Changing your name back in Idaho

Whether you can get your former name back in the divorce itself — and what it costs in Idaho if you miss that moment.

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The federal half is the same everywhere

Social Security, the passport, and the order to do them in are identical in all fifty states and are on the main name-change page. This page is the part that is Idaho-specific.

Restore it in the divorceYesIn the divorce, on request.
After the decree is finalYes separate statutory name-change petition
Newspaper publicationRequired Yes, and it is one of the heavier publication burdens in this batch. Idaho Code § 7-803(1)
Background checkNo No fingerprint or criminal background check requirement appears in Idaho Code § 7-802 or…
Separate petition fee$166.00Confirmed from an official schedule.
CourtDistrict Court File in the district court of the county where the petitioner resides (Idaho Code §…

Restoring your name in the divorce

Idaho restores a former name through the divorce itself, under .

No Idaho statute authorizing restoration of a former name in a divorce decree could be located on a primary source. Idaho Code Title 32, Chapter 7 (Divorce Actions) was checked and section 32-716 – which some secondary sites cite for this – is in fact the 21-day waiting period statute (‘No hearing on the merits upon grounds for divorce shall be held in any action for divorce, and no final decree … shall be entered … until at least twenty-one (21) days after the commencement of the action and service of process.’). What is verified is that the Idaho Supreme Court’s own Court Assistance Office Decree of Divorce form (CAO D 8-1) contains a checkbox paragraph reading that a party ‘is restored to the former last name of ____’, and the form cites no statute for it. Treat restoration in the decree as established Idaho practice with a form-based, not statute-based, footing.

How much choice the judge has: not verified – no statutory standard located

Who may ask: either party

Ask in the divorce — but missing it is not fatal

The statutory restoration in Idaho has to be requested while the case is open. It is still much the cheapest moment to do it. But there is a way back afterwards, set out in the next section.

If the decree is already final

If the decree did not restore the name, the fallback is a full Chapter 8 name-change petition in district court – which means the $166 filing fee, four weeks of newspaper publication, and a hearing at least six weeks out. There is no abbreviated post-decree restoration procedure in Idaho comparable to Kansas’s affidavit or Maryland’s 18-month motion.

Authority: Idaho Code §§ 7-801 to 7-806

The separate name-change petition

This is the route if the divorce route is closed to you, or if you want a name that is not a former one.

  • Statute: Idaho Code §§ 7-801 to 7-806 (petition: § 7-802; publication: § 7-803; hearing: § 7-804)
  • Court: District Court
  • Filing fee: $166.00
  • Residency: File in the district court of the county where the petitioner resides (Idaho Code § 7-802). The petition must state ‘the place of birth and residence of such person, his or her present name, the name proposed, and reason for such change of name.’ No minimum duration of residency was located.
  • Publication: Yes, and it is one of the heavier publication burdens in this batch. Idaho Code § 7-803(1): ‘A notice of hearing of such petition signed by the clerk and issued under the seal of the court, must be published for four (4) successive weeks in a newspaper designated by the court as most likely to give notice in the county where the person whose name is proposed to be changed resides.’ The Court Assistance Office instructions restate this as ‘published once a week for (4) four successive weeks’ in a county-designated newspaper. SAFETY EXEMPTION: none found. No exemption from publication for domestic violence survivors appears in Idaho Code §§ 7-801 to 7-803 or in the Idaho Court Assistance Office name-change instructions. The only related privacy mechanism located is the Court Assistance Office’s paired ‘Unredacted Petition’ (CAO NCA 1-1) and ‘Redacted Petition’ (CAO NCA 1-1R) forms, which keep identifying details such as the petitioner’s address out of the publicly filed version – but the notice of hearing itself, carrying the current and proposed names, is still published.
  • Background check: No fingerprint or criminal background check requirement appears in Idaho Code § 7-802 or in the Idaho Court Assistance Office instructions for an adult name change.
  • Hearing: required

Official forms

What catches people out in Idaho

Get the restoration paragraph into the Decree of Divorce. Missing it in Idaho is expensive – the fallback is a $166 petition plus four weeks of newspaper ads plus a hearing.
The hearing must be set at least six weeks out to leave room for the four successive weeks of publication.
Idaho Code § 7-804 requires the petitioner to appear at the hearing, though the judge may sign the judgment without testimony if no objections were filed.
Certified copies cost $0.50 per page plus a $1.00 seal fee – budget for several, because every agency wants its own.
Worth knowing

Several commercial sites cite ‘Idaho Code 32-712′ or ’32-716’ for divorce name restoration. That is wrong: 32-712 is community property division and 32-716 is the 21-day waiting period. No statute for it was found on legislature.idaho.gov; the authority in practice is the Supreme Court’s own Decree of Divorce form.

Idaho has no domestic-violence exemption from name-change publication. The redacted/unredacted petition pair protects the petitioner’s address, not the fact of the name change.

The name-change filing fee ($166) is published by the Idaho Court Assistance Office, an arm of the Idaho Supreme Court, rather than county by county.

Sources for this page

Sources we could not reach when this page was built, listed so you know what was not checked rather than assuming it was: https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title7/t7ch8/ (read timeout – full chapter index could not be enumerated, so §§ 7-804 to 7-806 were not read in full text)

Found an error? Tell us — it goes on the corrections page with the date and how long it was live.

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Sources last checked30 August 2026
Page published30 August 2026
What this means. This is when the sources on this page were last read against their originals — statutes, court rules, official schedules — taken from the date this page was built from its sources. It is not the date the page was last edited. Adding a link or fixing a typo does not move it; re-reading the statute does. Law changes without notice, so treat anything time-sensitive as needing a fresh check. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date, what changed, and how long the error was live.