Nevada Marriage and Divorce Records: County by County (2026)

Nevada does not issue certified copies of marriage or divorce records at the state level at all. As the Office of Vital Records puts it, "All Marriage and Divorce records are held at the county level." The state's only role is a $10 paid search, and the CDC's national directory reports that its index has a ten-year hole.

Information last verified on 2026-08-04. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

This page is part of our state-by-state guide to marriage and divorce records. Nevada is a heavily searched state for this topic because of Las Vegas wedding volume, and it is also one of the more confusing ones, because the office people expect to hold the record does not hold it.

Nevada Holds Marriage and Divorce Records at the County Level

The Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health states the rule directly on its own vital records page: "All Marriage and Divorce records are held at the county level." There is no state marriage certificate and no state divorce certificate to order, at any price, for any year.

That makes Nevada structurally similar to New Mexico, North Dakota, and Ohio, and different from neighboring states where a state health department maintains a parallel certificate. The practical consequence is that the first question is never "what does the state charge," it is "which county, and which office inside that county."

Which County Office Actually Has It

Nevada's counties do not all assign the marriage record to the same officer, and this is the detail that sends the most requests to the wrong desk.

In Washoe County, the County Recorder holds it. The Recorder's office states that "you may obtain a certified copy of your Marriage Certificate from the Washoe County Recorder's Office," offers a 24-hour online request system, accepts mail requests on its Request for Marriage Record form, and takes phone orders at 775-328-3660. Copies are available only for licenses that were issued in Washoe County.

In Clark County, which covers Las Vegas and the bulk of Nevada's marriage volume, the Recorder's office states the opposite about itself: "The Recorder's Office does not record marriages," and directs requesters to the Clark County Clerk's Office at 702-671-0580. Anyone who assumes the Recorder handles marriage records statewide will lose time in the county where most Nevada marriages happen.

For divorce, the custodian is consistent: the County Clerk in the county where the divorce was granted holds the case file and issues certified copies of the decree. Nevada never created a vital-records divorce certificate as a second layer, so the decree is the record.

If your question is about the divorce process rather than the paperwork afterward, see Nevada divorce laws.

The State's $10 Search, and the Index Gap the CDC Directory Reports

Nevada's Office of Vital Records does offer one genuinely useful service for people who do not know where to look. If you do not know the county or the date, the office will search its index and mail back the result. The instruction on the state's page is to "Fill out the search request and include $10 per search you need done."

Two things about that service matter before you pay for it.

First, it produces information, not a certificate. The result tells you where and when the event was recorded so that you can then order from the county. It is a locator, not a substitute for a certified copy.

Second, the index is incomplete, though the source for that is federal rather than state. The state's own page publishes no index years. It is the CDC's national directory that reports Nevada's marriage and divorce index as running from January 1968 through September 2005, and then from June 2015 to the present. On that reporting, for events between those two windows, roughly a decade, the state has no index to search. That is not a confidentiality embargo and it says nothing about whether the record is public; the underlying county record still exists and is still obtainable. It simply means the state cannot find it for you, and a searcher for a 2009 Las Vegas marriage has to identify the county independently and go straight to the county clerk.

Genealogical searching at the Carson City office is handled separately and by appointment: as of August 2026, each 30-minute appointment costs $10, per name or variant searched. That per-name framing belongs to the genealogy appointment specifically; the mail-in search fee is $10 per search.

Who Is Allowed to Get a Nevada Marriage or Divorce Record

The state's vital records page does carry a "direct and tangible interest" clause, and the useful detail is how it is scoped. The clause appears on the same page that routes marriage and divorce requests to the counties, and it is written to reach only birth and death requesters: the page limits it to "applicants for a birth or death record." The marriage and divorce instructions immediately alongside it ask for the names, an approximate date, and the city or county of the event, plus the search fee, and impose no relationship test.

That scoping is stronger evidence than a mere silence would be. Nevada did not simply forget to mention the standard on the marriage and divorce side; it wrote the standard so that it does not reach them. The statutory source for the interest test is NRS 440.650(2), which bars the State Registrar from issuing a certified copy unless the applicant "has a direct and tangible interest in the matter recorded." That subsection sits inside a section about furnishing "a certified copy of the record of any birth or death registered under the provisions of this chapter," so by its own terms the test governs birth and death certificates rather than marriage or divorce records. The department's page states the clause in its own words rather than citing the statute.

Still, the page does not affirmatively declare marriage and divorce records open to anyone either. What can be said from the official sources is narrower and more useful: the state's own marriage and divorce process imposes no proof-of-relationship step, and county recorders run public name-search systems for recorded marriage documents, which is behavior consistent with a recorded public document rather than a restricted vital record.

County practice governs the certified copy itself, so confirm eligibility and identification requirements with the specific county office. Where a court file rather than a certificate is the target, note that Nevada's Public Records Act is not the operative framework: the Administrative Office of the Courts states that "the provisions of NRS Ch. 239, commonly referred to as the Public Records Act, do not apply to the Judicial Branch," citing Civil Rights for Seniors v. Administrative Office of the Courts, 129 Nev. 752 (2013). A divorce case file is a district court record, so access runs through the court that holds it and through the Nevada Supreme Court's rules governing the sealing and redacting of court records. For records held by executive agencies and county officers rather than by the courts, see Nevada public records laws.

Searching Nevada Marriage Records by Name

Because marriage documents are recorded at the county level, several Nevada counties run online index searches that let you look up a marriage by party name without paying anything to view the index entry. Washoe County's Recorder points to its own online records system, and Clark County's Clerk operates a marriage record search of its own. These indexes confirm that a record exists and give you the information needed to order a certified copy; they are not themselves certified copies and they should not be treated as legal proof of marital status.

Two limits are worth stating plainly. A county index only covers that county, so a statewide question still means either the state's $10 search or a county-by-county effort. And commercial data brokers are unreliable for marriage and divorce data generally, because the underlying records sit in thousands of separate county systems. If you are trying to confirm someone else's marital status, read our guide to finding out if someone is married or divorced first, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act limits that apply the moment a search is used for employment or tenant screening rather than personal reasons.

Ordering Your Own Copy

If you know the county, go to the county office directly, and skip the state entirely. Fees are set by each county, so ask that office for its current schedule rather than relying on a figure quoted for another county. Our general walkthrough on getting a copy of your marriage certificate covers the identification and mail-order mechanics that apply everywhere.

For a related Nevada record with a different custody rule, see Nevada death records, which the state office does issue.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how Nevada marriage and divorce records are held and released. It is not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. County offices set their own fees and procedures and change them without notice; confirm current details with the county recorder or county clerk that holds the record. For advice about a specific situation, consult an attorney licensed in Nevada.

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Last updated: 2026-08-04. Fees and procedures reflect the sources cited as of that date.