Should I Get a Prenup in Florida?

For most couples, yes — a prenuptial agreement is worth having if either of you owns a business, real estate, retirement savings, or significant debt, or has children from a prior relationship. Florida enforces prenups under Fla. Stat. § 61.079 when they are in writing, signed voluntarily, and backed by fair financial disclosure.

What a Prenup Actually Does in Florida

A prenuptial agreement — Florida law calls it a premarital agreement — is a contract two people sign before marrying that decides in advance how property, debt, and spousal support will be handled if the marriage ends. It takes effect the moment you marry, and it replaces the default rules a judge would otherwise apply.

Florida adopted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act in 2007, codified at Fla. Stat. § 61.079. The formalities are simple: the agreement must be in writing and signed by both parties, and it is enforceable without any consideration beyond the marriage itself. No notary requirement, no filing with a court, no waiting period. What is simple to sign, however, is not always simple to enforce — which is where most of the real work lies.

What You Can Put in a Florida Prenup

Section 61.079(4)(a) gives couples broad latitude. You may contract about:

• Property rights — what each of you owns now and what either acquires later, wherever it is located.
• The right to buy, sell, transfer, mortgage, or otherwise control property during the marriage.
• How property is divided on separation, divorce, death, or any other event you define.
• Spousal support — you may establish, modify, waive, or eliminate alimony entirely.
• Wills and trusts needed to carry out the agreement.
• Life insurance death benefits and who owns them.
• Which state’s law governs the agreement.
• Any other matter that does not violate Florida public policy or a criminal statute.

That last catch-all covers a lot: how debts incurred before the marriage are treated, whether a family business stays separate, how a future inheritance is handled, and how appreciation on a premarital asset is characterized.

What a Prenup Cannot Do

There is one hard statutory limit. Under § 61.079(4)(b), the right of a child to support may not be adversely affected by a premarital agreement. Child support belongs to the child, not the parents, so no clause waiving or capping it will hold up. Courts also decline to be bound by advance agreements about custody and time-sharing — those are decided under the best-interests standard at the time of the case, not years earlier.

There is a second, softer limit on alimony. Section 61.079(7)(b) provides that if an alimony waiver would leave one spouse eligible for public assistance at the time of separation or divorce, a court may order support anyway, notwithstanding the agreement — but only to the extent needed to avoid that eligibility. Florida courts have also been skeptical of provisions that waive temporary support during the divorce itself, since that can leave a spouse unable to pay for a lawyer.

When a Florida Prenup Gets Thrown Out

This is the part that matters most, because a prenup that fails is worse than no prenup at all — you get the litigation without the certainty. Under § 61.079(7)(a), an agreement is unenforceable if the person resisting it proves any of the following:

1. They did not sign voluntarily. The classic bad fact is the agreement presented days — or hours — before the wedding, with guests already booked.
2. Fraud, duress, coercion, or overreaching. Hiding an asset, threatening to call off the wedding, or pressuring a spouse who does not read English well are all in this category.
3. It was unconscionable when signed, and the challenging party was not given fair and reasonable disclosure of the other’s property and financial obligations, did not expressly waive that disclosure in writing, and could not reasonably have known what the other person had.

Note the structure of that third ground: unconscionability alone is not enough, and inadequate disclosure alone is not enough. All the elements have to line up. Whether an agreement is unconscionable is decided by the judge as a matter of law, not by a jury.

The practical takeaways are consistent: sign well before the wedding, attach a complete schedule of assets, debts, and income for each side, and have separate lawyers. Independent counsel is not required by statute, but it is the single most effective defense against a later claim of duress or overreaching.

Prenups and Florida’s 2023 Alimony Overhaul

SB 1416, signed June 30, 2023 and applying to petitions filed or pending on or after July 1, 2023, eliminated permanent alimony in Florida. What remains is bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, and durational alimony, with durational awards unavailable for marriages under three years and capped at the lesser of the recipient’s reasonable need or 35% of the difference between the parties’ net incomes.

Some people read that and conclude a prenup is now unnecessary. That is a mistake. The reform changed the ceiling, not the fight — how long a marriage lasted, what each person nets, and what “reasonable need” means are all still litigated. A properly drafted agreement replaces that argument with a number. Many Florida prenups now waive durational alimony while preserving a defined bridge-the-gap payment, which gives the lower-earning spouse a soft landing without an open-ended exposure for the other.

Prenups, Homestead, and Estate Rights

A Florida prenup often does double duty as an estate planning document, because Florida gives a surviving spouse rights that override a will — an elective share, homestead protections, and family allowance among them. Section 61.079(10) is explicit that the premarital agreement statute does not change the formalities or effect of spousal waivers under Fla. Stat. §§ 732.701 and 732.702. If you want to waive elective share or homestead rights, that waiver has to be drafted to satisfy the Probate Code’s own requirements, not just § 61.079. Getting this wrong is one of the most common defects we see in agreements drafted from online templates.

Can You Change or Cancel It Later?

Yes, but only in writing. Under § 61.079(6), after marriage a premarital agreement may be amended, revoked, or abandoned only by a written agreement signed by both parties — and that amendment is enforceable without consideration. A verbal understanding, or years of behaving as though the agreement does not exist, will not undo it. If your circumstances change materially, amend the document. If it turns out the marriage was void, § 61.079(8) enforces the agreement only to the extent necessary to avoid an inequitable result.

What a Prenup Costs in Florida

Cost tracks complexity. Straightforward agreements between two people with ordinary finances commonly run in the low four figures per side, with many Florida firms offering flat fees; agreements involving closely held businesses, real estate portfolios, trusts, or cross-border assets run substantially higher. Published 2025–2026 survey data puts the average Florida flat fee to draft a prenup at roughly $940 and the average fee to review one at about $440, though Miami’s cost of living and the asset profiles here tend to push actual quotes above the statewide average. Ask for a written fee estimate at the consultation.

Compared against the cost of litigating equitable distribution and alimony in a contested divorce, a prenup is generally the least expensive document either spouse will ever sign.

Should You Get One? A Practical Test

A prenup is usually worth it if any of these apply:

• You own a business or a professional practice.
• You own real estate, in Florida or elsewhere, before the marriage.
• You have children from a prior relationship whose inheritance you want to protect.
• One of you is bringing significant debt — student loans, a business loan, tax liability.
• There is a meaningful gap in income or net worth between you.
• You expect a substantial inheritance or family gift.
• One or both of you has been divorced before.
• Either of you owns assets in another country.

If you are both young, salaried, roughly equal in resources, and starting from zero, the case is weaker — though even then, a short agreement clarifying student debt and future business ownership can be worth the modest cost.

Prenuptial Agreements in Miami-Dade County

Miami-Dade brings a set of issues that show up far less often elsewhere in Florida. Cross-border assets are ordinary here, not exotic — a business or property in Latin America or the Caribbean raises real questions about which country’s law governs and whether a Florida judgment can be enforced abroad, which is exactly why § 61.079(4)(a)(7) lets you choose the governing law up front. Condominium ownership, closely held family businesses, and pre-marriage real estate holdings are all common in Brickell, Coral Gables, Doral, and Aventura, and all benefit from being characterized clearly before the wedding rather than argued about later.

Language matters too. In a county where a huge share of couples operate primarily in Spanish, an agreement signed in English by a spouse who does not read it comfortably is an invitation to a later claim that the signature was not voluntary. Having the agreement explained — and, where appropriate, translated — in the signer’s own language is not a formality; it is what makes the document hold.

If the marriage does end, the agreement is enforced in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit’s Family Division at the Lawson E. Thomas Courthouse Center in downtown Miami. Prenups are not filed with the court in advance; each spouse simply keeps a signed original, and it is produced if and when it is needed.

Arturo R. Alfonso P.A. has drafted and reviewed premarital agreements for Miami-Dade couples for over 35 years, in English and Spanish, from Brickell and Coral Gables to Kendall, Hialeah, and Cutler Bay. If you have been searching for a family law attorney near me who will take the time to build an agreement that actually survives a challenge — full disclosure schedules, independent counsel, signed well ahead of the date — we offer consultations to walk through your situation.

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