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)).
The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Maine publishes NO component breakdown of the $120 divorce filing fee.
- Does it change by county? — The $120 court fee is uniform. The sheriff’s service fee is not.
- 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 — Maine publishes NO component breakdown of the $120 divorce filing fee.
- Does it change by county? — The $120 court fee is uniform. The sheriff’s service fee is not.
- 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
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?
The $120 court fee is the same everywhere — the sheriff’s fee is not
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, and the Judicial Branch’s Court Fees page publishes that one schedule for the whole state.
Service of the papers is a different question, and there the answer is no. 30-A M.R.S. § 421(3) sets $40 as the fee for serving a complaint for divorce, but the closing paragraph of the same section provides that ‘the county commissioners of each county may require that the fees collected under subsections 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 12 and 14 be increased by $25’ — and subsection 3 is the divorce-service fee. Mileage is charged on top, ‘for each mile actually traveled at the same rate at which county government employees are reimbursed within that county.’ So $40 is a floor set by statute rather than a statewide price, and which counties have taken the $25 is not published anywhere central.
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.’ Treat $40 as a base rather than a total: the closing paragraph of § 421 lets a county’s commissioners add $25 to subsection 3, which would make it $65, and mileage is charged on top at that county’s employee reimbursement rate. Ask the sheriff’s civil process division for the figure in your county. 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, and it exceeds the filing fee itself. Where there are minor children it is not optional: 19-A M.R.S. § 251(2) provides that ‘prior to a contested hearing’ in a divorce ‘when there are minor children of the parties, the court shall refer the parties to mediation,’ and the requirement may be waived only ‘for extraordinary cause shown’ on motion supported by affidavit. The Judicial Branch’s own divorce packet tells filers to come to the case management conference ‘prepared to pay your portion of the mediation fee,’ so expect to split it rather than pay all of it. Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § I.A.5.a; 19-A M.R.S. § 251(2) | $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 |
| Card convenience fee when you pay the filing fee onlineThe Judicial Branch publishes this on its own Maine eCourts FAQ: ‘There is a 2.89% convenience fee charged for payments by credit or debit card. There is a $0.25 flat fee per transaction for paying with an electronic check.’ The Guide & File section of the same page repeats it: ‘There is a bank convenience fee of 2.89% added to filing fees paid by a credit or debit card.’ On a $120 filing fee that is $3.47, so $123.47 by card. It is avoidable: the fee schedule’s own payment section sets no counter surcharge and accepts cash, credit card, money order and check, and a self-represented person filing an ordinary divorce is not required to e-file at all. Maine Judicial Branch, Maine eCourts FAQs, eFiling Q7 and Guide & File Q5; Admin. Order JB-05-26 (A. 3-26), § II (Payment) | 2.89% by card |
| 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.’
- The forms: CV-067, Application to Proceed Without Payment of Fees, filed with CV-191, Financial Affidavit. The order printed on CV-067 lets a judge waive the filing fee, your share of the mediation fee, service costs and the jury fee as four separate decisions, or order part payment by the week or month — which is why it is worth filing even if the $120 alone would be survivable.
- If it is refused: CV-067’s order states that where the application sought a filing-fee waiver and the fee is not paid within 7 days of the order, ‘the action shall be dismissed without prejudice.’ Fees that were waived can later be taxed against the other party if you prevail or settle.
- Parent education: no court fee is published for it, but the Judicial Branch states that need-based scholarships for Maine residents at one of the two listed providers are ‘made possible, in part, by a grant from the Maine Judicial Branch.’ Ask the provider, not the clerk — see the co-parent education organizations it lists.
Read the fee schedule, or the Judicial Branch’s Court Fees page that publishes it as current.
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 any particular Maine county has exercised the $25 increase that 30-A M.R.S. § 421 permits on the divorce-service fee is not published centrally, and none of the 16 county sheriffs’ civil-process schedules could be retrieved. We give the statutory base and say plainly that it is a base.
- 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.
- eFileMaine displays the fee for a filing code only behind a login, so the portal’s own figure for a divorce complaint was not read against the schedule. Maine publishes no public fee calculator; the authoritative figure is the single statewide schedule, which is also why there is no county-by-county table above.
- The mileage element of sheriff service has no published rate on the Judicial Branch’s side — § 421 ties it to each county’s own employee reimbursement rate, so there is no one number to quote.
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.
The rest of what we have written about Maine. Every figure is quoted from Maine’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in Maine
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 Maine?
$120 to open the case. What the court actually publishes is $120.00. Every figure on this page is traced to Maine’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 Maine county?
Yes. Maine sets the filing fee statewide, so the figure is the same whichever county you file in. It is $120.
Is the filing fee the whole cost of a divorce in Maine?
No, and it is the small number. The filing fee is what it costs to open the case. Serving the papers, a co-parent education program if the court orders one, 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 Maine?
There is a process for asking the court to waive or defer it, and this page sets out what Maine requires. You do not have to have decided anything, or have a lawyer, to ask.
How current is this Maine 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.