | N.H. Rev. Stat. § 457:4 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | New Jersey | 18 | N.J. Stat. § 37:1-6 | |||
| Judicial approval | New Mexico | No age floor set by statute | in settlement of proceedings to compel support and establish parentage, or where an applicant for the marriage license is pregnant | N.M. Code § 40-1-6 | ||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | New York | 18 | N.Y. Dom. Rel. Code Article 3, § 15-a | |||
| Parental consent and judicial approval | North Carolina | 16 | over 16 years of age and under 18 years of age | may marry a person no more than four years older | N.C. Gen. Stat. § 51-2 | |
| Parental consent | North Dakota | 16 | sixteen to eighteen years of age | N.D. Cent. Code § 14-03-02 | ||
| Parental consent | Northern Mariana Islands | No age floor set by statute | 8 N. Mar. I. Code § 1205 | |||
| Judicial approval | Ohio | 17 | The other person to be joined in marriage is not more than four years older. | Section 3101.02 | seventeen years | |
| Parental consent and judicial approval | Oklahoma | No age floor set by statute | sixteen (16) | Every person under the age of sixteen (16) years is expressly forbidden and prohibited from entering into the marriage relation except when authorized by the court | 43 O.S. § 3 | |
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Oregon | 18 | ||||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Pennsylvania | 18 | Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. tit. 23, § 1304 | |||
| Parental consent | Puerto Rico | 18 | PR Laws tit. 1, § 6595 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Rhode Island | 18 | R.I. Gen. Stat. § 15-2-14 | |||
| Parental consent | South Carolina | 16 | between the ages of sixteen to eighteen | S.C. Code § 20-1-250 | ||
| Parental consent | South Dakota | 16 | between the age of sixteen and eighteen | S.D. Codified Laws § 25-1-9 | ||
| Parental consent | Tennessee | 17 | at least seventeen (17) years of age | Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-3-105 | ||
| Emancipation only | Texas | 16 | Tex. Fam. Code. §. 2.003 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | United States Virgin Islands | 18 | 16 V.I.C. § 36 | |||
| Judicial approval | Utah | 16 | Utah Code § 81-2-301 | 16 or 17 years old | ||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Vermont | 18 | Vt. Stat. tit. 18, § 5142 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Virginia | 18 | § 20-48 | |||
| None (18 minimum, no exceptions) | Washington | 18 | Wash. Rev. Code § 26.04.010 | |||
| Parental consent | West Virginia | 16 | under the age of 18 but at least 16 years of age | a marriage license may not be issued to an applicant who is under the age of 18 but who is at least 16 years of age if the person whom the applicant seeks to marry is more than four years older than the applicant | W. Va. Code § 48-2-301 | |
| Parental consent | Wisconsin | 16 | between the age of 16 and 18 years | Wis. Stat. Ann. § 765.02 | ||
| Judicial approval | Wyoming | 16 | Wyo. Stat. § 20-1-102 | sixteen (16) or seventeen (17) years of age |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 5 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- tahirih.orghttps://www.tahirih.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2025-Statutory-Text-Compilation.pdf
- legislature.maine.govhttps://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/19-A/title19-Asec652.html
- codes.ohio.govhttps://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3101.02
- oscn.nethttps://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=553180
- law.lis.virginia.govhttps://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title20/chapter1/section20-48/
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
From your own code
Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.
pip install refsource
refsource lookup state-minimum-marriage-age-exceptions state=Alabama
npx -y refsource lookup state-minimum-marriage-age-exceptions state=Alabama