How Long Does a Prenup Last?

1. How Long Does a Prenup Last?

A Florida prenup lasts until the spouses end it. Florida’s Uniform Premarital Agreement Act says that after the wedding a premarital agreement may be amended, revoked or abandoned only by a written agreement signed by the parties. The statute contains no expiration date and no renewal requirement.

The statute also tolls the limitations period on any claim under a prenup for as long as the spouses stay married. Laches and estoppel stay available to either side, so a spouse who sat on a known claim for years can still lose it on equitable grounds.

The question I get most about this is, “Do prenups expire after ten years?” A prenup expires after ten years only when the agreement says so. The ten-year number comes from sunset clauses, which are a drafting choice, and Florida law does not supply one.

2. Do Prenups Expire?

Prenups expire in one way, a sunset clause the spouses wrote. Time alone does nothing to them, and neither does a long marriage, a move or a change in either person’s wealth. The searches “does a prenup expire” and “how long is a prenup good for” have the same answer, which is as long as the words say.

The signed-writing rule cuts in a second direction as well. In Wilson v. Wilson (Fla. 4th DCA 2019) a husband and wife signed a prenup before their 2011 wedding that waived her elective share. Later he signed a trust that told the trustee to fund her elective share if she elected, and she elected. She lost. A document signed by only one spouse could not amend the prenup, because the amendment rule requires a writing signed by both. A later will or trust can add a gift for the surviving spouse, and the waiver of the elective share stays in force.

3. How Long Is a Prenup Good For When It Has a Sunset Clause?

A prenup with a sunset clause is good until the date the clause names. A post on r/AITAH titled “AITAH for waiting until my prenup expired to divorce my cheating wife?” drew 296 upvotes in October 2024. The poster described a prenup under which he would leave with nothing if a divorce came before year ten and the couple would split everything evenly after, and he wrote that he filed the day after the tenth anniversary. Whatever readers think of the post, the clause did what clauses do. The date became a calendar.

A sunset clause raises drafting questions that a divorce court answers by reading the words.

• Which rights end. A clause can sunset the alimony waiver, the property terms or both. A clause that names only alimony leaves the death-side waivers in force.
• Which date counts. I write whether the clock stops at the filing of the petition or at the final judgment, and I name which filing counts when the spouses file more than once.
• What replaces the ended terms. A sunset is often paired with a floor, a formula such as the lesser of a dollar figure or a percentage, or a lump sum that grows with each year of marriage.

For a first marriage with children planned, I often recommend no sunset at all. A sunset at ten or fifteen years on the alimony or property waiver is a choice worth discussing when the marriage may be long and the gap in wealth may close. Second-marriage prenups covers when the death-side waivers matter most.

4. Does a Prenup Still Apply After 20 Years of Marriage?

A prenup applies after 20 years and after 40. In Hahamovitch v. Hahamovitch a 28-year-old woman and a 46-year-old man, both with lawyers, signed a prenup in 1986. The agreement paid her about $1.9 million over seven years and released her claims to the property he owned then or acquired later. After 22 years of marriage she asked a court for a share of what he had acquired during the marriage and of the growth in assets titled to him. The Florida Supreme Court held in 2015 that the broad waiver reached assets titled in his name and their growth from marital work and funds, even though the agreement had no separate clause about enhancement.

The case shows two things about time. A prenup did not weaken over 22 years, and a waiver of property acquired later reaches what a spouse builds after the wedding. The words property acquired later are the ones to read carefully in an old prenup.

The same rule operates at death. In Estate of Garcia v. Garcia (Fla. 3d DCA 1981) a wife’s husband had waived any claim against her assets in 1956, and the Third District held that the waiver covered the elective share the legislature created in 1976. A prenup can bind a spouse to rights that did not exist on the day of signing. How a prenup works at death covers the probate side.

5. Which Law Judges an Old Prenup?

The signing date picks the divorce test. A prenup signed on or after October 1, 2007 falls under the enforcement section of the premarital agreement statute. A prenup signed earlier falls under the Florida Supreme Court’s 1987 decision in Casto v. Casto, and Florida courts kept applying Casto to older prenups after 2007. A postnup falls under Casto at any date.

One honest limit belongs here. I found no Florida appellate decision that applies the statute’s enforcement section to a prenup signed after 2007, so the practical guidance on how it differs from Casto is a reading of the text.

The date of death picks the probate rules. The Second District held in Estate of Sage v. Sage (1987) that the validity of a prenup in a probate proceeding is decided under the law in effect at the decedent’s death. In Topper v. Stewart (Fla. 3d DCA 1980) a 1963 agreement was governed by a probate disclosure rule enacted after the signing because the husband died afterward. An old prenup is therefore tested against the probate statute in force when the owner dies.

6. Does a Prenup Survive a Separation, a Move or a Reconciliation?

The statute lets a prenup be revoked or abandoned only by a written agreement signed by both spouses. By that text, a separation does not end a prenup, a move out of Florida does not end it, and a reconciliation alone does not end it either. That is my reading of the statute, and no Florida case I found tests a reconciliation against a prenup.

The reconciliation cases involve settlement agreements. In Cox v. Cox (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) the court found no rule that a reconciliation voids a settlement agreement and voided that one on its facts, then certified the question. In Matos v. Matos (Fla. 4th DCA 2006) the court held a reconciliation barred enforcement of the agreement’s executory terms while leaving the executed terms alone. A settlement agreement signed while a marriage is failing is a different document from a prenup or a postnup signed in an intact marriage, as the case at the end of this page shows.

A move can change which state’s law reads the agreement through a choice-of-law clause, through the rule that the law of the place of signing governs, or through Florida policy such as homestead. A prenup signed in another state or country covers that question.

7. Can a Later Postnup Replace or Change a Prenup?

A later postnup can replace or change a prenup, because the statute allows amendment by a written agreement signed by both spouses and makes the amendment enforceable without consideration. The replacement needs its own fair disclosure when it waives death-side rights, since the probate statute requires fair disclosure for any waiver signed after the marriage.

When the replacement fails for lack of disclosure, the old prenup revives. In In re Estate of Shore a widower who refused all disclosure signed a $125,000 prenup, then a postnup worth $1.5 million to his wife, and he still refused disclosure although his own lawyer told him it was required. The trial court held the improved postnup void for lack of fair disclosure. The Fourth District held in 1992 that when a substituted contract is voidable, the earlier contract becomes enforceable. The widow’s elective share came out at zero under the prenup, and she kept $1.5 million under a codicil.

Bakos v. Bakos (Fla. 2d DCA 2007) shows the other way a later postnup can work. A prenup procured by duress is voidable and not void, so a later postnup can ratify it, and the postnup must itself pass Casto. A postnup that replaces a prenup should say in plain words whether it replaces the prenup in whole or in part, and it should carry a fresh disclosure schedule. Can you get a prenup after marriage covers the postnup itself.

8. How Much Does It Cost to Update a Prenup?

An update after the wedding is a postnuptial agreement, which is a flat fee from $2,950 at this firm when drafted for one spouse. A review of an agreement the other side drafted is a flat fee from $750. These fees are honored for 90 days from October 6, 2026, and government costs are additional and passed through at cost. By the text of the probate statute, an update that waives death-side rights carries the same fair-disclosure rule as any postnup. What a Florida prenup costs explains what moves the number.

The events that make an old prenup worth rereading are a birth, a business started or sold, an inheritance, a move, and a tenth anniversary.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The couple at year nine. A prenup signed in 2017 waives alimony for the first ten years and splits evenly after. The calendar matters, and the consult covers which filing date the clause counts.

The widow with a 1998 prenup. Her husband died owning a house and two accounts, and the prenup waived her elective share. The probate court tests the agreement under today’s probate statute and the law at his death, and the age of the document does not weaken it.

The business that grew. A 2004 prenup said nothing about growth in a company the husband started afterward. A court reads the clause for property acquired later before it looks at anything else.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §61.079(6) (amendment, revocation or abandonment by a signed writing), (7) (enforcement), (9) (limitations tolled during marriage; laches and estoppel), (10) (probate code preserved); Fla. Stat. §732.702(1) to (3) (waiver before two subscribing witnesses; fair disclosure for agreements signed after marriage).
• Casto v. Casto, 508 So. 2d 330 (Fla. 1987); Hahamovitch v. Hahamovitch, 174 So. 3d 983 (Fla. 2015); Wilson v. Wilson (Fla. 4th DCA Aug. 14, 2019); In re Estate of Shore, 605 So. 2d 951 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992), and the trial-level opinion, 49 Fla. Supp. 2d 156 (Fla. 15th Cir. Ct. 1991); Bakos v. Bakos, 950 So. 2d 1257 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007).
• Estate of Garcia v. Garcia, 399 So. 2d 486 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981); Topper v. Stewart, 388 So. 2d 1270 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980); Estate of Sage v. Sage, 515 So. 2d 1324 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987); Cox v. Cox, 638 So. 2d 586 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994); Matos v. Matos, 932 So. 2d 316 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006); Stephanos v. Stephanos, 299 So. 3d 37 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), and the 2023 appeal after remand (Fla. 4th DCA Mar. 8, 2023).
• Statutes and opinions retrieved 2026-10-07. Reddit title and score read from the public archive on 2026-10-07.

The Agreement That Outlasted a Divorce Filing

In my practice, nearly every fight I handle traces back to a sentence that seemed clear when it was written.

The couple in Stephanos married in 1977 and signed a postnup in 1996. They were living together and not thinking about divorce, and the wife’s family wanted her assets protected. In 2003 they separated and filed for divorce, and seven months later they reconciled. They divorced in earnest from 2013. Three trial judges in turn held that the executory terms of the 1996 agreement were void under the reconciliation rule from Cox, because the agreement did not say it would stand through a reconciliation. The Fourth District reversed in 2020. It held that the Cox rule applies to marital settlement agreements and not to a postnup signed in an intact marriage, so the entire 1996 agreement was enforceable.

I have a few take-home points.

The first is that the label on the agreement decided the rule. The same reconciliation voided nothing in a postnup and might have voided a settlement agreement, so the facts of the signing mattered more than the length of the marriage.

The second is that a single sentence about a filed and dismissed case would have answered the question three trial judges asked. The agreement was 17 years old when the divorce that finally tested it began in earnest.

Practice pointer. State in every agreement what happens if either spouse files for divorce and the case is dismissed or the spouses reconcile, and name the date that counts.

Avoid assuming that a divorce filing that went nowhere ended the agreement. In Stephanos it did not, and the wife lost her fallback claims in 2023 because she had asked the first trial judge not to rule on them.

An honest limit belongs here. Stephanos was a postnup, and no Florida case I found tests a reconciliation against a prenup, where the statute’s signed-writing rule points to the same answer by its text and a court has not said so.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The case above is a published opinion in other parties’ matter, not a matter this firm handled, and it predicts nothing about yours.

Updated on October 7, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Each spouse should have independent counsel. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.