Annulment in Washington: Declaration of Invalidity, When a Marriage Was Never Valid, and Why Most People Still File for Divorce

People type 'annulment' into a search bar for three very different reasons. Some just got married and already know it was a mistake. Some need a church or a visa file to treat the marriage as if it never happened. Some discovered a legal defect — a spouse who was still married, a ceremony after too many drinks, a relative they were not allowed to marry. Washington has a tool for the third group. It is not a shortcut around divorce for the first two.

This guide is written for Pierce County and Puyallup families who have been told they can 'just get an annulment.' It explains the actual statute, the 2024 age change that older marketing pages still miss, what 'fraud' does and does not mean, and how a Pierce County invalidity case is filed. It is general education, not a prediction that your marriage will be declared invalid.

Washington Does Enter Annulments. It Calls Them Something Else.

You will hear that 'Washington does not have annulment.' That sentence is half-true and usually unhelpful. The Legislature replaced the old common-law annulment action with a petition for a declaration concerning the validity of a marriage or domestic partnership. RCW 26.09.040 is that action. The Washington Courts form packet is titled 'Invalidate (Annul) Marriage.' The petition is FL Divorce 205. The decree is FL Divorce 241 — the same pattern form used for a dissolution, a legal separation, an invalid-marriage order, or a valid-marriage order.

If the court grants the petition, it declares the marriage invalid as of the date it was purportedly contracted. That is the civil-law equivalent of saying the marriage never legally existed. It is not a finding that you never had a wedding, never shared a house, or never had children. And it is not the same thing as a Catholic declaration of nullity or a USCIS decision about a visa marriage. Those are separate systems with their own burdens of proof.

Who Can File, and Who Has to Still Be Alive

RCW 26.09.040(1) is narrower than a divorce petition. While both parties to the alleged marriage (or domestic partnership) are living, and at least one is a Washington resident or a member of the armed forces stationed in this state, a petition to have it declared invalid may be sought by either or both parties, or by the guardian of an incompetent spouse or partner. If the allegation is that either party was already married or already in an undissolved domestic partnership, the legal spouse or partner, or a child of either party, can also file.

That last sentence is the bigamy path most 'annulment' pages skip. A first spouse in Puyallup who discovers a later ceremony in Las Vegas is not stuck waiting for the second spouse to file. A child of the later marriage can file too. Washington LawHelp (reviewed September 3, 2026) puts the same rule in plain language.

Either or both parties can also petition under RCW 26.09.040(2) for a judicial determination that the marriage is valid, if someone is denying or questioning it. That is the opposite case: you want a decree of validity, not an invalidity order. The court can enter either one. RCW 26.09.040(4)(a) says that if the court finds the marriage valid, it shall enter a decree of validity.

The Grounds Are a Closed List, Not a Feeling

After hearing the evidence, and if both parties are still living, the court declares the marriage invalid when it finds that the marriage should not have been contracted for one of the reasons in RCW 26.09.040(4)(b)(i), and that the parties have not ratified it by voluntarily cohabiting after the defect ended. The grounds are:

• Age of one or both parties, or lack of the parental or court approval the law required at the time of the ceremony
• A prior undissolved marriage of one or both parties
• A prior domestic partnership of one or both parties that has not been terminated or dissolved
• Consanguinity — the spouses are too closely related to marry under RCW 26.04.020
• Lack of capacity to consent, from mental incapacity or from alcohol or other incapacitating substances
• Force or duress
• Fraud involving the essentials of marriage or domestic partnership

There is a separate path for a marriage contracted somewhere other than Washington. If it was void or voidable under the law of the place where it was contracted, and there is no proof it was later validated by that place or by a later domicile of the parties, the court shall declare it invalid as of the date of the marriage. RCW 26.04.020(3) also refuses to recognize an out-of-jurisdiction marriage that is bigamous or that is between a person and that person's sibling, child, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew.

If the only problem is some other paperwork defect — a missing signature, a botched license, a ceremony that someone later second-guesses — RCW 26.09.040(4)(b)(ii) points the other way. On a party's motion, the court can order whatever is needed to complete or correct the record and declare the marriage valid for all purposes from the date it was purportedly contracted. Invalidity is not a prize for a sloppy wedding day.

The 2024 Age Rule: Under 18 Is Now Void

This is the update that still has not reached most 'Washington annulment' pages. RCW 26.04.010, as amended by Laws of 2024, ch. 10, says marriage is a civil contract between two persons who have each attained the age of 18 years. Every marriage entered into in which either person has not attained 18 is void. The 2024 act applies to marriages entered into on or after June 6, 2024. Parental permission and a sympathetic judge do not create a Washington marriage license for a 17-year-old after that date.

RCW 26.09.040 still recites the older 'age / lack of required parental or court approval' language, because plenty of existing marriages were contracted under the prior statute. For a ceremony on or after June 6, 2024, the marriage statute itself answers the age question. For an older ceremony, the question is what the marriage code required on that date, and whether the parties later ratified the marriage by voluntarily living together as spouses after both were old enough to marry. 'The younger spouse turned 18 last month' is not, by itself, the end of the analysis — and it is not, by itself, a reason the petition suddenly fails. The statute looks at voluntary cohabitation after the defect ended, not at the mere passage of a birthday.

Fraud Means the Essentials of Marriage — Not a Hidden Credit Card

The word 'fraud' on an annulment webpage is how people talk themselves into a weak case. The statute does not say 'you lied to me.' It says fraud involving the essentials of marriage. Washington courts treat that as a narrow door. In re Marriage of Todorov, 501 P.3d 1216 (Wn. App. 2022), is the modern published example: a spouse's dishonesty about a prior relationship, even if the other spouse would not have married had they known, was not fraud in the essentials. The Court of Appeals agreed with other jurisdictions that misrepresentations about chastity do not support invalidity. The marriage was dissolved instead.

The older Supreme Court case still cited for what does count is Harding v. Harding, 11 Wn.2d 138 (1941): a premarital, undisclosed determination not to have sexual intercourse, carried out after the ceremony, was fraud affecting an essential of the marital relation. Todorov describes that as the extreme case. Concealed debt, a disappointing personality, a job that never existed, or a motive that included a green card is the kind of story that usually belongs in a dissolution — and often loses even there as a reason to unwind the marriage itself. Invalidity also has to be proved by clear, satisfactory, and convincing evidence. In re Marriage of Little, 96 Wn.2d 183 (1981), is the case later opinions still point to for that burden. A declaration that says 'I feel tricked' will not carry it.

Force and duress are their own box. The person who was pressured is the one with the claim. The official petition form tracks that: one of us married because of pressure, force, or fraud, and we did not voluntarily live together as a couple after the pressure stopped or the fraud was found out. If you are the spouse who applied the pressure, you do not get to file for invalidity on that ground and walk away from the marriage you forced.

Invalid Does Not Mean the Court Walks Away From Property, Kids, or Support

This is the sentence that surprises people who wanted an annulment so they would not have to deal with a house, a 401(k), or a child-support worksheet. RCW 26.09.040(3) says that in a proceeding to declare invalidity, the court shall proceed in the manner and shall have the jurisdiction — including the authority to provide for maintenance, a parenting plan for minor children, and division of the property of the parties — provided by Chapter 26.09 RCW. RCW 26.09.050 then lists what a decree of invalidity, like a decree of dissolution or legal separation, has to address: marital status, a parenting plan, child support, maintenance, property and liabilities, tax exemptions, restraining orders, and a name change.

So the status outcome is different — the marriage is treated as never valid — but the financial and parenting work is the same work described in our guides to property division, spousal maintenance, and parenting plans. You do not get to skip the just-and-equitable property analysis because the marriage is being unwound from day one. Temporary family-law orders and restraining orders are available while the case is pending, the same way they are in a dissolution, under RCW 26.09.060.

Children are not collateral damage of the status label. RCW 26.09.040(5) is blunt: any child of the parties born or conceived during the existence of a marriage or domestic partnership of record is legitimate and remains legitimate notwithstanding the entry of a declaration of invalidity. The FL Divorce 205 petition also flags the usual parentage presumption: the law considers the other spouse to be the parent of a child born during the marriage or within 300 days after it ends, and a fight about that is a Chapter 26.26A parentage case, not a sentence you write in the margins of an annulment.

File Invalidity, Ask for Divorce in the Alternative

The single most useful box on FL Divorce 205 is section 4a. If the court finds the marriage valid and denies invalidity, you can already have asked for a divorce — the marriage is irretrievably broken — or for a legal separation. That is how you avoid winning the factual fight about a lie or a prior marriage and then losing a year because the commissioner found the marriage valid and you had no fallback. Todorov is the published reminder: the husband asked for invalidity, the trial court denied it, and the case ended as a dissolution.

The 90-day waiting period in RCW 26.09.030 is a dissolution rule. It runs from filing and service of a petition that seeks to dissolve a marriage as irretrievably broken. It is not copied into RCW 26.09.040. A pure invalidity case does not have that statutory 90-day floor. If you checked the fallback box and the court is going to enter a dissolution instead, the 90-day clock matters. Do not tell a client 'annulments are faster' as if that were a reason to file the weaker petition.

The Forms, the Certificate, and What Pierce County Actually Collects

An invalidity case uses the statewide Invalidate (Annul) Marriage packet, not a homemade 'annulment letter.' The core set is the same architecture as a dissolution, with a different petition:

• FL Divorce 205 Petition to Invalidate (Annul) Marriage — or FL Divorce 206 if you are invalidating a registered domestic partnership
• FL Divorce 200 Summons: Notice About a Marriage or Domestic Partnership
• FL All Family 001 Confidential Information form and the DOH 422-027 Certificate of Dissolution, Declaration of Invalidity, or Legal Separation
• Proof of personal service, joinder, or acceptance of service — same service rules as any other Chapter 26.09 case
• If there are children: proposed Parenting Plan (FL All Family 140), Child Support Order (FL All Family 130), and WSCSS worksheets
• To finish: FL Divorce 231 Findings and Conclusions About a Marriage, and FL Divorce 241 with the Invalid Marriage Order boxes checked

Puyallup, South Hill, Sumner, Bonney Lake, and Tacoma cases are filed in Pierce County Superior Court at the County-City Building. The Pierce County Clerk's divorce, legal separation, or invalidity page treats a new invalidity filing like a new dissolution: completed checklist documents, copies, and the clerk's current family-law filing fee (the clerk's page has listed $364, payable by cash, debit, money order, or cashier's check; fee waivers exist under GR 34). Court facilitators take appointments at (253) 798-3627; they can review forms, they cannot tell you whether your fraud theory is an 'essential of marriage.'

Local practice still lives in PCLSPR 94.04. Attorney-presented agreed or unopposed finals are typically e-filed under the current ex parte policy, with the same kind of verification used in an agreed dissolution. Self-represented parties use the clerk's uncontested-finals process — the clerk's page currently asks you to email the office to get on that calendar. If you are on a commissioner's motion calendar for temporary orders, confirm the hearing and file a Family Law Hearing Information Form (Form T). Miss the confirmation and the motion can strike, which on a short marriage with a house in the other spouse's name is how temporary restraints disappear.

If there are minor children, Pierce County still expects the Impact on Children seminar before finals. Public-assistance cases still need notice to the State. Personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state respondent still limits what the court can do with money, property, and support — the petition itself warns that a missing jurisdictional hook can leave those issues on the table. Invalidity is not a way around service or around UCCJEA home-state rules for the children.

When Divorce Is the Better Petition — Which Is Most of the Time

Washington is a no-fault state. If the marriage is irretrievably broken, you can get a dissolution without proving anyone's wedding-day defect. That is why most short marriages, most 'we rushed it,' and most 'I found out who they really are' cases should start as a divorce, or should start as invalidity only with a dissolution fallback already pleaded. Invalidity is the right tool when the legal defect is real, provable, and not ratified — a living prior spouse, a prohibited degree of kinship, a 2024-or-later under-18 ceremony, a ceremony no one had the capacity to consent to, or force that did not later turn into a voluntary marriage.

Religious annulment, immigration consequences, and Social Security or survivor benefits are not decided by FL Divorce 241. A declaration of invalidity can help or hurt those other systems depending on the facts; it is not a form you file to make a priest or a consular officer agree with you. If the reason you want the word 'annulment' is a parish tribunal or a visa file, say that out loud in the consult so the civil petition is not drafted to solve the wrong problem.

A declaration of invalidity is a precise civil remedy for a marriage that the law says should never have been contracted. It is not a faster, cleaner, or more moral version of divorce. If you are in Puyallup or elsewhere in Pierce County and you are trying to decide which petition matches the facts you can actually prove, talking with a family law attorney before you file is how you avoid spending the filing fee on a case the commissioner is going to convert into the dissolution you should have started with.