How to Get a Marriage License in L.A. County: The Fee, the ID, the 90-Day Clock, and the One Box You Can't Fix Later

A public license is $91 and a confidential one is $85, and the choice between them changes who has to watch you get married and who is allowed to read the record afterward. Both of you show up together, by appointment, with ID that hasn't expired. The license is good for 90 days — and there is exactly one name change the law only lets you make at the counter, before the clerk hits print.

Nobody plans a wedding around a county service window, and then the window turns out to be the one appointment that has to happen before any of the rest of it means anything. In Los Angeles County a marriage license is not a formality you pick up on the way — it is a purchase, it costs money, it starts a clock, and it asks you two or three questions that are easier to answer right than to fix later. The good news is that the whole thing is navigable in an afternoon if you know what it is really asking. This guide walks the process the way the county's own Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk lays it out, with the fees and the fine print checked on August 18, 2026, and the timing rules read straight from state law.

First, the thing that trips people up before they start: the license and the wedding are two separate acts, and buying the license does not marry you. The county says so in as many words — "Submitting a marriage license application or purchasing a marriage license does not mean you are legally married." You buy the license, you have a ceremony, and then the signed license goes back to be recorded. Miss the middle step and you have a receipt, not a marriage.

Step 1: Pick public or confidential — this is the box you can't un-check later

California issues two kinds of marriage license, and Los Angeles County sells both. They marry you equally. What differs is the price, the witness rule, and who can read the record for the rest of your life, so it is worth understanding before you choose.

A public marriage license costs $91. A confidential marriage license costs $85, per the county's posted Marriage License and Ceremony Fees. The six-dollar gap is the least interesting difference between them.

What "public" means: the marriage is a public record, and a public ceremony needs a witness — the license has a line for one. What "confidential" means: the record is sealed. Under California Family Code section 500, a confidential license is available only "when two unmarried people, not minors, have been living together as spouses" — you have to already be living together to buy one — and no witness is required at the ceremony. Afterward, the county's rule is blunt: a confidential marriage record "may only be obtained by the parties to the marriage or by court order." A stranger, a relative, a future anyone cannot pull it.

You're wondering which to get. If you want the lower fee, no witness, and a record the public can't request, and you already live together, the confidential license is built for exactly that. If you're not living together yet, the choice is made for you: it has to be public. Either way, decide before the appointment, because it is not a checkbox the clerk flips afterward.

Step 2: Apply online first, then book the appointment

You do not walk in. The county runs the front end of this online and the counter by appointment only. On the Apply for a Marriage License page, you complete the application on the county's system and, in its words, "save your confirmation number once you complete the application. You will need it to book your appointment." The application does not issue the license; it just gets you to the booking.

Then you schedule. The county allows appointments to be booked "up to three (3) weeks in advance," which is the practical outer edge of how far ahead you can plan the license run. If your wedding is more than three weeks out, note the 90-day clock in Step 5 before you rush — buying too early is its own mistake.

Step 3: The three that matter — the requirements that actually decide the appointment

The eligibility page lists a lot. Three items are the ones that send couples home empty-handed, so handle these first.

Both of you, together, in person. This is not a form one person can run. The county requires that both parties be present together to apply. And it is not something a stand-in can do for an absent partner: California does not recognize proxy marriages, so "proxy marriages are not legal." If one of you can't be in the room, the appointment can't happen.

ID that has not expired. Acceptable identification is a driver's license or a passport. The rule people get caught by is the next sentence: "Documents that have expired will not be accepted." A license that lapsed on a birthday last month is not ID here. If your identification is in another language, the county requires a certified translation that is also notarized before it will take it.

Proof you're free to marry, if a prior marriage is recent. You must be unmarried, and the county counts a previous marriage as valid "until the final date of dissolution." If a divorce became final within the last two years, bring a certified copy of the judgment. If it was longer ago, written proof may not be required, but you will still be asked for the date the dissolution was final, so have it. The same rule applies to a state-registered domestic partnership that ended: certified termination papers if within two years, the termination date if earlier.

Two more that quietly help: there is no residency or citizenship requirement, so you do not have to live in California — or the United States — to get married here. And no blood test or health certificate is required, a step California dropped long ago that couples still ask about. If either party is under 18, this stops being a counter errand: a minor needs a notarized parental consent statement and a separate order from a Superior Court judge granting permission, which is a process to start well before any wedding date.

Step 4: The name change — the one election the law only lets you make now

This is the sentence to read twice. If either of you is taking a new name at the marriage, the place you do it is the license itself, at the moment it is issued — not the DMV afterward, not later. California Family Code section 306.5 lets a party adopt, as a new middle or last name, the other spouse's current last name, either spouse's last name at birth, a hyphenated or combined version, or a combination that folds a current middle name in. But the statute is strict about the timing: the new name "shall only be made at the time the marriage license is issued." After the marriage is registered, the county can only fix clerical errors — it cannot add a name change you meant to make and didn't.

What the form says: a set of blank lines for "first, middle, last name to be used after marriage." What it means: the one free, no-court-order chance to change your name that this whole process contains. If you're undecided, that indecision is fine — you keep your name and can pursue a legal name change later through the courts. But if you already know, the license is where it goes, and the clerk cannot reopen it once it prints.

Step 5: The 90-day clock

A California marriage license does not wait for you. Under Family Code section 356, "a marriage license issued pursuant to this part expires 90 days after its issuance," and the law requires that "the calendar date of expiration shall be clearly noted on the face of the license." That date is printed where you can see it. If the wedding does not happen inside that window, the license is dead — there is no renewal and no extension, and the fix is to buy a new one and start the 90 days over.

So the timing has a sweet spot. Buy the license too early and you can run out the clock before the date; buy it inside the 90 days and you're fine. For most couples that means picking up the license in the last two to three months before the wedding, not the week you got engaged. One relief for the anxious: the license is good anywhere in California, so a license issued in Los Angeles County works for a ceremony in Ojai, Big Bear, or anywhere else in the state — you are not locked to the county line.

Step 6: The ceremony, the witness, and the $35 the county charges to marry you

You can be married by clergy, a judge, or a civil officiant — or by the county itself. The Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk performs civil ceremonies for $35, per its fee page, and now runs "express marriage ceremonies by appointment ONLY," set for 45 minutes and "available at all seven RR/CC branch locations." You book the ceremony the same way you booked the license.

Here is where the public-versus-confidential choice comes back. For a public ceremony you need a witness: the county states that "all express ceremonies require valid identification and one witness to be present at the Marriage License window." If you don't have one, the county can supply a witness — that is the $20 line on the fee schedule, "RR/CC-Provided Witness for a Civil Ceremony." A confidential license needs no witness at all, which is one of its quiet conveniences. State law sets the range for a public marriage: Family Code section 359 calls for "at least one, and no more than two, witnesses to the marriage ceremony." One is enough; two is the ceiling.

One more fee worth knowing, because couples ask for it by the wrong name: the $75 "Deputy Commissioner for a Day" program, which lets a friend or relative you choose be sworn in to legally perform your ceremony for that single day. It is the county's answer to "we want my sister to marry us," and it is a line item, not a favor.

Step 7: After the "I do" — the last clock nobody mentions

The ceremony is not the last step; the paperwork is. After a public wedding, the person who solemnized the marriage has to sign the license and get it back to the county. Family Code section 359 puts a deadline on it: the completed license is "returned by the person solemnizing the marriage to the county recorder of the county in which the license was issued within 10 days after the ceremony." If the county performed your ceremony, this is handled for you. If your own officiant ran it, this ten-day return is the errand that actually creates the marriage record — and the certified copy you'll later need for the DMV, the bank, and the passport office comes from that recorded certificate, not from the license you carried to the altar.

Bring these

Sourced to the county's own eligibility and application pages, here is the short packing list for the appointment:

Both people. Together, at the same appointment. No exceptions, no proxies.

Unexpired photo ID for each of you — a driver's license or a passport. Check the expiration dates the week before.

Your online confirmation number, saved from the application, which is what the booking is tied to.

The dissolution date of any prior marriage or registered domestic partnership — and a certified copy of the judgment if it ended within the last two years.

The name you're taking, decided, if either of you is changing one — because Step 4 is the only place it can be entered.

A witness, if you're getting a public license and the county isn't providing one for $20.

Payment for the license — $91 public or $85 confidential — plus $35 if the county is performing the ceremony.

Fees, requirements and appointment rules above were checked on August 18, 2026 against the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's marriage-license pages, and the timing, witness and name-change rules against the California Family Code. Fees are set by the county and the state law is amended from time to time; where a linked source and this page disagree, the source wins, and this guide is re-verified and updated in place at this address. It explains the rules; it is not legal advice, and a genuinely unusual situation — a minor, a foreign divorce, a contested name — is worth a call to the county at 1-800-201-8999 before the appointment.