Can You Marry Your Cousin? A State-by-State Guide

The rules, and why they are in the news

On April 30, 2026, Rep. Keith Self announced a bill called the Consanguineous Marriage Prohibition Act of 2026. According to his press release, it would deny federal recognition of marriages between first cousins or more closely related people. We cite it only to show why the question is being asked again. A bill is not law, and state rules remain the ones that decide whether you can get a license.

How to read the table

• Allowed means the state's list of barred relatives does not include cousins. We confirmed this by reading the list and finding no cousin entry, not by finding a sentence that says cousins may marry.
• Conditional means the statute bars cousin marriage unless a stated exception applies.
• Prohibited means the statute bars the marriage in that state.

Marriage law is also about records. Once a marriage is allowed and recorded, you can order a certified copy for name changes and other uses. Our guide on the difference between a marriage license and a marriage certificate explains which document you need.

State-by-state table

Where we were less certain

Some entries carry more risk of error than others, and you should check them against the current statute before relying on them:

• Alaska and Louisiana: the statutes use degrees of kinship instead of naming cousins. Our reading of first cousins as the fourth degree is an inference, and for Louisiana it rests on a court opinion that counts degrees.
• District of Columbia: we retrieved only part of the statute text.
• Older copies: some links go to Justia, which carries a notice that its copy may not be the most recent. The Colorado copy is from 2023 and the Connecticut copy is from 2019.
• Search excerpts: for Arizona, Illinois, Utah, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Minnesota we read statute text as returned by search, not the full page.

How to check your own situation

1. Find your state in the table and open the linked statute.
2. Read the current version on the legislature's own site, since laws change.
3. If your state is Conditional, note exactly which test applies to you.
4. Ask the county office that issues marriage licenses what paperwork it needs.
5. If you married in a different state than you live in, ask a family law attorney how your home state treats the marriage. Oklahoma, for one, says it recognizes a valid first-cousin marriage performed elsewhere.