About DivorceCostCalculators
We answer one question as directly as we can: how much will a divorce cost in your state? Free, with no sign-up, and with the sources shown so you can check us.
What this site does
DivorceCostCalculators provides free cost estimates for divorce in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. Each state page combines the court filing fee, the mandatory waiting period, the residency requirement, typical attorney rate ranges, and an estimate for both uncontested and contested cases. There is no account, no email gate, and nothing you type into the calculator leaves your browser.
The estimates exist because the honest answer to "how much does divorce cost" is a range, and that range is enormous — an uncontested DIY filing can cost little more than the court fee, while a contested case with custody and property disputes can run into five figures. Knowing which end of that range you are likely to be at is genuinely useful before your first attorney conversation.
Who runs this site
Shahbaz Haider
What we verify, and what we estimate
This is the distinction that matters most, and we want to be blunt about it, because most sites in this space are not.
Court filing fees — verifiable
Filing fees are published by each state's judiciary. They are public facts, and we can check them. When we have opened the official court page and read the number ourselves, the state page shows the date we checked it and links to the page we checked. When we have not, the page says so plainly and shows the figure as an unverified estimate.
0 of 51 jurisdictions currently carry a verified, dated filing fee (0%). The remaining 51 are shown as estimates and labelled as such on every page they appear. We are working through them. If you have filed recently and paid something different from what we list, tell us — reader corrections are the fastest way this number moves.
We publish links to all 51 official state court sources on our sources page, whether or not we have verified that state's fee yet, so you can always check for yourself.
Attorney costs — estimates only
Attorney fees are not published anywhere authoritative. Nobody maintains a register of what family lawyers actually charge, and the figure varies by city, by firm, by the complexity of your case and by how much your spouse disputes. Our ranges are drawn from published bar association surveys and market rate reporting. They describe what people commonly pay. They are not quotes, they are not predictions, and no attorney is bound by them.
Our cost multipliers — our own working
The calculator applies complexity and income adjustments to produce your estimate. These multipliers are ours. No state publishes them and no survey produced them; they are our reasoned attempt to reflect how case complexity drives cost. We document how they work on our editorial policy page. Treat the output as a planning range, not a figure to budget to the dollar.
What this site is not
We are not a law firm. We do not provide legal advice, we cannot review your situation, and we cannot tell you what you are entitled to or what a judge will decide. Divorce law is state-specific and fact-specific, and the questions that matter most in your case are exactly the ones a calculator cannot answer.
Our content is not currently reviewed by a licensed attorney. We say so on every page rather than implying otherwise. If you practise family law and would be willing to review our state pages, we would like to hear from you — reviewed pages carry the reviewer's name and bar number.
If you need advice, speak to a family law attorney in your state. Many offer free or low-cost initial consultations, and most state bar associations run a lawyer referral service. If cost is the barrier, your state's legal aid organisation and the court's self-help centre are both free.
How we make money
The site is free to use and always will be. We earn revenue from display advertising, and in some cases from referrals to legal service providers. Where a link earns us a commission, we disclose it. Advertising has no influence on the figures we publish or which states we cover — the filing fee is whatever the court charges, regardless of who advertises.
Corrections
Court fees change, and we would rather hear about it from you than leave a wrong number up. When you report one, we check it against the official court source, update the figure, record the date and the URL we checked, and email you to confirm what changed. Our full process is on the editorial policy page, and you can reach us through the contact form.
Last updated: August 2026 · Editorial policy · Sources · Contact