What an Indiana 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 stateIndiana
It costs $157.00 to $177.00 to file for divorce in Indiana, depending on the county. 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. Indiana is unusual in that only $100 of the $157 is actually the filing fee – the other $57 is seven separate statutory add-ons, including $20 that goes to judicial salaries (I.C. § 33-37-5-26), $20 to automated record keeping (I.C. § 33-37-5-21) and $5 to public defense administration (I.C. § 33-37-5-21.2), which a divorce filer pays even though none of it relates to their case. The other genuinely useful thing: e-filing makes it cheaper, not dearer – the fee manual states the $10-per-extra-defendant Civil Action Service Fee ‘does not apply to … actions filed using the Indiana electronic filing system.’
The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Indiana publishes a genuine, complete component breakdown.
- How it changes by county — The eight statutory components totaling $157.00 are set by state statute and are the same in every county.
- 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 — Indiana publishes a statewide fee-waiver packet — three forms approved by the Coalition for Court Access — and no income threshold is printed on any of them.
- 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 — Indiana publishes a genuine, complete component breakdown.
- How it changes by county — The eight statutory components totaling $157.00 are set by state statute and are the same in every county.
- 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 — Indiana publishes a statewide fee-waiver packet — three forms approved by the Coalition for Court Access — and no income threshold is printed on any of them.
- 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
Indiana publishes a genuine, complete component breakdown. The Indiana Office of Court Services issues the Indiana Trial Court Fee Manual, whose ‘Filing Fees/Costs for Civil Cases’ chart lists every statutory component with its code citation, and an alphabetical guide showing the amount, when it is assessed and where it is distributed. Every component above is quoted from that chart.
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Civil Filing Fee I.C. § 33-37-4-4(a) | $100.00 |
| Document Storage FeeManual notes: ‘Beginning July 1, 2015, the document storage fee increased to $5 (from $2).’ I.C. § 33-37-5-20 | $5.00 |
| Automated Record Keeping FeeManual notes it ‘increased to $20 on July 1, 2017 for all actions other than pretrial diversion programs and deferral programs.’ I.C. § 33-37-5-21 | $20.00 |
| Public Defense Administration FeeManual notes: ‘Increased to $5 on July 1, 2011. Collected in all case types except for juvenile delinquency, juvenile status, and juvenile miscellaneous cases.’ I.C. § 33-37-5-21.2 | $5.00 |
| Judicial Insurance Adjustment FeeThe manual’s alphabetical guide adds: ‘Collected in all actions.’ I.C. § 33-37-5-25 | $1.00 |
| Judicial Salaries FeeManual notes: ‘Increased to $20 on July 1, 2012.’ I.C. § 33-37-5-26 | $20.00 |
| Court Administration Fee I.C. § 33-37-5-27 | $5.00 |
| Pro Bono Services Fee I.C. § 33-37-5-31 | $1.00 |
| TOTAL CIVIL FEESPrinted in the manual as ‘Total Civil Fees $157.00’. The eight components above sum to exactly $157.00. see components above | $157.00 |
| Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Fee – dissolution, legal separation or paternity; county-dependentCONDITIONAL. Manual: ‘If the county has an approved plan from the Judicial Conference of Indiana, the clerk shall collect from the party filing a petition for legal separation, paternity, or dissolution of marriage a fee of $20.’ 100% distributed to the county Alternative Dispute Resolution Fund. This is what makes the divorce total $177 in participating counties and $157 elsewhere. The manual’s alphabetical guide prints the citation as ‘33-23-6-1; 33-26-6-2’; the Office of Court Services’ own ADR plan kit reproduces the fund provision as I.C. § 33-23-6-2. I.C. § 33-23-6-1 (manual also cites 33-26-6-2) | $20.00 |
How it changes by county
The eight statutory components totaling $157.00 are set by state statute and are the same in every county. One line item varies: the $20 Alternative Dispute Resolution fee under I.C. § 33-23-6-1, which the Office of Court Services describes as a fee “a county [may] collect” on a legal separation, paternity or dissolution filing, is collected only in counties with an approved ADR plan — so the dissolution total is $177 there and $157 in the rest. Indiana does publish a list of them: the ADR Fund Plan County Contact List, footer-dated “Updated 8/3/2023,” names 45 counties — Allen, Bartholomew, Boone, Brown, Clark, Crawford, DeKalb, Delaware, Dubois, Elkhart, Fulton, Gibson, Grant, Greene, Hendricks, Henry, Jackson, Jennings, Johnson, Kosciusko, Lake, LaPorte, Lawrence, Madison, Marion, Martin, Monroe, Montgomery, Orange, Owen, Perry, Porter, Putnam, Ripley, St. Joseph, Shelby, Steuben, Sullivan, Tippecanoe, Vanderburgh, Vermillion, Vigo, Wabash, Warren and Whitley — though the same office states that “more than half of Indiana’s counties have approved ADR Fund Plans,” so treat the list as a floor and not a register. Separately, whether the clerk’s office collects the $28 sheriff’s service of process fee at the counter affects what a filer hands over on day one ($185, or $205 with the ADR fee).
The published range
$157 – $177 (filing fees only), or $185 – $205 where the clerk also collects the $28 sheriff’s service of process fee across the counties we were able to confirm from official sources.
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
- None if using the state's provider: 'Most providers offer subscriptions for a fee, but you can always e-file at no cost (other than applicable filing fees or service fees) using the state's e-filing provider.'
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 Indiana kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Service of process by sheriff, per respondentManual: ‘Total is $185 if office is collecting the sheriff’s service of process fee of $28.’ Collected by the clerk from the person requesting service. It is charged once per case for the duration of the case, though the sheriff may collect one additional $28 for any post-judgment service. Note also the separate $10 Civil Action Service Fee under I.C. § 33-37-5-28 for each defendant named beyond the first – which ‘does not apply to … actions filed using the Indiana electronic filing system.’ I.C. §§ 33-37-5-15(a) and 33-37-5-15(d); I.C. § 36-8-10-12 | $28.00 |
| Parenting/parent-education class, if requiredNot confirmed, and we could not verify that it is mandatory statewide. No parenting or parent-education class fee appears anywhere in the Indiana Trial Court Fee Manual, and no statewide requirement or fee is published on in.gov/courts. In Indiana these requirements are imposed by local court rule county by county. We have not estimated a fee. | not published |
| Court-ordered mediationNot confirmed as a mediator rate. What IS published is the $20 ADR filing fee above, which funds the county Alternative Dispute Resolution Fund in counties participating in the Judicial Conference of Indiana’s ADR plan. The mediator’s own hourly rate is not published in any statewide source we reached, and we have not estimated it. I.C. § 33-23-6-1 | not published |
| E-filing or credit-card surchargeNot confirmed. No e-filing surcharge is listed in the fee manual. Notably, e-filing REDUCES cost rather than adding to it: the manual states the per-defendant $10 Civil Action Service Fee and the garnishee service fee do not apply to ‘actions filed using the Indiana electronic filing system’ (and for small claims, ‘Total is $87.00 if filed using the Indiana electronic filing system’ versus $97.00 otherwise). No card surcharge published. | not published |
| Guardian Ad Litem / CASA user fee in a dissolution or legal separationManual: the ‘court may order either or both parents of a child for whom a GAL/CASA is appointed in a dissolution or legal separation action to pay this user fee’, payable to the clerk, the GAL/CASA program, or the individual who provided the services. The manual explicitly records ‘No amount specified by statute’, so no figure is given here. I.C. §§ 31-15-6-10, 31-15-6-11, 31-17-6-9 | No amount specified by statute |
If you cannot afford to file
Indiana publishes a statewide fee-waiver packet, and there is no income threshold to meet
The procedure is published and it is the same in every county. The forms are approved by the Coalition for Court Access, which Indiana’s own Office of Judicial Administration describes as “created by Supreme Court order on May 17, 2016”; they are published at indianalegalhelp.org, the site the Indiana Courts Self-Service Legal Center itself directs readers to, rather than on in.gov. Three documents are filed together:
- Appearance by Unrepresented Person, form CCA-GF-0420-3012. It closes: “This appearance is filed with a Verified Motion For Fee Waiver. There is no other party to serve.”
- Verified Motion for Fee Waiver, form CCA-GF-0420-3006. You state two things — “I wish to file this action and I believe I have a case with merit” and “I cannot pay any of the filing fees or other costs of this action because I do not have sufficient income or resources” — then list who lives with you, who you support, your monthly income line by line (wages, unemployment compensation, AFDC/TANF, SSI/SSD, child support, other), what you have in the bank, and your monthly expenses. It ends “I request that this Court waive all costs of this action and allow me to proceed without the payment of any filing fees or other costs” and is signed “under penalties for perjury.”
- Order on Fee Waiver, form CCA-GF-0420-3007, which the judge signs. It carries two boxes, and the second is the one nobody warns you about: the court may let you file “Without the pre-payment of any filing fees, costs, security, bond or other expenses” or “Upon the prepayment of $______ which is a portion of the filing fee set by statute,” which “must be paid by the Petitioner to the Clerk within the next twenty (20) days.” A partial waiver is a normal outcome, not a refusal. The form also records that the court “will determine whether any or additional costs are to be paid at a preliminary or final hearing.”
No income figure or poverty-line percentage appears on any of the three forms, and we are not deriving one: the judge decides on the income and expenses you swear to. Indiana Legal Help’s filing-fee FAQ states only that “Under Indiana law, you do not have to pay a filing fee if you meet certain requirements.” Read 4 October 2026: annotated instructions · fillable forms. Asking the clerk “What do I file to ask the court to waive the filing fee?” still works, and they are required to tell you.
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- The fee-waiver procedure is now set out above, from the forms themselves. What is still missing is the statute behind it: we could not read the Indiana General Assembly’s own site (see the sources we could not reach, below), so we could not quote I.C. § 33-37-3-2 directly, and we have not guessed at it. The Indiana Trial Court Fee Manual carries no civil filing-fee waiver entry — re-read 4 October 2026, every indigency provision in it is criminal — and no dollar threshold is printed on any of the three waiver forms, so none is given here.
- The primary statutory text of I.C. § 33-37-4-4 and the related fee sections – these are quoted only as reproduced in the Indiana Supreme Court’s own fee manual, because iga.in.gov we could not read.
- Which counties collect the $20 ADR fee: a list is published, but it does not settle it. The Office of Court Services’ Alternative Dispute Resolution Fund Plan County Contact List — footer-dated “Updated 8/3/2023” — names 45 counties, while the same office’s plan kit says “Currently, more than half of Indiana’s counties have approved ADR Fund Plans” and that the program covers “all 92 counties of Indiana.” Those two do not line up, so a county missing from the list is not evidence that it charges $157. Confirm with the clerk.
- Who approves a county ADR plan: two official sources disagree and we are not choosing between them. The Indiana Trial Court Fee Manual conditions the fee on the county having “an approved plan from the Judicial Conference of Indiana”; the Office of Court Services’ own Domestic Relations ADR Fund Plan Information Kit says “The Indiana Office of Judicial Administration, following ADR Rule 1.11, is responsible for granting plan approval.” Unconfirmed which is current.
- Any parenting-class requirement or fee – set by local court rule, not published statewide.
- A calendar effective date – the manual is dated only ‘Current through 2026 Legislative Session’.
- Sources we could not read: https://iga.in.gov/ (all Indiana Code URLs) – the site is a JavaScript single-page app that serves a 691-byte shell with no statute text to a plain HTTP client; its data API at api.iga.in.gov returns HTTP 403 ‘x-api-key ; https://www.indy.gov/agency/marion-county-clerk – JavaScript single-page app, no readable content served.; https://www.elkhartcountyindiana.com/ – HTTP 403.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Indiana’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 Indiana 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
Indiana 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 Indiana. Every figure is quoted from Indiana’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in Indiana
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 Indiana?
$157 – $177 to open the case. What the court actually publishes is $157.00 – $177.00. Every figure on this page is traced to Indiana’s own statute or its courts’ published fee schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Is the divorce filing fee the same in every Indiana county?
Not quite, and the reason is narrower than it sounds. Every component of the $157 base is set by state statute and is identical in all 92 counties — counties do not add charges of their own to it. One $20 line item, the statutory Alternative Dispute Resolution fee, is collected only in counties with an approved ADR plan, which makes the total $177 there and $157 elsewhere. The Office of Court Services publishes a county contact list naming 45 such counties, dated August 2023, and separately says more than half of Indiana’s counties have plans — so confirm with your clerk which one you are in.
Is the filing fee the whole cost of a divorce in Indiana?
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 Indiana?
Indiana publishes a statewide packet for exactly this: an Appearance by Unrepresented Person, a Verified Motion for Fee Waiver and an Order on Fee Waiver, all approved by the Coalition for Court Access. You set out your household, income and expenses under penalties for perjury; no income threshold or poverty-line percentage is printed on the forms. The court can waive the fee outright or order part of it prepaid within twenty days. You do not have to have decided anything, or have a lawyer, to ask.
How current is this Indiana 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.