Free prenuptial agreement template

What makes a prenup hold up

A prenuptial agreement is only worth what a court will enforce, and courts look first at how it was made, then at what it says. More than half the states have adopted some form of the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, and its enforcement test is short. The agreement fails if the person challenging it proves they did not sign voluntarily. It also fails if they prove it was unconscionable when signed and that, before signing, they were not given fair and reasonable disclosure of the other person's finances, did not expressly waive further disclosure in writing, and did not otherwise have adequate knowledge of those finances. Texas uses that test in section 4.006 of its Family Code and makes it the only way to attack the agreement. Florida adds fraud, duress, coercion and overreaching as separate grounds in section 61.079(7)(a). California has gone furthest: under Family Code section 1615 an agreement is treated as involuntary unless the court finds a list of things happened, including legal advice or a written waiver of it, a seven-day gap between receiving the final agreement and signing, and a written explanation of rights for anyone without a lawyer. Pennsylvania, by contrast, treats a prenup as an ordinary contract after Simeone v. Simeone (1990), enforcing it without asking whether the terms are fair, provided there was full and fair disclosure. The template is built around the strictest of these. Clause 2 and Schedules A and B deal with disclosure, clause 3 and Schedule C with legal advice, and clause 4 and Schedule D with voluntariness and timing. Filling in those parts properly does more for enforceability than any wording in the property clauses.

How to fill it in

Do the paperwork in this order. The schedules come first because the clauses depend on them.

• Schedules A and B: each of you lists every asset, debt and source of income with an honest estimate of value, and attaches the documents behind the numbers. Recent tax returns and account statements are the minimum. Each of you initials the other's schedule to show you received it.
• Opening paragraph, clause 1 and clause 22: full legal names and addresses, the planned wedding date, a latest marriage date after which the agreement lapses, and the state whose law governs.
• Clauses 6 to 12: these carry the property choices. Each strike-one option is a real decision, and the most consequential are 6(b) on income and growth from separate property and the last sentence of clause 7 on earnings during the marriage. In clause 10, think hard before choosing no payment at all where one of you may step back from work to support the household while the other builds the business; a one-sided result is what the unconscionability test catches.
• Clause 13: pick one of the three spousal support options and strike the other two. Read the section on spousal support below before choosing a waiver.
• Clauses 15 and 16: decide whether each of you keeps inheritance rights, whether life insurance is required, and how retirement growth during the marriage is treated.
• Schedule C: each of you either has a lawyer sign the certificate or signs the waiver. Do not leave both blank.
• Schedule D: record the dates as they happen, starting with the written advice to get a lawyer. The gap between receiving the final version and signing should be at least seven days.
• Signing: each of you signs before a notary, and the notary completes the acknowledgment for that person. The signing page comes before the schedules, and the two acknowledgments are at the very end.

Sign it weeks before the wedding, not days

The most common reason a prenup gets thrown out has nothing to do with its content. Usually one person was handed it close to the wedding, with guests booked and deposits paid, and signed because refusing felt impossible. Courts see that pressure clearly, and California now builds a waiting period into the statute: at least seven calendar days between first receiving the final agreement and signing it, whether or not the person has a lawyer, with the advice to get a lawyer also given at least seven days before signing. Seven days is the legal floor in one state. A sensible timetable starts the conversation three to six months before the wedding, exchanges disclosures early, gives each lawyer time to negotiate, and has both signatures on the final version at least a month before the date. Any substantive change resets the clock, because the final agreement is the one that counts. Schedule D exists for exactly this reason. A dated record, filled in as each step happens, is the best evidence that nobody was rushed. Do not fill it in afterwards from memory, and never back-date it.

Disclosure: what goes in the schedules

Full disclosure protects the wealthier party more than anyone. Under the uniform act, a party can challenge an unconscionable agreement only if they also lacked disclosure or knowledge of the other's finances, so complete schedules close that route off. List everything, including things you expect to keep regardless: retirement accounts, business interests at a good-faith value, stock options and unvested equity, crypto, intellectual property, money owed to you, and any trust you benefit from or inheritance you reasonably expect. Debts matter as much as assets. A large student loan or tax debt that surfaces after the wedding is exactly the kind of omission that invites a challenge. Values do not need a formal appraisal for every item, but they must be honest, and the method should be stated where it is not obvious, such as a recent business valuation or last year's statement. Attach the documents and list them. Clause 2(c) contains a written waiver of further disclosure, which the uniform act treats as significant, but it is written so that it cannot protect someone who knowingly hid or misstated something.

Spousal support is the riskiest clause

Clause 13 offers three options: waive spousal support entirely, fix an amount and duration, or leave support to the law. Waivers are the provisions courts most often decline to enforce, and the rules are more demanding here than anywhere else in the agreement. California Family Code section 1612(c) makes a spousal support provision unenforceable if the person it is enforced against had no independent lawyer when signing, or if the provision is unconscionable at the time of enforcement. That second test looks at circumstances years later, at the point someone asks a court to enforce the clause. A waiver that looked fair between two working professionals can look very different after twenty years in which one of them left work to raise children. Florida takes a different approach to the same problem. Under section 61.079(7)(b), if a support waiver would leave one spouse eligible for public assistance at the time of separation or divorce, the court can order support anyway, to the extent needed to avoid that. If you want a waiver, both of you should have your own lawyer, and a fixed schedule of support is often more durable than a flat waiver.

What a prenup cannot do

Some things are outside what the two of you can decide in advance.

• Child support. California Family Code section 1612(b) says a child's right to support may not be adversely affected by a premarital agreement, and courts elsewhere take the same view. Clause 14 leaves both support and custody to the law at the time.
• Custody and parenting time. These are decided on the child's best interests when the question arises. A court will not be bound by what two people agreed before the child existed.
• Waiving survivor rights in many employer retirement plans. Under federal rules, consent to waive a survivor annuity must come from a spouse, and a prenup signed before the wedding does not count. Clause 16 commits each of you to sign the plan's own waiver form after the marriage.
• Anything illegal or against public policy. The uniform act, like California's section 1612, lets the parties agree on any matter that does not violate public policy or a statute imposing a criminal penalty. Provisions that reward divorce, or penalize something like weight gain, are unlikely to be enforced and can taint the rest.
• Day-to-day household matters. You can write down who does the dishes, but no court will enforce it, and filling an agreement with personal rules makes it look less serious.

Notarization and signing

The uniform act requires only a written agreement signed by both parties, and Texas, California and Florida all use that minimum. New York does not. Its Domestic Relations Law section 236(B)(3) requires the agreement to be in writing, subscribed by the parties, and acknowledged or proven in the manner required to record a deed, which in practice means signing before a notary. A New York prenup signed without a proper acknowledgment is not enforceable in a divorce, and the problem is hard to fix later. This template asks for notarization in every state, in clause 21, with an acknowledgment form for each person at the back. A notary costs little and meets the strictest rule. The acknowledgment also proves who signed and when, which matters if you later move to a state with a formality requirement you did not plan for. Some states insist on their own acknowledgment wording, and the notary will use it. For the same reason this page offers the document as a download for printing and signing in front of a notary. Electronic signing and remote online notarization are permitted for some documents in many states, but whether they are accepted for a premarital agreement depends on the state, so check before relying on them.

Prenup, postnup or cohabitation agreement

A prenuptial agreement is signed before the wedding, by two people who are not yet married to each other. A postnuptial agreement does the same job after the marriage has begun. Courts in many states look at postnups harder than prenups, because spouses already owe each other duties that engaged couples do not, and some states apply separate rules to them. If you have missed the window before the wedding, it can still be done, but get legal advice rather than adapting this template. A cohabitation agreement covers an unmarried couple living together. It does not turn into a prenup if you later marry, so couples moving from one to the other need a new agreement. Our cohabitation agreement template covers the living-together stage.

A note on what this page is

This is a general-purpose template and general information, not legal advice. Premarital agreements are governed by state law, the rules differ sharply between states, and a prenup that does not meet your state's requirements can fail entirely. The statutes and cases referred to here were checked in September 2026. Each of you should have your own lawyer review the final agreement, and anyone waiving spousal support or inheritance rights should treat that advice as essential.