What a Maine 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 stateMaine
It costs $120.00 to file for divorce in Maine. 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. The $120 filing fee is the cheap part: Maine’s court-connected Family Division mediation costs $160 for the first two sessions and another $160 for every additional session (Admin. Order JB-05-26 § I.A.5.a, .c), so mediation alone can outrun the filing fee several times over. Sheriff service of the divorce complaint adds a statutory $40 (30-A M.R.S. § 421(3)).
Where the money goes
Maine does not break this down
Maine publishes NO component breakdown of the $120 divorce filing fee. The fee schedule uses a footnote convention marking fees that contain a $15 (*) or $25 (**) Court Management System increment under 4 M.R.S. § 17-A(3); item I.A.3.k (‘Entry of a Family Matter Action’) carries NEITHER mark, so no portion of the $120 is published as earmarked. No breakdown fabricated.
Does it change by county?
No — the fee is the same everywhere in Maine
The Supreme Judicial Court’s administrative order states it is adopted ‘In order to promote uniformity of practice, costs, and procedures … for all Courts in the Maine State Court System’ and ‘replaces any previous Fees Schedule, Administrative Order, or Fees and Document Management Procedures.’ The $120 is identical in every District Court location. Sheriff service fees under 30-A M.R.S. § 421 are also set by statute statewide.
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
- 2.89% convenience fee charged by the third-party financial institution for card payments; $0.25 flat fee per transaction for paying by electronic check
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 Maine kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sheriff service of a complaint for divorce, per respondent§ 421(3) sets $40 specifically for ‘the service of a complaint for divorce with a writ of attachment… or for the service of a complaint for divorce with an order of court by attested copy.’ General civil process under § 421(1)(C) is $16 per service, or $40 if made in hand. In forma pauperis service is $8, or $40 in hand (§ 421(1)(A)). The statute’s preamble applies these fees only where sheriffs and deputies ‘are not paid a salary instead of the fees.’ 30-A M.R.S. § 421(3) | $40.00 |
| Initial mediation in Pre-Judgment Family Division Matters (covers two mediation sessions)This is a separate charge, not included in the $120 filing fee. It exceeds the filing fee itself. Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § I.A.5.a | $160.00 |
| Each additional mediation session in Family Division Matters Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § I.A.5.c | $160.00 |
| Co-parent education programNO FEE IS PUBLISHED BY THE COURT, and the program is NOT automatically mandatory. The Judicial Branch states only: ‘In certain cases, the court may require that you and your child’s other parent participate in a program’ and ‘There is generally a fee to attend a workshop. Check with the organization directly about payment options.’ The four-hour classes are run by outside organizations, not the Judicial Branch, so no statewide figure exists. This directly contradicts the research pointer that Maine publishes a mandatory parent-education fee. | not published |
| Service by the court when the respondent’s address is confidential and service by sheriff is requiredApplies only when the filing party cannot effect service because the responding party’s address is confidential and the court serves on their behalf. Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § I.A.3.nn | $30.00 |
| Service by the court when the respondent’s address is confidential and service by sheriff is NOT required Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § I.A.3.oo | $10.00 |
| Credit-card / e-filing surchargeNO surcharge is published. Section II states payment ‘may be by cash, credit card, money order, or check’ and imposes no convenience or processing fee. Absence of a published surcharge is not proof none is charged at the counter. Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § II (Payment) | not published |
| Name change requested as part of the divorce‘No fee is charged when a name change is requested as part of a divorce, adoption, or parentage action.’ Filing a standalone minor name change is $40. Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § I.A.3, n.19 | $0.00 |
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.
Maine 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: Fees during the pendency of the action where the requested copy or service is essential to conducting the action. The order expressly states these exemptions do NOT extend to every fee category in the schedule.
- How it works: In forma pauperis status granted under M.R. Civ. P. 91. The fee schedule provides that IFP litigants, their counsel, and court-appointed or assigned counsel ‘are exempt, during the pendency of that action, from payment of fees when the requested copy or service is essential to the conduct of the action.’
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- Parent-education seminar fee: NOT published on any official Maine source. courts.maine.gov states only that ‘there is generally a fee’ and directs filers to the private provider organizations. The research pointer’s premise (a published mandatory seminar fee) is not supported.
- Whether mediation is legally MANDATORY in a contested Maine divorce with minor children was not confirmed from an official source within this research pass; only the fee amount is confirmed. I did not open 19-A M.R.S. § 251, so I make no claim either way.
- Fee-waiver FORM number/name not verified on an official Maine source; only the governing rule (M.R. Civ. P. 91) and the exemption language in the fee schedule were confirmed.
- POINTER CORRECTION: 4 M.R.S. § 1057 is NOT the District Court civil filing-fee statute. Verified at https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/4/title4sec1057.html, § 1057 is the ‘Government Operations Surcharge Fund’ (14% and 5% surcharges on fines, forfeitures and penalties). The divorce filing fee is set by Supreme Judicial Court administrative order, with the Court Management System increments authorized by 4 M.R.S. § 17-A(3).
- No component/earmark breakdown of the $120 is published, so none is given.
- Whether any credit-card convenience fee is charged in practice is not published.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Maine’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 Maine 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
Maine attorneys, mediators, CDFAs and therapists, credentials checked against the state’s own records. Nobody paid to be there.