What a Mississippi 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 stateMississippi
It costs $148.00 to $168.00 to file for divorce in Mississippi, depending on the county and the type of divorce. Below is where that money goes, what it does not cover, and what to do if you do not have it.
Harrison County answered: an irreconcilable differences divorce is $168.00
The Harrison County Chancery Clerk serves the same fee table from two pages on its own site. Both list identical components — $85.00 + $57.50 + $15.00 + $10.50 — but one totals the uncontested-joint divorce at $168.00 and the other at $153.00. We asked the Chancery Clerk’s office which figure the counter charges, and it replied on 30 September 2026:
“The irreconcilable differences divorces are $168.00. You have to see the Special Master to get the divorce finalized. The $153.00 filing fees are for Name Changes and other things like that, which do not use a special master and therefore, that is why there is a difference in the pricing.”
So $153.00 is not a divorce fee at all. It is what Harrison charges for filings that do not need a Special Master, and a name change is the example the office gave. The two pages were never quoting the same thing. $168.00 is also the correct sum of the components the clerk itself lists — $85.00 + $57.50 + $15.00 + $10.50 — and this page had printed $153.00 directly underneath that arithmetic, which never added up.
Until 30 September this page showed $168.00 in the headline and $153.00 in the county table, because each had been taken from one of the two pages. That was our error to own, and the arithmetic should have caught it before the clerk did. Both are now $168.00.
Still not confirmed: the $163.00 contested figure. The office was asked about irreconcilable differences and answered about irreconcilable differences. $163.00 is the sum of the components the clerk publishes for a contested filing — $85.00 + $57.50 + $10.00 court reporter + $10.50 — but nobody at the counter has confirmed it to us, so we are not presenting it as though they had. Source: correspondence with the Harrison County Chancery Clerk’s office, 30 September 2026. We do not name the individual who replied.
Worth knowing before you file. Divorce in Mississippi is a chancery court matter. The governing statute is § 25-7-9, not § 25-7-13, which covers circuit clerks.
The short version6 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Harrison County publishes the full statutory breakdown.
- How it changes by county — The $142.50 statutory floor is uniform; the $0–$14.50 tier of optional fees a board of supervisors may adopt is what varies.
- If you cannot afford to file — Rule 3(b) lets you file on a sworn affidavit of poverty instead of the fee. No income threshold is published.
- 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 6
One thing to know about checking Mississippi law yourself. Mississippi publishes no free, official, state-hosted copy of its own statutes. The Secretary of State’s only Code link points off the state’s domain to LexisNexis, the official publisher under contract, and Miss. Code § 1-1-9 claims state ownership over the Code and attaches a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 per violation, each day counting separately. You can read Mississippi divorce law free. You cannot download it, mirror it, or check it automatically — which is why every Mississippi figure on this site carries the date we read it rather than an automated freshness check. Why two states do this →
Where the money goes
The short version6 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Harrison County publishes the full statutory breakdown.
- How it changes by county — The $142.50 statutory floor is uniform; the $0–$14.50 tier of optional fees a board of supervisors may adopt is what varies.
- If you cannot afford to file — Rule 3(b) lets you file on a sworn affidavit of poverty instead of the fee. No income threshold is published.
- 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 6
One thing to know about checking Mississippi law yourself. Mississippi publishes no free, official, state-hosted copy of its own statutes. The Secretary of State’s only Code link points off the state’s domain to LexisNexis, the official publisher under contract, and Miss. Code § 1-1-9 claims state ownership over the Code and attaches a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 per violation, each day counting separately. You can read Mississippi divorce law free. You cannot download it, mirror it, or check it automatically — which is why every Mississippi figure on this site carries the date we read it rather than an automated freshness check. Why two states do this →
Harrison County publishes the full statutory breakdown. Only one county was confirmed.
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Base filing fee | $85.00 |
| Judicial Operation Fund § 25-7-9(3)(b) | $40.00 |
| Comprehensive Electronic Court System Fund § 25-7-9(3)(a) | $10.00 |
| Civil Legal Assistance Fund § 25-7-9(1)(k) | $5.00 |
| Court Education & Training § 37-26-3 | $2.00 |
| State Court Constituents § 37-26-9(4) | $0.50 |
| Court reporter (contested only) | $10.00 |
| Special Master (uncontested joint only) | $15.00 |
| Optional county fees the board of supervisors may adopt: Court Administration up to $2.00 (§ 9-17-5(2)(c)), Law Library up to $7.50 (§ 19-7-31), Archive $5.00 (§ 25-60-5)Harrison charges $10.50 of the possible $14.50. | $0.00 – $14.50 |
How it changes by county
The $142.50 statutory floor is uniform; the $0–$14.50 tier of optional fees a board of supervisors may adopt is what varies.
$142.50. That is the $85.00 statutory base plus the $57.50 in statutorily mandated state assessments that every chancery clerk in Mississippi must collect. Everything above it — usually $5.50 — is the board of supervisors' optional local package, and the $10.00 court reporter fee on contested cases.
| County | What you pay to file | Service |
|---|---|---|
| DeSoto | $148.00 uncontested or joint; $158.00 contested or fault-based | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide, Miss. Code § 25-7-19 sets a uniform sheriff's fee of $45.00 for service or attempted service of any process, plus $5.00 for each additional defendant residing at the same household |
| Harrison | $168.00 uncontested or joint; $163.00 contested | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Jackson | $148.00 uncontested or joint, plus a separate $20.00 check; $158.00 contested | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Rankin | $148.00 uncontested or joint; $158.00 contested or fault-based | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Madison | $148.00 uncontested or joint; $158.00 contested or fault-based | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Pearl River | $148.00 uncontested or joint; $158.00 contested or fault-based | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Oktibbeha | $148.00 uncontested or joint; $158.00 contested or fault-based | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Clay | $148.00 uncontested or joint; $158.00 contested or fault-based | Not published by the chancery clerk. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Hinds | Not published | Not published. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Lauderdale | Not published | Not published. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Lamar | Not published for court filings | Not published. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
| Lowndes | Not published | Not published. Statewide sheriff's fee is $45.00 under Miss. Code § 25-7-19. |
The spread: Eight Mississippi counties with published schedules were confirmed. The cheapest and by far the most common is $148.00 for an uncontested joint divorce — DeSoto, Rankin, Madison, Pearl River, Oktibbeha and Clay all charge exactly that. The most expensive confirmed is Harrison County at $168.00 uncontested, confirmed by the Chancery Clerk's office on 30 September 2026, and $163.00 contested. Jackson County ties it: it looks like $148.00 but really costs $168.00 uncontested once you add its separate $20.00 Master's fee check. The statutory floor no Mississippi county can go below is $142.50.
What makes up each of these numbers
- DeSoto — The clerk publishes the arithmetic column by column: base fee $85.00, statutorily mandated fees $57.50, court reporter fee $10.00 (contested only), optional board-approved fees $5.50. Effective January 1, 2020. Not for the divorce itself — but DeSoto lists Child Custody/Visitation and Child Support as their own $158.00 filings. If you open a separate custody or support action rather than resolving it inside the divorce, that is a second $158.00. source
- Harrison — Harrison is the outlier and it is worth knowing why. On an uncontested joint divorce: base $85.00 + statutorily mandated $57.50 + a $15.00 Special Master's Fee + $10.50 in optional board-approved fees = $168.00, which the Chancery Clerk's office confirmed on 30 September 2026. The Special Master is not optional on an irreconcilable differences divorce: in the office's words, 'you have to see the Special Master to get the divorce finalized.' On a contested divorce there is no Special Master's fee but there is the $10.00 court reporter fee: $85.00 + $57.50 + $10.00 + $10.50 = $163.00. Harrison's board takes $10.50 in local add-ons where most counties take $5.50, and it is the only county we found charging a Special Master on uncontested divorces. Effective January 1, 2020. source
- Jackson — The chancery court fee page lists Divorce & Separation: Uncontested (Joint) $148.00, then immediately underneath, 'Uncontested Divorce Master's Fee (Separate Check) $20.00,' then Contested $158.00 and Separate Maintenance $158.00. So an uncontested divorce in Jackson County is really $168.00 across two instruments. source
- Rankin — Base $85.00 + statutorily mandated $57.50 + court reporter $10.00 on contested + board-approved $5.50. Effective January 1, 2020. source
- Madison — Base $85.00 + statutorily mandated $57.50 + court reporter $10.00 on contested + board-approved $5.50. Effective January 1, 2020. source
- Pearl River — Base $85.00 + statutorily mandated $57.50 + court reporter $10.00 on contested + board-approved $5.50. Effective January 1, 2020. source
- Oktibbeha — The county posts the total-due column only: Divorce – Uncontested/Joint $148.00, Divorce – Contested/Fault $158.00. source
- Clay — Clay's schedule groups the assessments differently but lands in the same place: base fee $85.00 plus assessments of $63.00 on an uncontested joint divorce, or $73.00 on a contested one. Effective February 2023. source
- Hinds — Mississippi's most populous county does not post a chancery court filing fee schedule. The Hinds County chancery clerk page describes what the office does but names no dollar figures, and the county's older chancery fee page is gone. What the county does publish is its Circuit Clerk fee list, which is a different court and does not cover divorce. Expect the statutory floor of $142.50 plus whatever the Hinds board of supervisors has set in local add-ons — realistically $148.00 uncontested — but call (601) 968-6540 before you drive down. source
- Lauderdale — The county's Chancery Court page describes the clerk's duties, including filing chancery court cases and issuing legal notices in divorces, but posts no fee schedule. source
- Lamar — Lamar's 'Chancery Fee Schedule' page is a land-records recording fee schedule, not a court filing fee schedule. It tells you what it costs to record a deed, not what it costs to file for divorce. source
- Lowndes — The Chancery Court page explains the court's jurisdiction over divorce, custody and property division but posts no filing fee schedule; the only fee document on the clerk's site is a recording fee list. source
What catches people out
- Contested costs $10.00 more than uncontested, everywhere, and it is not a penalty — it is a court reporter fee. Mississippi chancery schedules list 'Divorce – Uncontested/Joint' at $148.00 and 'Divorce – Contested/Fault' at $158.00. If you and your spouse can agree on irreconcilable differences, the cheaper line is the one you get.
- Jackson County wants a second, separate check. Its fee page lists 'Uncontested Divorce Master's Fee (Separate Check) $20.00' right under the $148.00 filing fee. Show up with one check for $168.00 and you will be sent back out. Bring two: $148.00 and $20.00.
- Harrison County charges a $15.00 Special Master's Fee on uncontested joint divorces — the only county we confirmed doing that — and its board of supervisors takes $10.50 in local add-ons where most counties take $5.50. That is why Harrison is $168.00 uncontested while its neighbors are $148.00. Harrison also publishes a $153.00 fee, but that is for filings with no Special Master — a name change, for instance — and it is not what a divorce costs there.
- The sheriff is a separate $45.00, set statewide by Miss. Code § 25-7-19 as 'a uniform total fee in all criminal and civil cases for the service or attempted service of any process.' Note the words 'or attempted' — you pay it whether or not your spouse is actually found. A second defendant at the same address is another $5.00.
- Filing a contempt action or a modification later is a full new filing. Mississippi schedules list 'Contempt or Modification (Reopening)' at $158.00, the same as a contested divorce. Going back to court to enforce your own decree costs about what the divorce did.
- Most Mississippi chancery fee schedules on county websites still carry an effective date of January 1, 2020. They are the clerk's own published numbers and are still what most counties charge, but they are six years old. A phone call before you drive is cheap insurance.
- Several of Mississippi's largest counties — Hinds and Lauderdale among them — publish no chancery filing fee schedule at all. Do not assume the number you found for a neighboring county applies.
What we could not confirm
- Hinds County files divorces in Chancery Court, and the Chancery Clerk’s page names the fee categories — court costs, law library, court administrator, court reporter, judicial — without giving an amount for any of them. The only fee document on the office’s site is the statewide schedule for recording deeds. The Circuit Clerk does publish a figure, but Circuit Court does not hear divorce in Mississippi, so using it would be wrong.
- We confirmed eight counties from their clerks' own published schedules and could not confirm four more — Hinds, Lauderdale, Lamar and Lowndes simply do not post chancery court filing fees online, and Hinds is the state's most populous county. Several other populous counties (Forrest, Jones, Lee, Warren) were unreachable or post nothing. We also could not confirm from any clerk's page whether individual counties add a chancellor-ordered parenting or co-parenting requirement with its own cost. If your county is not on the list above, call the chancery clerk and ask two questions: what is the total for an uncontested joint divorce, and is any of it a separate check.
12 counties confirmed against the clerk’s own published schedule. Fee schedules change without notice — call before you drive over.
The published range
$148.00 – $168.00 uncontested or joint, $158.00 – $163.00 contested across the counties we were able to confirm from official sources.
| County | Published fee | Schedule dated |
|---|---|---|
| Harrison | $163.00 contested / $168.00 uncontested | Effective January 1, 2020official source |
If you cannot afford to file
Nothing extra to e-file
We looked for a portal fee and a card surcharge in Mississippi and found neither published. That is not the same as a guarantee — clerks can charge for things they do not put on a web page — but there is no extra charge we can point you at. Whether you have to e-file at all is on the Mississippi kit.
How a fee waiver works in Mississippi
Mississippi lets you start a civil action without paying the filing fee up front, and the Mississippi Judiciary publishes the procedure. Rule 3(b) of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure reads, in full: “Proceeding In Forma Pauperis. A party may proceed in forma pauperis in accordance with sections 11-53-17 and 11-53-19 of the Mississippi Code Annotated. The court may, however, on the motion of any party, on the motion of the clerk of the court, or on its own initiative, examine the affiant as to the facts and circumstances of his pauperism.”
The Judiciary’s own handout on the subject quotes the two statutes the rule points to. Miss. Code Ann. § 11-53-17, “Poor persons may sue without security for costs,” provides that a citizen “may commence any civil action, or answer a rule for security for costs in any court without being required to prepay fees or give security for costs, before or after commencing suit, by taking and subscribing the following affidavit” — and the statute then prints the affidavit itself: “I, _________ , do solemnly swear that I am a citizen of the State of Mississippi, and because of my poverty I am not able to pay the costs or give security for the same in the civil action (describing it) which I am about to commence (or which I have begun, as the case may be) and that, to the best of my belief, I am entitled to the redress which I seek by such suit.” Miss. Code Ann. § 11-53-19 is the other half of it: “The court may dismiss an action commenced or continued on affidavit of poverty, if satisfied that the allegation of poverty was untrue.”
What that means at the counter: what Mississippi asks for is the sworn affidavit, not a means test. No income threshold is published — neither statute sets one — and the rule lets the chancellor, the clerk, or any party ask to have you examined about the affidavit. Nothing in the rules prescribes a statewide form, and none of the chancery clerks listed above publishes one, so ask the clerk what they want it written on: “What do I file to ask the court to waive the filing fee?”
A citation note, because the two official sources differ by one letter. The Judiciary’s handout cites this as Rule 3(c). The rule was renumbered: the Advisory Committee Historical Note printed with the current rules records that “Effective September 10, 2025, … Rule 3(c) [Proceeding in Forma Pauperis] was renumbered 3(b).” The wording is identical in both, and Rule 3(b) is the current citation. Both sources read 1 October 2026; the rules carry a 1 July 2026 revision and the handout a 26 March 2026 last-modified date.
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- courts.ms.gov publishes no statewide chancery fee schedule. Uniform Chancery Court Rule 9.01 is as close as the Judiciary comes, and it names no amount: “Court cost deposits to pay the fees due the chancery clerk, as presented in M.C.A. § 25-7-9, shall be made with the filing of any complaint or petition.” We still could not read § 25-7-9 itself from an official source — Mississippi publishes its Code only through a LexisNexis JavaScript portal.
- The $142.50 statutory floor plus the $0–$14.50 tier of optional fees a board of supervisors may adopt is our own arithmetic on separately published line items, not a total any Mississippi agency publishes. Treat it as a floor, not a price.
- No statewide fee-waiver form is prescribed by the rules, and none of the chancery clerks above publishes one, so what you hand across the counter is left to the individual clerk. No income threshold is published either; §§ 11-53-17 and 11-53-19 set none.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Mississippi’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 Mississippi staring at this number?
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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
Mississippi 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 Mississippi. Every figure is quoted from Mississippi’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in Mississippi
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 Mississippi?
$148 – $168 to open the case, depending on the county and the type of divorce. What the chancery clerks actually publish is $148.00 uncontested or joint in Pearl River and most counties we checked, up to $168.00 in Harrison; a contested divorce is $158.00 to $163.00. Every figure on this page is traced to Mississippi’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 Mississippi county?
No. In Mississippi the fee is set locally, county by county. Across the counties we checked it ran $148 – $168, from Clay to Harrison, 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 Mississippi?
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 Mississippi?
You can ask to file without paying up front. Rule 3(b) of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure lets a party proceed in forma pauperis under Miss. Code Ann. §§ 11-53-17 and 11-53-19, by swearing the affidavit of poverty that § 11-53-17 prints in full. No income threshold is published; the court may examine you about the affidavit, and may dismiss the case if it decides the claim of poverty was untrue. You do not need a lawyer to ask.
How current is this Mississippi 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.