What will my divorce cost? An estimate, then a budget
Pick your state and the way you expect it to go. You get a range built from your state’s real filing fee and what people report paying for everything else, each line labeled with where it came from. Then put in your own quotes and what you have paid, and it becomes your budget.
Two kinds of number sit on this page, and they are labeled so you can tell them apart. Verified means the figure was read from the state’s own court or statute pages. Reported means it is what people who went through it say they paid, collected on What people actually pay. Reported figures are not verified, and the people who report them are not a random sample. They are the best honest guide there is to the part of the bill nobody publishes.
| Item | Low | High | Source | Your quote | Paid so far |
|---|
Why the range is so wide
Reported totals do not form a bell curve. They form two clusters: roughly $300 to $500 for people who filed it themselves, and roughly $20,000 to $30,000 for anyone with two lawyers and a real disagreement. Almost nobody reports the middle. So the most useful thing this page can do is not give you one number, but show you which cluster your choices put you in, and which of those choices are still yours.
Agreement is the biggest lever
Reported all-in legal spend is $0 to $500 for self-filers, $500 to $8,500 where a lawyer or paralegal does the paperwork on an agreed divorce, $15,000 to $50,000 where lawyers are involved and it settles, and $65,000 and up where it goes to trial. Every one of those comes from What people actually pay.
The bill nobody counts as a divorce cost
Refurnishing a second home was reported at $4,000 to $15,000, most often around $8,000, and movers at about $2,000. They are on this page because they are real, even though no legal fee table includes them. The real cost of two households works out the monthly side.
The bill after the decree
People report $3,500 to $20,000 per round of going back to court to change or enforce an order, most often a $5,000 retainer each time. A settlement that is clear on the day it is signed is the cheapest insurance there is. Before you sign is the checklist.