How to get a certified Florida marriage certificate for an apostille

The Florida Department of State's accepted documents page says marriage and dissolution-of-marriage certificates must be signed by the State Registrar or by a Clerk of the County Court. That gives you two valid sources, and they produce different-looking documents:

The incumbency certificate is the state's confirmation that the clerk who certified your copy holds that office. You don't order it separately; the Department of State adds it. If you use our service, the price is the same either way.

Ask the office abroad what it wants before you spend money. If it doesn't specify, these rules of thumb work:

• Married in the last two months? Go to the clerk. After the ceremony, the clerk records the license and forwards it to the Bureau, which the Department of Health says takes about 60 days. Until then, the Bureau has nothing to certify.
• Married before June 6, 1927? Only the clerk in the county that issued the license has it. This matters for citizenship-by-descent files built on a great-grandparent's marriage.
• The foreign office wants signatures, officiant or witness details? The clerk's certified copy of the recorded license usually shows more of the original than the state's abstract. Look at a plain copy first if your clerk lets you view official records online.
• You need several records for the same file? The Bureau can issue birth, marriage, death and divorce certificates in one place, which keeps a family file consistent.
• You need to show prior marriages? The Department of Health says to note on the application if you need extra information, such as the number of previous marriages.

Married in another state or abroad? Florida can't certify that marriage. A marriage in Georgia goes through Georgia; a marriage in Mexico is a Mexican record.

The Department of Health's marriage certificates page lists the options and fees (October 2026):

Each of Florida's 67 counties has its own clerk, and each sets up ordering a little differently. Find yours through the Florida Court Clerks & Comptrollers site or the Department of State's directory of clerks. You order from the county that issued the license, which isn't always the county where the wedding took place or where you live now.

1. Find the record. Most clerks let you search official records online by the spouses' names. Note the instrument number or book and page, and the recording date.
2. Ask for a certified copy. Say it's for an apostille. A free, watermarked online image is not a certified copy.
3. Pay the clerk's fees. Expect a small statutory certification fee plus copy, service and card fees. The Palm Beach County Clerk, for example, lists electronic certified copies of official records, including marriage licenses, at $8 per document plus a 3.5% card fee.
4. Choose paper unless we've confirmed otherwise. For court records we accept a clerk's official e-certification. For marriage licenses, ask us before you buy an electronic copy; a manually stamped paper certified copy, ordered in person or by mail, is the safe choice. Palm Beach's clerk notes it will provide a stamped copy free if an institution rejects an e-certified one.

Many couples have a certified marriage certificate from years ago in a file. Our operating rule is that vital records must be certified in 2014 or later. That's the date on the certification, not your wedding date. Older certifications carry signatures that are hard to confirm, and that's where we see filings fail.

A fresh copy is cheap — $5 to $15 at the state, a few dollars at most clerks — and foreign registries often prefer a recent one. If you're ordering anyway, order two: one to apostille and one to keep.

Marriage certificates are often the document that links two names: the name on your birth certificate and the married name in your passport. Foreign registries compare them closely, so look for these problems before you apostille anything:

• Typos on the original license. The certified copy repeats whatever was recorded. A correction has to go through the clerk or the Bureau before you order the copy you'll apostille.
• A later name change. If either spouse changed names again after the wedding, the foreign office may also want the certified name change order, which is a court record with its own apostille. See name change order apostille.
• A prior divorce. Registering a marriage abroad often requires proof that any earlier marriage ended. See how to get a certified copy of a Florida divorce decree.

Ordering every linked record at once also helps on price: three or more documents in one order are $160 each.

The same check the state will do, in under two minutes:

You can file it yourself with the Florida Department of State — $10 for a State Registrar certificate, $20 for a clerk certificate — using the steps in how to get a Florida apostille. Or order online, ship it to our Tallahassee processing office on the prepaid FedEx label, and we file it in person. Turnaround is 5–7 business days door to door.

We charge $220 for one document, $380 for two (a common pair: marriage certificate plus a birth certificate) and $160 each for three or more. That covers the state fee, the request form, in-person filing and FedEx inside the U.S. It does not include what the Bureau, VitalChek or the clerk charges for the certified copy. Shipping the finished document abroad is a flat $100 per order.

For country-specific notes, see our marriage certificate apostille page. If the destination isn't a Hague Convention member, read non-Hague authentication first; we handle the Florida step only.