What an Arkansas 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 stateArkansas
It costs $165.00 to file for divorce in Arkansas. 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. Both Arkansas circuit clerk schedules we can reach publish $165.00 to open a domestic relations case, and neither now prints a separate electronic filing charge. Arkansas has 75 counties and we have been able to verify two of them, so this is not a statewide guarantee — call the specific circuit clerk before writing the check.
The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Arkansas publishes no statewide component breakdown that could be verified.
- How it changes by county — Both county circuit clerk schedules we can reach now publish the same $165.00, and neither lists a separate electronic filing charge.
- What the filing fee does not cover — The filing fee is usually the smallest predictable number in a divorce.
- If you cannot afford to file — Arkansas does publish it. The Judiciary posts the sworn affidavit used to ask to proceed in forma pauperis, and names Rule 72 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure as the rule behind it.
- What we could not find out
- How we know this — Where nothing is published, we leave it blank.
- What people actually report paying — Here is the other side of it — and a warning about how to read it.
In this subject 7
Where the money goes
The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Arkansas publishes no statewide component breakdown that could be verified.
- How it changes by county — Both county circuit clerk schedules we can reach now publish the same $165.00, and neither lists a separate electronic filing charge.
- What the filing fee does not cover — The filing fee is usually the smallest predictable number in a divorce.
- If you cannot afford to file — Arkansas does publish it. The Judiciary posts the sworn affidavit used to ask to proceed in forma pauperis, and names Rule 72 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure as the rule behind it.
- What we could not find out
- How we know this — Where nothing is published, we leave it blank.
- What people actually report paying — Here is the other side of it — and a warning about how to read it.
In this subject 7
Arkansas publishes no statewide component breakdown that could be verified. Both county circuit clerk schedules we can reach state the fee as a single figure — $165.00 — with no components shown. Until 2 October 2026 this page reported a second component, a $20.00 electronic filing system fee, on the authority of a note on the Faulkner County Circuit Clerk’s page; that note is no longer there. The statutory add-ons that A.C.A. § 21-6-403 is understood to layer on top of a base amount we could not read from any official source, and are therefore NOT itemized here.
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Base filing fee — opening a civil, criminal or domestic relations caseClark County Circuit Clerk’s published table: ‘Civil, Criminal & Domestic Case — $165.00’. Faulkner County Circuit Clerk, read the same day: ‘Filing fee for: Initiating a Cause of Action in Circuit or Domestic Relations Courts: $165.00’. Neither page states whether an e-filing fee applies separately. Not verified — see authority. Attributed generally to A.C.A. § 21-6-403. | $165.00 |
| Electronic filing system feeUntil 2 October 2026 this row read $20.00, quoting a note then printed by the Faulkner County Circuit Clerk: ‘(Please note that the filing fees listed above includes the $20.00 electronic filing system fee that Administrative Order 21 of the Supreme Court of Arkansas implemented.)’ That note is no longer on the page, which now publishes $165.00 with no e-filing line. We have not been able to read Administrative Order 21 itself, so we are not asserting that the charge was withdrawn — only that no official source we can reach publishes it. Faulkner County Circuit Clerk, read 2 October 2026 | not confirmed |
How it changes by county
The two county circuit clerk schedules we can reach now publish the same figure. Faulkner County publishes $165.00; Clark County publishes $165.00. Until 2 October 2026 Faulkner published $185.00 and stated that figure included a $20.00 Administrative Order 21 electronic filing system fee; its page carries neither the higher figure nor that note today. Arkansas has 75 counties, three of the larger ones block automated readers, and nothing we have read says the fee is uniform statewide — so confirm with the specific county circuit clerk rather than assume one number.
The published range
$165.00 at both of the two county circuit clerks we were able to confirm from official sources, read 2 October 2026. Two counties out of 75 is not a statewide range.
| County | Published fee | Schedule dated |
|---|---|---|
| Faulkner | $165.00 — ‘Filing fee for: Initiating a Cause of Action in Circuit or Domestic Relations Courts: $165.00’. No electronic filing system fee is listed on the page as read on 2 October 2026. | no date printedofficial source |
| Clark | $165.00 — ‘Civil, Criminal & Domestic Case — $165.00’ | 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
- Registration fee
- $100 one-time, to open an eFlex account. The Judiciary’s eFlex terms of use state: ‘My one-time registration fee of $100 has been made to set up my account.’ It applies to attorneys, to legal assistants filing for one, and to a self-represented litigant ‘in a case where the court has mandated electronic filing’.
- Per-case portal fee
- Not confirmed. Until 2 October 2026 this page reported $20 per case; no such charge is published on the Judiciary’s eFiling site, which tells filers that payment information on statutory fees comes from the clerk of the court they are filing in.
Most people filing their own divorce are not in a mandatory e-filing case, so the $100 will usually not apply to them. The Judiciary’s eFiling site is where both figures come from. Whether you have to e-file at all is on the Arkansas kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| SummonsFaulkner: ‘Summons: Circuit or Domestic Relations cases: $2.50’. Corroborated by Clark County, which lists ‘Subpoena or Summons — $2.50 each’ at https://clarkcountyar.gov/?page_id=8837 Not verified | $2.50 each |
| SubpoenaFaulkner: ‘Subpoena: Circuit or Domestic Relations Court: $2.50’ Not verified | $2.50 |
| Re-opening a cause of action (for modification of a final order) or transferring a case from another jurisdiction by court orderRelevant to post-divorce custody or support modifications. Clark County publishes the same $50.00 for ‘Re-Opening & Transfer’. Not verified | $50.00 |
| Process serverCAUTION: the Clark County page does not state whether this is a per-service charge or a fee to be authorized as a process server, and the renewal line strongly suggests the latter. Do not present this as a per-respondent service cost. No sheriff service-of-process fee per respondent was found published on either county site. Not verified | $140.00 (renewal $50.00) |
| Sheriff/constable service of process, per respondentNot confirmed. No Arkansas sheriff service fee was located on an official source. | not published |
| Mandatory parent-education classNot confirmed. No parenting-class requirement or fee appears on the Arkansas Judiciary site or on either county circuit clerk fee schedule verified. Reported as unconfirmed rather than assumed — see what we could not verify, below. | not published |
| Court-ordered mediationThe Administrative Office of the Courts runs an Alternative Dispute Resolution program and publishes a certified-mediator directory, but no mediation fee or rate is published there. | not published |
| Credit-card surchargeNo surcharge published. Clark County states it ‘accepts the following forms of payment: cash, checks and money orders’ — i.e., cards are not listed as accepted at that clerk’s counter. | not published |
If you cannot afford to file
Arkansas calls it proceeding in forma pauperis, and the Judiciary publishes the form
You ask the court for permission to file without paying up front, and you support the request with a sworn affidavit about your finances. The Arkansas Judiciary publishes that affidavit itself, as In Forma Pauperis Affidavit [see Rule 72, Rules of Civil Procedure] (downloaded and read on 2 October 2026). It is headed “IN RE PETITION OF ______ TO PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS” and the sworn paragraph reads, in the form’s own words: “in support of my motion to proceed without being required to prepay fees, costs or give security therefor, I state that because of my poverty I am unable to pay the costs of said proceeding or to give security therefor; that I believe I am entitled to redress.”
The form asks six things: whether you are employed and what you earn; whether you have received money in the past twelve months from self-employment, rent, interest or dividends, a pension, annuity or life insurance, gifts or inheritances, or any other source; how much cash you hold and what is in any checking or savings account; whether you own real estate, stocks, bonds, notes, automobiles or other valuable property, “excluding ordinary household furnishings and clothing”; who depends on you for support and what you contribute; and, only if you are incarcerated, what is in your inmate account. You sign it, and it is sworn before a notary. The form carries its own warning that “false statement or answer to any questions in this affidavit will subject me to penalties for perjury.”
What we are not telling you, because we could not read it. The affidavit points to Rule 72 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure, and the Judiciary publishes its rules at arcourts.gov, through a rules database in which the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure are listed. The document viewer in that database refused our requests with a bot challenge, so we have not read the text of Rule 72 and are not quoting what it requires, what the judge weighs, or whether a denial can be appealed. The affidavit above is the official form; Rule 72 is the rule it is filed under. Ask the circuit clerk which papers they want with it.
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- Could not verify A.C.A. § 21-6-403 itself. The Arkansas Code is not published in free full text by the State: arkleg.state.ar.us returns HTTP 500 for every code endpoint tried and hosts only Acts and bills, and its FTPDocument path for code sections returns a 1×1 GIF placeholder. The official Arkansas Code is licensed to a commercial publisher. Consequently the statutory base amount, and any statutory add-ons layered on top of it, are unverified — the figures reported come from county clerk .gov pages only.
- We still could not read Administrative Order 21 of the Supreme Court of Arkansas. Correcting what this page said before: the Judiciary does publish its rules and administrative orders, at arcourts.gov/forms-and-publications/court-rules, which links to the Court Rules and Administrative Orders collections on opinions.arcourts.gov. We reached the collection index on 2 October 2026 and saw the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure listed; the document viewer then answered every request with a bot challenge, so the text of Rule 72 and of Administrative Order 21 is unread. The $20.00 e-filing fee this page used to report rested on a note the Faulkner County Circuit Clerk no longer prints.
- Could not confirm any Arkansas parenting-class requirement or fee from an official source.
- Answered on 2 October 2026, and it should not have stood: Arkansas does publish an in forma pauperis procedure. The Judiciary posts the sworn affidavit on arcourts.gov and names Rule 72 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure. What is still open is the text of Rule 72 itself, which sits behind a bot challenge — so we cannot tell you the standard the judge applies or what happens if the request is refused.
- No sheriff or constable service-of-process fee per respondent is published on either verified county source. The Clark County 'Process Server $140.00' line is ambiguous and is flagged rather than reported as a service cost.
- No effective date is printed on either county fee page.
- Only two county circuit clerk schedules could be verified; most Arkansas county sites tried were unreachable or blocked (see the sources we could not reach, below). Both publish $165.00, which is not the same thing as $165.00 being the fee in all 75 counties, and we are not claiming that it is.
- Sources we could not read: https://www.bentoncountyar.gov/circuit-clerk/ — HTTP 403 to both default and browser user agents. Bot/WAF block; not bypassed.; https://www.washingtoncountyar.gov/government/departments-a-e/circuit-clerk — HTTP 403 to both default and browser user agents. Bot/WAF block; not bypassed.; https://www.jeffersoncountyar.gov/circuit-clerk/ — HTTP 403. Bot/WAF block; not bypassed.; https://arkleg.state.ar.us/Home/ArkansasCode and related code endpoints — HTTP 500; the Arkansas Code is not published free by the State.; https://arcourts.gov/rules and /rules/administrative-orders — HTTP 404, but only because those are the wrong paths; the rules are published at arcourts.gov/forms-and-publications/court-rules. The rules database itself, opinions.arcourts.gov, serves its collection indexes but answers document requests with a bot challenge, so individual rule texts are unread.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Arkansas’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 Arkansas 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
Arkansas 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 Arkansas. Every figure is quoted from Arkansas’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in Arkansas
Short answers to what people ask most about this number. Everything here is drawn from the same sources as the figures above.
How much does it cost to file for divorce in Arkansas?
$165.00 to open the case. Both of the two Arkansas county circuit clerk fee schedules we can reach publish $165.00 for opening a civil, criminal or domestic relations case, read 2 October 2026. Arkansas has 75 counties and we have verified two, so this is not a statewide guarantee. Every figure on this page is traced to a court’s or clerk’s own published fee schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Is the divorce filing fee the same in every Arkansas county?
We cannot tell you. Both county circuit clerk schedules we can reach publish $165.00, and neither lists a separate electronic filing charge. But that is two counties out of 75, three of the larger counties block automated readers, and no statewide schedule is published, so we are not claiming the fee is uniform. Confirm with the circuit clerk in the county where you will file.
Is the filing fee the whole cost of a divorce in Arkansas?
No, and it is the small number. The filing fee is what it costs to open the case. Serving the papers, any required parenting class, copies and certifications, an attorney if you use one, and the cost of running two households instead of one are all separate — and together they are many times larger. The sections above set out what this figure does and does not buy.
What if I cannot afford the filing fee in Arkansas?
Arkansas calls it proceeding in forma pauperis. You ask the court for permission to file without paying up front and support the request with a sworn affidavit about your finances, which the Arkansas Judiciary publishes on arcourts.gov as the In Forma Pauperis Affidavit and files under Rule 72 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure. The affidavit asks about your employment and earnings, money received in the past twelve months, cash and bank accounts, property other than ordinary household furnishings and clothing, and who depends on you for support; it is signed and sworn before a notary. We have not been able to read the text of Rule 72 itself, so we do not tell you the standard the judge applies. You do not have to have decided anything, or have a lawyer, to ask.
How current is this Arkansas figure, and where does it come from?
It is quoted from the court’s own published schedule or the statute that sets it, with the date it was last checked shown on the page. Where a figure could not be confirmed from an official source, this site says so rather than estimating — and where a number could only be reached by arithmetic rather than read off a published schedule, it is left out rather than presented as published. That rule is why some rows here say “not published” instead of carrying a tidy figure, and it is the whole basis on which these pages can be reproduced. The full fifty-state comparison is at thecusp.app/divorce-costs/, free to reproduce under the license published there.
Choosing an agent for a divorce sale is a different problem from choosing one for an ordinary sale: who the agent is allowed to talk to, who has to sign, what happens when one of you will not, and the three separate conflicts of interest that come up when one spouse found the agent first. How to choose a real estate agent for a divorce sale sets out what to ask, and how to check a credential yourself — no divorce credential is official with the National Association of Realtors.
The Cusp receives a referral fee from agents it vets and trains to handle divorce clients.