Yes, you can marry your cousin in Florida. The state’s incest statute lists the family relationships that make a marriage illegal, and cousins of any degree are not on that list. First cousins, half-cousins, second cousins, and first cousins once removed can all legally marry here, with no genetic counseling requirement, no age condition, and no disclosure on the license application.
Which Relationships Florida Actually Prohibits
Florida Statute 741.21 bars marriage only between people related by lineal consanguinity, meaning a direct-line ancestor or descendant: a parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, child, grandchild, or great-grandchild. The same statute also prohibits marriage between siblings, between an aunt and nephew, and between an uncle and niece.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 741.21 – Incestuous Marriages Prohibited
That is the entire list. The statute works as a closed set of banned relationships rather than a broad rule, so anything not named is allowed. Cousins are not named.
Because the prohibition is built on consanguinity, a blood relationship, people related only through adoption fall outside it as well. An adopted niece and her adoptive uncle, for example, are not blood relatives and are not covered by Section 741.21.
Getting a Florida Marriage License as Cousins
Cousin couples apply the same way as anyone else. Both applicants must be at least 18. A 17-year-old can apply with written parental consent, and the other partner has to be no more than two years older.2Florida Senate. Florida Code 741.04 – Marriage License Requirements
Florida imposes a three-day waiting period between applying for the license and using it. You can skip the wait by completing a four-hour premarital preparation course before applying. The course also lowers the fee: couples who take it pay $61 instead of $86. Non-Florida residents are automatically exempt from the waiting period but still pay the full fee.2Florida Senate. Florida Code 741.04 – Marriage License Requirements
Nothing on the application asks about your family relationship to your partner beyond identity verification. There is no cousin disclosure box, and a clerk has no basis to deny the license on that ground.
A 2025 Bill Tried to Change This
Florida legislators considered HB-733 in 2025, which would have added first cousins to the list of prohibited relationships. The bill failed in the state Senate, so the law heading into 2026 is unchanged. The attempt is worth knowing about because the issue may return in a future session, but as of now first-cousin marriage remains fully legal.
If You Move to Another State
The usual rule is that a marriage valid where it was performed is recognized everywhere else. The exception matters here: a state can refuse to honor a marriage that violates its strong public policy. Some states criminalize cousin marriage, and those states may treat a cousin marriage as void even when it was legal in the state where it took place.
The Full Faith and Credit Clause does not force a new state of residence to apply Florida’s marriage rules over its own. If you marry your cousin in Florida and later relocate, your new home state has a legitimate interest in applying its own law to your relationship. Check the destination state’s law before moving.
The reverse works in your favor. A couple who married as cousins in another state and then moves to Florida will have their marriage fully recognized here, because Florida has no policy against it.
Federal Benefits and Tax Filing
For federal tax purposes, what matters is whether the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed. The IRS recognizes any marriage valid under the law of the state or territory where it took place, regardless of where the couple currently lives. A cousin couple married in Florida can file a joint federal return and claim every deduction and credit available to any other married couple.3Internal Revenue Service. Publication 501 (2025), Dependents, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information
Immigration follows a similar approach. When USCIS approves a spousal visa petition for first cousins, consular officers are instructed to accept that determination rather than reopen the validity question based on the family relationship.4U.S. Department of State. Foreign Affairs Manual – Family-Based Relationships: Marital Relationship
Social Security is the trap. Survivor benefits turn on whether the marriage is valid under the law of the state where the deceased worker was domiciled at death, not where the marriage was performed. A 1963 SSA ruling denied widow’s benefits to a woman who had married her first cousin because the worker was domiciled in Illinois, where cousin marriage is void.5Social Security Administration. SSR 63-20 – Validity of Marriage Between First Cousins Had the worker been domiciled in Florida, the widow would have qualified. Your state of residence at the relevant moment can determine whether the federal government treats your marriage as valid for benefits.
Genetic Counseling if You Plan to Have Children
Florida places no reproductive conditions on cousin couples, but the medical question is worth separating from the legal one. For unrelated parents, the background chance of a child being born with a significant genetic condition is roughly 2 to 3 percent. For first cousins, it rises to about 5 to 6 percent. Most children born to cousin couples are healthy, and the increase comes from both parents being more likely to carry the same recessive variants inherited from shared grandparents.
Carrier screening, including whole exome sequencing, can identify shared pathogenic variants before conception. If both partners carry the same variant, preimplantation genetic testing during IVF or prenatal diagnosis becomes available. Florida does not require any of this, but a first-cousin couple planning biological children has good reason to speak with a genetic counselor.