What a Kentucky 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 stateKentucky
Kentucky was the hardest state in the country to answer this question for, and then the Supreme Court of Kentucky published the number. Here is what it is, what the counties add on top, and what to ask.
Worth knowing before you file. This page used to say Kentucky was the only state that did not publish its divorce filing fee anywhere. That is no longer true, and we were slow to say so: the fee is set in CR 3.02(1), amended by Supreme Court of Kentucky Order 2026-15 effective 1 July 2026, and published on the court system’s own site. What is still set locally is what each county fiscal court adds on top under KRS 23A.220.
The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — The circuit civil filing fee rose from $153.00 to $188.00 on 1 July 2026 under Supreme Court of Kentucky Order 2026-15.
- How it changes by county — KRS 23A.220 lets each county fiscal court add its own fees on top of the $228.00 the state now sets.
- 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 — More people qualify than apply.
- 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 — The circuit civil filing fee rose from $153.00 to $188.00 on 1 July 2026 under Supreme Court of Kentucky Order 2026-15.
- How it changes by county — KRS 23A.220 lets each county fiscal court add its own fees on top of the $228.00 the state now sets.
- 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 — More people qualify than apply.
- 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
Kentucky publishes this now, and it went up
This changed after we first wrote this page, and it changed by a lot. The circuit civil filing fee rose from $153.00 to $188.00 on 1 July 2026 under Supreme Court of Kentucky Order 2026-15. With the $20.00 Access to Justice fee (KRS 27A.630) and the $20.00 court technology fee on top, every Kentucky county now collects at least $228.00 from a self-represented filer. Treat any figure you find elsewhere with suspicion — several circuit clerks’ own pages still show the old number.
How it changes by county
KRS 23A.220 lets each county fiscal court add its own fees on top of the $228.00 the state now sets.
$228.00 for a self-represented filer. That is $188.00 circuit civil filing fee (CR 3.02(1), effective July 1, 2026) + $20.00 Access to Justice fee (KRS 27A.630) + $20.00 court technology fee. Every Kentucky county collects all three. A county court facility fee of up to $25.00 and a law library fee of up to $3.00 sit on top where the local ordinance and judge's order exist.
| County | What you pay to file | Service |
|---|---|---|
| Jefferson (Louisville) | $228.00 minimum; expect about $253.00 with the county court facility fee | $70.00 by the Jefferson County Sheriff, and this one changed recently. The Sheriff's Office states: 'Pursuant to Louisville Metro Government ordinance number 129, (Series 2025), starting November 1st, 2025 a $1 |
| Fayette (Lexington) | $253.00, plus a law library fee of up to $3.00 if collected | $60.00 if the circuit clerk collects it for the sheriff, or $70.00 in a county with a court facilities fee ordinance — which Fayette has. Paid directly to the sheriff instead, the rates are $40.00 and $50.00. Collection |
| Boone | $253.00, plus a law library fee of up to $3.00 if collected | $60.00 through the clerk, or $70.00 given the county's facilities fee ordinance; $40.00/$50.00 paid direct to the sheriff. |
| Kenton | $228.00 minimum; the county's court facility fee is not published on the clerk's page | $40.00 per defendant to the Kenton County Sheriff, per the circuit clerk's own schedule. That page also lists a Warning Order Attorney at $75.00 and a Guardian Ad Litem at $75.00. |
| Daviess (Owensboro) | $253.00, plus a law library fee of up to $3.00 if collected | $60.00 through the clerk, or $70.00 given the facilities fee ordinance; $40.00/$50.00 paid direct to the sheriff. |
| Oldham | $253.00, plus a law library fee of up to $3.00 if collected | $60.00 through the clerk, or $70.00 given the facilities fee ordinance; $40.00/$50.00 paid direct to the sheriff. |
| Henderson | $253.00, plus a law library fee of up to $3.00 if collected | $60.00 through the clerk, or $70.00 given the facilities fee ordinance; $40.00/$50.00 paid direct to the sheriff. |
| McCracken (Paducah) | $253.00, plus a law library fee of up to $3.00 if collected | $60.00 through the clerk, or $70.00 given the facilities fee ordinance; $40.00/$50.00 paid direct to the sheriff. |
| Scott (Georgetown) | $253.00, plus a law library fee of up to $1.00–$3.00 if collected | $60.00 through the clerk, or $70.00 given the facilities fee ordinance; $40.00/$50.00 paid direct to the sheriff. |
| Hopkins (Madisonville) | $228.00 minimum; a county circuit and criminal case fee ordinance exists but we could not read its dollar figure | $60.00 through the clerk or $40.00 direct to the sheriff, rising to $70.00/$50.00 if the county has a court facilities fee ordinance. |
| Warren (Bowling Green) | $228.00 minimum; the county's court facility fee is not published where we could confirm it | $60.00 through the clerk or $40.00 direct to the sheriff, rising to $70.00/$50.00 if the county has a court facilities fee ordinance. |
| Robertson | $228.00 minimum; as Kentucky's smallest county the law library fee, if any, is capped at $1.00 | $60.00 through the clerk or $40.00 direct to the sheriff; $70.00/$50.00 if the county has a court facilities fee ordinance. |
The spread: Every Kentucky county charges at least $228.00 for a self-represented dissolution filing as of July 1, 2026 — that floor is fixed statewide and is the cheapest anyone pays. The most expensive confirmed is $253.00, in the seven counties whose ordinances we read directly: Fayette, Boone, Daviess, Oldham, Henderson, McCracken and Scott, each adding the statutory maximum $25.00 court facility fee. A county law library fee, where the chief circuit judge has ordered one, adds a further $1.00 to $3.00. The practical ceiling anywhere in Kentucky is about $256.00.
What makes up each of these numbers
- Jefferson (Louisville) — $188.00 circuit civil filing fee + $20.00 Access to Justice + $20.00 court technology, per the AOC Circuit Court Clerks' Accounting Manual (last revised July 22, 2026) and Supreme Court Order 2026-15. We could not locate Louisville Metro's court facility fee ordinance in its codified ordinances, so the $25.00 add-on is expected but not confirmed from the ordinance itself. source
- Fayette (Lexington) — $188.00 + $20.00 Access to Justice + $20.00 court technology = $228.00, plus Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government's court facility fee. Section 7-20(a)(1) of the LFUCG code provides that for circuit court civil cases 'a fee of twenty-five dollars ($25.00) shall be added to filing fees.' source
- Boone — $228.00 statewide floor plus Boone County's court facility fee. The county code, § 37.35, provides: 'In Circuit Court civil cases, a fee of $25 shall be added to filing fees.' source
- Kenton — $188.00 + $20.00 + $20.00 from the AOC Accounting Manual. The Kenton Circuit Clerk publishes its own fee schedule, but the version online is dated December 29, 2015 and still shows the old $153.00 civil suit filing fee — do not rely on that number. The service and ancillary fees on that page are still useful. source
- Daviess (Owensboro) — $228.00 statewide floor plus Daviess County's court facility fee. County code § 30.30(A)(1), from Ordinance KOC 220.15 passed June 20, 2002, provides that '$25 is added to the court costs in civil cases in Circuit Court,' citing KRS 23A.220. source
- Oldham — $228.00 statewide floor plus Oldham County's court facility fee. County code § 36.01 provides that in circuit court 'In civil cases, a fee of $25 be added to filing fees,' with collection having begun September 1, 2003 and funds disbursed quarterly to the fiscal court. source
- Henderson — $228.00 statewide floor plus Henderson County's court facility fee: 'In Circuit civil cases, a fee of $25 shall be added to the filing fee.' Ordinance No. 219, adopted July 18, 2000 and amended in its entirety July 1, 2002. source
- McCracken (Paducah) — $228.00 statewide floor plus McCracken County's court facility fee. County code § 35.05 provides: 'In civil cases; a fee of $25 shall be added to filing fees.' A civil appeal to the Court of Appeals carries the same $25.00. source
- Scott (Georgetown) — $228.00 statewide floor plus Scott County's court facility fee. Fiscal Court Ordinance No. 00-06, effective August 28, 2000, provides that 'the Scott Circuit Court civil filing fee, and that for filing a civil appeal, shall increase by the statutory maximum of $25.00.' source
- Hopkins (Madisonville) — $188.00 + $20.00 + $20.00 from the AOC Accounting Manual. Hopkins County's code of ordinances contains a 'Circuit and criminal case fees' section under its County Court article, but the Municode page would not render its text for us. Kentucky's statutory cap for a circuit civil facility fee is $25.00, so $253.00 is the ceiling. source
- Warren (Bowling Green) — $188.00 + $20.00 Access to Justice + $20.00 court technology, per the AOC Accounting Manual and Supreme Court Order 2026-15. Warren County's fiscal court publishes its ordinances but we could not locate the court facility fee ordinance text. Warren contains Bowling Green, a city well over 20,000, so if a law library order exists the fee would be $3.00 rather than $1.00. source
- Robertson — $188.00 + $20.00 + $20.00 from the AOC Accounting Manual. Robertson County has no city of 20,000, so under KRS 172.180 its maximum law library fee on a circuit civil case is $1.00, not $3.00. Whether it has a court facility fee ordinance is not published anywhere we could confirm. source
What catches people out
- Kentucky just got a lot more expensive. The circuit civil filing fee went from $153.00 to $188.00 on July 1, 2026 under Supreme Court of Kentucky Order 2026-15. Any figure you find online that says a Kentucky divorce costs $153 or $113 to file is out of date — including some circuit clerks' own web pages, which have not been updated.
- You cannot file without a Vital Statistics form. Kentucky's Circuit Court Clerks Manual is blunt: 'Do not file a petition for dissolution or annulment unless Vital Statistics Form 300 (Certificate of Divorce or Annulment) is filed concurrently with the petition,' under KRS 213.116(4). Get the current interactive VS 300 from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services site — the clerk will reject an older or altered version, and checks for a DVE number in the upper right corner.
- In Louisville, the sheriff's service fee went up on November 1, 2025. Jefferson County now charges $70.00, not $60.00, because Louisville Metro ordinance 129 (Series 2025) added $10.00. Elsewhere in Kentucky, service is $60.00 if the circuit clerk collects it or $40.00 if you pay the sheriff directly — but a county with a court facilities fee ordinance charges $70.00 and $50.00 instead. If you e-file, the clerk must collect it, so you pay the higher number.
- If your spouse cannot be found, you need a warning order attorney, and that is real money. Kenton County's own clerk schedule prices it at $75.00. It is paid by you as the plaintiff and taxed as costs.
- If a Domestic Relations Commissioner holds a hearing in your case, that is a separate $60.00 an hour, billed at $15.00 per quarter hour, due the fifth working day after the hearing ends. There is a mercy rule buried in the Supreme Court’s order: 'No more than $15 shall be assessed in any uncontested divorce.' Contested cases can run to $600.00, and if you reopen the case, up to $200.00 more.
- The $5.00 attorney tax fee under KRS 453.060 that appears on Kentucky fee lists is not charged to you if you are representing yourself. It applies only when a party is represented by a licensed attorney. Do not let it be added.
- Kentucky’s In Forma Pauperis waiver is all-or-nothing at the front door: the clerks manual instructs staff not to apply the FILED stamp or process a dissolution petition at all until fees are paid or the waiver is granted. File AOC Form 026 with your petition, not after.
What we could not confirm
- Kenton County does publish, and it is the one Kentucky county we could confirm: $236.00 plus a service fee for Divorce/Annulment/Custody and Medical Support in the Circuit Division, sheriff service $60.00 per defendant on a separate check, and a $75.00 Warning Order Attorney where a spouse cannot be found. Two cautions: the page carries no effective date, and the state judicial manual raised the circuit civil filing fee component on 1 July 2026, so the $236.00 may already be behind.
- Jefferson County’s Circuit Court Clerk runs a full website with pages for family court, e-filing and self-help. We read all 32 pages listed in its own sitemap. The only dollar figure anywhere on it is juror pay.
- Warren County’s Circuit Court Clerk has no website at all. The only official page for the office is the state judiciary’s county entry, which gives an address and a phone number.
- The $228.00 statewide floor is solid — it comes straight from the Supreme Court of Kentucky’s own 2026 order and the AOC’s Circuit Court Clerks’ Accounting Manual, revised July 22, 2026. What we could not nail down county by county is the local top-up. We confirmed the $25.00 court facility fee ordinance in seven counties by reading the ordinance text; for Jefferson, Kenton, Hopkins, Warren and Robertson we could not. Nor could we confirm anywhere which counties have a chief circuit judge’s order authorizing the $1.00–$3.00 law library fee, because those orders are not published centrally. Kentucky circuit clerks do not generally post fee schedules, and the two we found were years out of date. Before you go, phone your circuit clerk and ask for the total to file a petition for dissolution of marriage as a self-represented party — one question, one number.
12 counties confirmed against the clerk’s own published schedule. Fee schedules change without notice — call before you drive over.
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
- If you pay by card
- Tyler charges convenience fees calculated as a percentage of the total filing fees; the percentage is not published on the AOC page. Service-of-process printing is $0.10/page for certified mail/sheriff service.
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 Kentucky kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Access to Justice Fee, all circuit civil actions KRS 27A.630 | $20.00 |
| Service of process, per process, paid to the sheriff KRS 23A.200 | $20.00 |
| Additional fees a county fiscal court may assess KRS 23A.220 | varies |
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.
Kentucky has a way to file without paying up front
This is a normal court procedure, not a favor you have to plead for.
- What it covers: Costs and fees.
- What to ask for: Civil Motion for Waiver of Costs and Fees
- How it works: Motion to proceed in forma pauperis; AOC publishes a Civil Motion for Waiver of Costs and Fees
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- Earlier research cited KRS 23A.205 and KRS 453.060. Both are wrong: 23A.205 is criminal court costs, 453.060 is attorney’s fees.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Kentucky’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 Kentucky 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
Kentucky 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 Kentucky. Every figure is quoted from Kentucky’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in Kentucky
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 Kentucky?
$228.00 at a minimum to open the case, and $228 – $253 across the counties we checked. The state sets $188.00 for a circuit civil filing under CR 3.02(1), amended by Supreme Court of Kentucky Order 2026-15 effective 1 July 2026; the $20.00 court technology fee in that same rule and the $20.00 Access to Justice Fee under KRS 27A.630 are added at filing. Every figure on this page is traced to Kentucky’s own statute, rule or court order, and carries the date we last checked it.
Is the divorce filing fee the same in every Kentucky county?
No. In Kentucky the fee is set locally, county by county. Across the counties we checked it ran $228 – $253, from Hopkins to Scott, on a plain filing basis. That is a real spread, not a rounding difference, so the county you file in matters.
Is the filing fee the whole cost of a divorce in Kentucky?
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 Kentucky?
There is a process for asking the court to waive or defer it, and this page sets out what Kentucky requires. You do not have to have decided anything, or have a lawyer, to ask.
How current is this Kentucky 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.
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