To annul a marriage, you have to convince a court that the marriage was legally defective from the day it began, file a petition in the county where you or your spouse lives, serve your spouse with the papers, and then either proceed uncontested or prove your grounds at a hearing. If the judge agrees, a decree of annulment issues and your legal status returns to single, as though the wedding never took place. That retroactive erasure is the whole point of an annulment, and it is also why the process is harder to qualify for than divorce and carries consequences divorce does not.
What Qualifies as a Ground
You cannot annul a marriage simply because it failed or because you regret it. The law recognizes two categories of invalid marriage, and your situation has to fit one of them.
Void Marriages
A void marriage was never legally valid under any circumstances. The two most common examples are bigamy, where one spouse was already married to someone else at the time of the ceremony, and incest, where the spouses are close blood relatives. These marriages are treated as legally nonexistent from day one. A court order confirming the invalidity is still useful for clearing public records, but technically the marriage had no legal force to begin with.
Voidable Marriages
A voidable marriage looks valid on paper but has a defect that gives one spouse the right to challenge it. Until someone files and a court grants the annulment, the marriage remains in effect. The recognized grounds are:
- Underage spouse. One party was below the legal age of consent at the ceremony and married without proper parental or judicial approval.
- Mental incapacity. One spouse could not understand the nature of the marriage contract because of mental illness, intellectual disability, or intoxication at the time of the ceremony.
- Fraud or misrepresentation. One spouse was deceived about something fundamental to the marriage. Courts look for serious deceptions going to the core of the relationship, such as concealing an inability to have children or marrying solely to obtain immigration benefits. Lying about income or age alone typically does not qualify.
- Duress or coercion. One spouse was forced into the marriage through threats of physical harm or severe pressure that removed the ability to freely consent.
- Physical incapacity. One spouse is permanently unable to consummate the marriage, and the other spouse did not know about the condition before the wedding.
Deadlines and the Ratification Trap
Annulment is not an open-ended option. Most states impose filing deadlines that depend on the ground. Fraud-based claims commonly must be filed within a set number of years after the deception is discovered. Underage-marriage claims typically must be brought before the minor reaches the age of majority. Physical incapacity claims often carry a deadline measured from the date of the marriage. These windows vary significantly by state, so check your local law early.
More cases are lost to the ratification rule than to any deadline. If you discover grounds for annulment and then continue living with your spouse as a married couple, most courts will treat that as acceptance of the marriage. Voluntary cohabitation after you learn about fraud, after the coercion ends, or after you reach the age of consent is a near-automatic bar. The logic is simple: if you knew the marriage was defective and chose to stay, you ratified it. People discover a problem, hesitate, remain in the relationship for months, and then try to file. By that point the right is usually gone.
Filing the Petition Step by Step
Gather Your Documents
Start with a certified copy of your marriage certificate from the county where the ceremony took place. You also need proof you live in the county or state where you plan to file. A driver’s license, voter registration card, or similar government-issued document showing your address typically satisfies the residency requirement.
The evidence supporting your specific ground matters most. For mental incapacity, gather medical records from the time of the ceremony. For fraud, collect emails, text messages, or documents that contradict what your spouse told you. For duress, any police reports, witness statements, or records of threats help. The stronger your documentary evidence, the less the case turns on one person’s word against another’s.
File the Petition
File at the courthouse in the county where you or your spouse lives. Most courts provide standardized forms through the clerk’s office or the court’s website. The petition requires both full legal names, the date and location of the marriage, and a clear statement of the ground you are relying on. Filing fees generally range from $100 to $400 depending on jurisdiction. If you cannot afford the fee, request a waiver by submitting a financial affidavit showing your income and expenses.
Serve Your Spouse
After filing, copies of the petition and a court summons must be formally delivered to your spouse. You cannot do this yourself. A professional process server, a county sheriff, or another adult authorized by your jurisdiction has to hand the papers directly to your spouse. Process server fees typically run between $45 and $145. The person who serves the papers then completes a proof-of-service form that gets filed with the court.
If your spouse cannot be located, most states allow service by publication. You publish a legal notice in a newspaper for a required period, often around four weeks, after demonstrating to the court that you made genuine efforts to find your spouse. Service by publication makes the case harder to contest, since the other party may never actually see the notice.
What Happens After You File
Once served, your spouse typically has 20 to 30 days, depending on the state, to file a written response. If no response comes, the case proceeds as uncontested. You may still have to appear before a judge, but without opposition the court often grants the annulment based on your petition and supporting evidence alone. If your spouse contests the annulment, the court schedules a hearing where both sides present testimony and evidence, and the judge decides whether you have proven your grounds.
Unlike divorce, most states do not impose a mandatory waiting period between filing an annulment petition and receiving a final ruling. An uncontested annulment can sometimes resolve in a few weeks. A contested case with a full hearing may take several months. If the judge finds the grounds have been met, the court issues a final decree of annulment. That decree is the official record that the marriage has been declared void. Both parties’ legal status returns to single, and either may remarry.
What Annulment Costs
Court filing fees typically fall between $100 and $400. Process server fees add another $45 to $145. If you hire an attorney, legal fees for an uncontested annulment generally run $1,500 to $5,000. A contested case with a full hearing can cost $5,000 to $10,000 or more. Fee waivers are available in most courts for petitioners who can demonstrate financial hardship.
Whether you need an attorney depends on the complexity of your case. If the annulment is uncontested, there are no children, and no significant shared assets, many people handle the process using court-provided forms. If the case is contested, involves custody disputes, or carries immigration consequences, hiring a family law attorney is worth the expense. The stakes in a contested annulment, particularly around property and support, are high enough that going in unrepresented is a real risk.
What Changes Once the Marriage Is Voided
Because the marriage is treated as never having existed, there is technically no marital property to divide. Each party generally walks away with whatever they brought into the relationship or hold title to individually. That can produce harsh results when one spouse contributed to assets titled in the other’s name, gave up career opportunities during the marriage, or made financial sacrifices based on the assumption the marriage was real.
Spousal support is affected the same way. In the absence of a valid marriage, there is generally no legal basis for alimony or spousal maintenance. The reasoning is circular but firm: if the marriage never existed, there was no spouse to support. This is one of the starkest practical differences between annulment and divorce, and it can leave a financially dependent partner in a difficult position. Some states have carved out limited exceptions, so confirm your local rule before choosing annulment over divorce.
The putative spouse doctrine softens this outcome in states that recognize it. A putative spouse is someone who genuinely believed the marriage was legally valid. If a court finds you entered the marriage in good faith without knowing about the defect, you may be entitled to a share of property accumulated during the relationship and possibly spousal support, similar to what a divorcing spouse would receive. The spouse who knew the marriage was invalid, or the one who committed the fraud, does not get these protections. If both parties knew, neither qualifies, and the court has no authority to divide property or award support.
Taxes You Will Need to Amend
The IRS treats an annulled marriage as though it never happened, which means any joint tax returns you filed during the marriage were filed under the wrong status. Both former spouses must file amended returns on Form 1040-X for every tax year affected by the annulment that is still open under the statute of limitations, generally three years from the date the original return was filed or two years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later. On each amended return, you change your filing status from married filing jointly to either single or head of household, depending on whether you qualify for head-of-household status based on supporting dependents.1Internal Revenue Service. Filing Taxes After Divorce or Separation
Amended returns can result in additional tax owed if the single or head-of-household rates produce a higher liability than the joint rate you originally used. They can also trigger refunds. Either way, this is not optional. The IRS expects amended returns after an annulment, and failing to file them can create problems later, especially if your former spouse files their own amendments and the IRS notices the mismatch.2Internal Revenue Service. Publication 504 (2025), Divorced or Separated Individuals
Immigration Risks for a Non-Citizen Spouse
Annulment creates serious complications for a non-citizen spouse whose immigration status came from the marriage. Because the marriage is treated as never having existed, the legal foundation for any marriage-based visa or green card disappears retroactively.
Conditional permanent residents, those who received a green card through a marriage less than two years old at the time, face the most immediate risk. Normally, both spouses must jointly file a petition to remove the conditions on the green card. An annulment makes joint filing impossible. Federal law allows the immigrant spouse to request a waiver of the joint filing requirement, but only on a showing that the marriage was entered in good faith and not to circumvent immigration laws.3United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Removing Conditions on Permanent Residence Based on Marriage If fraud was the basis for the annulment, proving good faith becomes extremely difficult, and deportation proceedings may follow.
Even permanent residents who have already had their conditions removed are not fully insulated. If a permanent resident later applies for naturalization, an annulment on the record can trigger a reexamination of the marriage’s authenticity. The applicant may have to provide evidence that the marriage was genuine and not entered solely for immigration benefits. The underlying federal statute gives the government broad discretion in these cases.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1186a – Conditional Permanent Resident Status for Certain Alien Spouses and Sons and Daughters
Children Are Not Affected
A common fear is that annulment makes children born during the marriage illegitimate. It does not. The law in most states explicitly provides that children of an annulled marriage remain the legitimate children of both parents, with full inheritance rights and legal standing. Courts handle custody, visitation, and child support in an annulment case using the same best-interests framework they use in a divorce. If you have children, expect the court to address parenting arrangements as part of the proceeding.
A Religious Annulment Is a Separate Process
If you are thinking of a religious annulment, particularly from the Catholic Church, that is a separate matter from the court process described here. A civil annulment is a court order that changes your legal status. A religious annulment is a church determination that the marriage lacked sacramental validity, allowing the parties to remarry within the faith. A religious annulment does not change your legal marital status, does not affect property rights, and has no bearing on custody, support, or taxes. A civil annulment has no effect on your standing within your religious community. If you need both, you have to pursue them separately. Someone who obtains only a religious annulment, without a civil annulment or divorce, is still legally married.