Where a state sets one license fee for every county, the ranking is exact — no county can undercut it. These are the cheapest state-set marriage license fees in the country, each checked against the state’s own official published source in our state-rules research:
- Rhode Island — $24
- New Jersey — $28
- Colorado — $30
- Wyoming — $30
- Maine — $40
- New York — $40 (NYC $35)
- District of Columbia — $45
- Connecticut — $50
- New Hampshire — $50
- Montana — $53
- New Mexico — $55
- West Virginia — $55 ($35 with premarital education course certificate, per 59-1-10)
A few notes before you plan a road trip. Some of these are resident prices — Indiana’s low figure, for example, is the resident rate, with a higher non-resident rate beside it. Some states let counties add small local charges on top of a state base, so the figure on your county page is the one to trust for the total. And a cheap license says nothing about the ceremony: a state can charge $25 for the license while its courthouses charge separately to perform the wedding, or don’t perform weddings at all.
At the other end of the scale sit the big metro counties — useful context when a $100 license feels steep: it’s the published price of getting married in some of the most popular courthouse wedding destinations in the country, and it’s still less than the cost of the bouquet.
Every figure here links back to a state guide page, and every state guide page links its official source.