Marriage biodata format in 2026: what to include, what to leave out, and a free template

A marriage biodata is usually the first thing another family sees of you. It gets printed, photographed, forwarded on WhatsApp and read by people you'll never meet. That's why it's worth getting right: clear enough that the right person wants to know more, and careful enough that nothing on it can be used against you.

This guide gives you a simple format that works for a girl or a boy, a template you can copy, advice on what to write in the "about me" and "what I'm looking for" sections, and a plain list of what to leave out. There's no single official format. Families in Kerala, Punjab and Gujarat lay out biodatas differently, and that's fine. What matters is that yours is honest, readable and safe to share.

What a good biodata does

The old biodata was a checklist. A Gulf News feature in August 2026, drawing on interviews by The Times of India, summed up the traditional entries in one line: "Age. Height. Complexion. Caste. Education. Salary. Profession. Family background." The same piece noted that young Indians are increasingly taking charge of their own profiles, and that a modern biodata has to convey something harder to measure: personality.

A good biodata in 2026 does three things:

• Answers the basic questions quickly, so nobody has to call to ask your age or where you work.
• Sounds like a person. Two short paragraphs in your own words tell a family more than a page of fields.
• Shares just enough. Enough to decide whether to talk, and nothing that a stranger could misuse.

Keep it to one page. Use a clean font, no borders full of clip art, and save it as a PDF so the layout doesn't break when it's forwarded.

The sections, in order

1. Personal details

Name, date of birth (or just age), height, religion, mother tongue and the city you live in now. Add marital status only if you've been married before, and if so, say it plainly: divorced, widowed, or separated with a divorce in progress. Hiding a previous marriage helps nobody.

Many traditional formats include complexion, weight and blood group. Complexion in particular has no place on a biodata. It invites exactly the kind of judgement most people now say they want to leave behind.

2. Education and work

Your highest qualification and the institution, your job title, the kind of organisation you work for, and the city. "Software engineer at a product company in Kochi" is enough. You don't need to name your employer on a biodata that will be forwarded widely; you can share that once you're talking.

Income is a common field. If you want to include it, give a band (for example, "₹10 to 15 lakh a year") rather than an exact figure, and never attach salary slips or bank statements.

3. Family details

Parents' names and occupations, siblings (with whether they're married), and where the family is from. A line about the family's outlook helps: "a close family, settled in Thrissur, both parents retired teachers." Describe your native place by district or town, not by street address.

4. About me

This is the section people actually read. Write four to six sentences in the first person, even if a parent is sending the biodata. Say what you do on a normal weekend, what you care about, and something specific about how you live. Specific beats impressive: "I cook a proper Sunday lunch for my family most weeks" says more than "I am caring and family-oriented."

5. What I'm looking for

Three or four sentences about the kind of person and the kind of life you hope for. Talk about values and plans: whether you want to live near family, whether you'd relocate, how you see both of you working, whether you want children. Avoid lists of physical requirements. They tell the reader more about you than about your ideal partner.

6. Contact

One contact name, a phone number and an email. Many families list a parent or sibling as the contact, which also gives you a filter before anyone reaches you directly. Consider a separate email address just for marriage enquiries.

Free marriage biodata template

Copy the fields below into a document, fill in what applies to you, and delete the rest. The examples are made up.

The format works the same way for a boy. Only the content changes. If you're writing a biodata for marriage for a girl or a boy on behalf of your child, write the "about me" and "looking for" sections with them, not for them.

Caste, gotra and horoscope: common, and optional

Caste, sub-caste, gotra, nakshatra, rashi and a horoscope chart appear on a large share of Indian biodatas, and some families won't go further without them. Whether you include them is your choice. Nothing about a biodata format makes them compulsory.

If they matter to your family, add them in a short "optional" block at the end, not at the top, so the first thing anyone reads is about you. If they don't matter to you, leave them out, and say so in the "looking for" section: "Caste and horoscope matching aren't important to us." That one line saves time for both sides. A horoscope chart with your exact time and place of birth is best shared one to one with a family you're already talking to, rather than attached to every copy.

What to leave out of your biodata

A biodata is meant to travel. Assume every copy will be forwarded to people you don't know, and leave out anything you wouldn't hand to a stranger.

• Aadhaar, PAN, passport or voter ID numbers. A prospect never needs these. If identity needs checking later, a platform or a meeting with documents is the place for it. If an official body does ask for your Aadhaar, UIDAI offers a masked version that shows only the last four digits.
• Your exact home address. Your city and native district are enough. Share the address when families are ready to visit.
• Salary slips, bank statements, property papers or Form 16. Give an income band if you must. Documents come much later, between families who have met.
• Your exact time and place of birth, unless the person asking needs them for horoscope matching and you know who they are.
• Your employer's name and office location, on copies sent widely. Say what you do, not exactly where.
• Your personal mobile number, if you can use a family member's or a separate number instead.

Photos: fewer, recent, and harder to misuse

Most biodatas include a photo, and they should. Use one or two recent, clear photos that look like you on a normal day. Heavy filters and studio editing tend to backfire at the first meeting.

Be aware that photos are the part most often misused. In its November 2025 advisory, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) warned that fraudsters on matrimony platforms often use stolen or morphed photographs to look genuine. In July 2026, a 26-year-old woman in Ernakulam told police that a photo she'd posted on Instagram had been downloaded, altered and circulated as a matrimonial ad, with false details and a stranger's contact number, in a WhatsApp group called "Vivahalochanakal-3" (Marriage Proposals-3). The cyber police registered a case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act.

A few habits reduce the risk:

• Use photos that aren't already public on your Instagram or Facebook, so a search doesn't lead straight to your accounts.
• Put a small line such as "Shared with the [family name] family, October 2026" on copies sent to specific people. It won't stop misuse, but it shows where a leaked copy came from.
• Every few months, run your own photo through Google Lens or a reverse image search to see whether it appears anywhere you didn't put it.

Sharing your biodata on WhatsApp groups

Community and marriage-bureau WhatsApp groups are a common way to circulate biodatas, especially in Kerala. They can work, but you should know what you're giving away. Every member of the group can see the biodata, save it and forward it, and you have no way to recall it. Many of these groups have hundreds of members, most of whom you don't know.

• Only send your biodata to groups run by someone you or your family know personally.
• Send a version without your phone number to large groups, and ask interested families to contact the admin, who can pass on your details.
• Never post your biodata in a group you joined from a link shared on social media.
• If your biodata or photo turns up somewhere you didn't send it, take screenshots, report it to the platform and file a complaint at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930.

The same caution applies to anyone who reaches you through a biodata. The I4C advisory recommends verifying a person before trusting them, running a reverse image search on their photos, and not sharing private details, photos or financial information with someone you haven't met. Our guide to verifying a matrimony profile has the full checklist.

A different way to introduce yourself

We make Ourpoint, a marriage app that opens city by city through Live evenings, starting in Kochi. It doesn't use a biodata. Instead, you answer a written interview about who you are, what you stand on and the life you want to build, and choose three of your answers to show on your profile. There are no caste, height, income or complexion filters; you can set up to three non-negotiables, and they work both ways. A person checks every member's ID against a live selfie, and the ID photos are deleted 30 days after the check, so your documents don't travel any further.

A final check before you send it

• Is it one page, saved as a PDF?
• Would you be comfortable if a stranger read every line?
• Does the "about me" sound like you, in your words?
• Is a previous marriage, if any, stated plainly?
• Are your photos recent and not easy to trace to your social media?
• Have you removed ID numbers, your full address and any financial documents?

If the answer to all six is yes, your biodata is ready. Our questions to ask before an arranged marriage will help with what comes next.