What a Arizona divorce actually costs to file.
Not a range, not an estimate, not a lawyer’s blog. Every figure below is traced to a statute, a court fee schedule, or a clerk’s own published page — and linked to it.
See a different stateArizona
It costs $261 to file for divorce in Arizona. Below is where that money goes, what it does not cover, and what to do if you do not have it.
Worth knowing before you file. The single biggest surprise is that the statewide number is only a floor: the Arizona Supreme Court’s schedule puts a dissolution petition at $261, but Pima County adds a $100 Court Automation Fee and a $75 Case Flow Management Fund fee by county ordinance and charges $436 – about 67% more than the statewide figure – and the statewide page itself tells filers to ‘check with the specific court for additional local fees.’ On top of that, $65 of the statewide $261 is the Conciliation Court Fund, which the respondent has to pay again when they answer.
Where the money goes
Arizona publishes a full component breakdown on the statewide Superior Court fee schedule, and each county clerk republishes it with its own local add-ons in additional columns. Both the statewide breakdown and the Pima County local columns are itemised above.
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Base filing fee, petition for dissolution of marriage (A.R.S. § 12-284 Class C, as increased under ACJA § 3-404)The raw statutory figure in A.R.S. § 12-284 is $149.00; the statewide schedule shows the Supreme Court-approved increased base of $176.00. Statute text confirmed at https://www.azleg.gov/ars/12/00284.htm A.R.S. § 12-284(A) Class C | $176.00 |
| Document Storage and Retrieval FundSchedule footnote (1): a fee of no more than $15. A.R.S. § 12-284.01 | $15.00 |
| Spousal Maintenance Enforcement Enhancement Fund surchargeSchedule footnote (2): $5 on each petition or answer for annulment, dissolution or legal separation. A.R.S. § 12-289 | $5.00 |
| Conciliation Court FundSchedule footnote (3): charged in each county where the superior court has established a conciliation court; both petitioner and respondent pay it. A.R.S. § 12-284(E) | $65.00 |
| STATEWIDE SCHEDULE TOTAL, petition for dissolutionThis is the statewide floor. Individual counties add locally authorized fees on top – see county_variation. A.R.S. § 12-284 | $261.00 |
| Pima County local: Court Automation FeeLocal county fee, not statewide. Pima County Ordinances 2003-10 and 2026-04 | $100.00 |
| Pima County local: Case Flow Management FundLocal county fee, not statewide. Pima County Ordinance 2023-15 and Superior Court/Clerk MOU dated 08/15/2025 | $75.00 |
How it changes by county
The statewide schedule is built from A.R.S. § 12-284 plus statutory funds, and the Arizona Supreme Court increases the base under ACJA § 3-404. The statewide page itself warns: ‘Please check with the specific court for additional local fees.’ Counties then layer on locally authorized charges adopted by county ordinance – for example Pima County’s $100 Court Automation Fee (Ordinances 2003-10 and 2026-04) and $75 Case Flow Management Fund (Ordinance 2023-15). That is what produces the real spread between counties.
The published range
$261 – $436 across the counties we were able to confirm from official sources.
| County | Published fee | Schedule dated |
|---|---|---|
| Statewide schedule floor (all counties) | $261.00 | December 28, 2024official source |
| Pima | $436.00 | June 1, 2026 (printed as ‘EFFECTIVE 06/01/2026’)official source |
| Mohave | $361.00 without children / $411.00 with children | no date printedofficial source |
| Maricopa | no date printedofficial source | |
| Pinal | no date printedofficial source |
What the filing fee does not cover
The filing fee is usually the smallest predictable number in a divorce. This is where the rest of the budget lives — and where “not published” appears most often.
What it costs to file it electronically
- Portal fee
- $6.50 for all documents submitted in a new case submission; $6.50 for each lead document submitted in a post-initiation submission; $3.80 if the filer elects to use electronic service
- If you pay by card
- A non-refundable 3% processing fee
This sits on top of the filing fee above, and a percentage surcharge on a few hundred dollars is not small. Whether you have to e-file at all is on the Arizona kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Service of process by sheriff, per respondentNot confirmed. Sheriff’s civil process fees in Arizona are set county by county and were not published on any statewide judiciary source I could reach; neither the statewide schedule nor the Pima or Mohave clerk schedules list a sheriff service-of-process fee. Reported as null rather than estimated. | not published |
| Parenting/parent-education class, if requiredMANDATORY where minor children are involved. The Pima County Superior Court fee schedule states: ‘An additional $50.00 parent education fee is required per ARS 25-352, if children are involved in any dissolution, legal separation, annulment, paternity proceeding or when any relief involving children’s issues is requested.’ Maricopa County’s Superior Court describes its Parent Information Program as ‘a mandatory course’ with ‘a maximum of $50 per person’ (source: https://superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/departments/superior-court/family/conciliation-services/). Maricopa’s listed private providers publish course prices of $35. A.R.S. § 25-352 | $50.00 (maximum) per parent |
| Court-ordered mediation / parenting conference (Maricopa County Conciliation Services)Maricopa County figures only. Maricopa Superior Court states there is ‘a $300/person service fee for the conference’ when a judge orders a parenting conference, and ‘A $50 fee is required to attend’ the four-hour Parental Conflict Resolution class. No statewide mediation fee is published. | $300.00 per person (parenting conference); $50.00 per person (Parental Conflict Resolution class) |
| E-filing or credit-card surchargeNot confirmed. No e-filing or card surcharge appears on the statewide Superior Court fee schedule. The Pima County schedule does publish an unrelated ‘$7.00 fee for the Clerk of the Court to fax documents’ as of 4/1/21. Reported as null rather than estimated. | not published |
If you cannot afford to file
More people qualify than apply. If this section applies to you it is the most useful thing on this page.
Arizona has a way to file without paying up front
This is a normal court procedure, not a favor you have to plead for.
- Who qualifies: Published tiers: receipt of federal SSI with supporting documentation should produce a WAIVER. Receipt of TANF or food stamps, or assistance from a non-profit legal aid provider, should produce a DEFERRAL. If income is between 150% and 225% of the current federal poverty level, or there are extraordinary expenses, the court may set a payment plan.
- What it covers: State filing fees and costs – filing a complaint or response, serving pleadings, and issuing a summons or subpoena.
- What to ask for: Application for Deferral or Waiver of Court Fees and Costs, Form No. AOCDFGF1F; Supplemental Application Form No. AOCDFGF9F
- How it works: Application for Deferral or Waiver of Court Fees and Costs, filed with the clerk. A waiver means the fees are not paid at all; a deferral means a payment plan or postponement. It is a two-step process – a Supplemental Application must be filed when there is a final order, decree or judgment, and the court may waive the fees at that point if the filer’s finances have not changed.
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- Maricopa County’s dissolution filing fee – the Clerk of the Superior Court website (clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov) returns an Akamai ‘Access Denied’ 403 to every request, and no Maricopa filing fee figure is published on the accessible superiorcourt.maricopa.gov pages. Not estimated.
- Pinal County’s dissolution filing fee – the county’s Filing Fees page sits behind a Cloudflare ‘Just a moment…’ JavaScript challenge, and the ‘Court Filing Fees’ PDF linked from the Pinal Clerk of the Superior Court page (DocumentCenter/View/1784) is a dead 404 link. Not estimated.
- The text of Administrative Order 2024-210, which the judiciary cites as the authority for the current schedule – the link on the official page points to legacy.azcourts.gov and returns 404.
- Sheriff’s service-of-process fees – set county by county and not published on any statewide source reached.
- Whether any e-filing or credit-card surcharge applies – not published on the statewide schedule.
- An effective date for the Mohave County schedule – none is printed on the page.
- Sources we could not read: https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/ – HTTP 403 ‘Access Denied’ from Akamai edge (bot protection). Not bypassed.; https://www.pinal.gov/158/Filing-Fees – Cloudflare interstitial (‘Enable JavaScript and cookies to continue’). Not bypassed.; https://www.coconino.az.gov/, https://www.yavapaiaz.gov/, https://www.yumacountyaz.gov/, https://www.santacruzcountyaz.gov/, https://www.apachecountyaz.gov/, https://www.graham.az.gov/ – all returned HTTP 403, so no furt; https://legacy.azcourts.gov/Portals/22/admorder/Orders24/2024-210.pdf – HTTP 404 (dead link published on the live official page).
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Arizona’s own agencies publish, not an omission on our part.
How we know this
Every figure on this page came from a statute, a state court system, or a clerk’s own published fee schedule — never a law firm’s blog, a legal-forms company, or a fee aggregator. Where a state publishes no date on its fee schedule, we say so rather than implying the number is current. Where nothing is published, we leave it blank.
Court fees change, and they change without announcement. Confirm with your clerk before you write the check.
What people actually report paying
Everything above is the filing fee, traced to the statute. It is also the smallest number in a divorce. Here is the other side of it — and a warning about how to read it.
We read hundreds of public accounts from people who have been through it. Three findings held up across nearly all of them:
- The total is bimodal, not an average. Self-filers cluster around $300–$500. Anyone with two lawyers and a real disagreement clusters around $20,000–$30,000. Almost nobody reports the middle, so “the average divorce costs X” describes almost no actual divorce.
- Cost is driven by the other person’s conduct, not by how complicated your assets are. People with millions who agreed to split evenly reported paying filing fees only. People with one house and one child reported $45,000 because the case got dragged out.
- Every large surprise is a third professional. The guardian ad litem, the custody evaluator, the forensic accountant, the QDRO preparer — all billed separately from both lawyers, and often introduced by the court before anyone had budgeted for one.
These are anecdotes, not prices. People post about a divorce cost when the number shocked them, so the high figures are heavily over-represented and the ordinary divorce is nearly invisible. Every figure on the full page is labeled with how many people reported it.
See what people report paying →Know someone in Arizona staring at this number?
A straight answer about money is more useful than most advice, and it costs nothing to pass along. Nothing here asks for their real name, and nobody finds out they looked.
Now the part the fees don’t cover
The forms, the deadlines, the residency rule, and what actually happens next.
Or find someone to help
Arizona attorneys, mediators, CDFAs and therapists, credentials checked against the state’s own records. Nobody paid to be there.
The rest of what we have written about Arizona. Every figure is quoted from Arizona’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.