Changing your name back in New York

Whether you can get your former name back in the divorce itself — and what it costs in New York if you miss that moment.

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The federal half is the same everywhere

Social Security, the passport, and the order to do them in are identical in all fifty states and are on the main name-change page. This page is the part that is New York-specific.

Restore it in the divorceYesN.Y. Dom. Rel. Law Sec. 240-a
After the decree is finalYes other
Newspaper publicationNot required New York abolished the newspaper publication requirement. The Gender Recognition Act…
Background checkNo Civil Rights Law Article 6 requires no fingerprints and no criminal history check. The…
Separate petition fee$210.00 in Supreme…Confirmed from an official schedule.
CourtSupreme Court or County Court in… File in the county where you live (Supreme/County Court), or NYC Civil Court in the…

Restoring your name in the divorce

New York restores a former name through the divorce itself, under N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law Sec. 240-a.

‘In any action or proceeding brought under the provisions of this chapter wherein all or part of the relief granted is divorce or annulment of a marriage any interlocutory or final judgment or decree shall contain, as a part thereof, the social security numbers of the named parties in the action or proceeding, as well as a provision that each party may resume the use of his or her premarriage surname or any other former surname.’

How much choice the judge has: mandatory on request

Who may ask: either party

Not a now-or-never decision

New York does not require this to be settled before the decree is final.

If the decree is already final

New York is unusually forgiving here. DRL 240-a makes the resume-your-surname provision a mandatory component of every divorce judgment – ‘shall contain, as a part thereof’ – so the authority exists whether or not you thought to ask for it, and you can rely on the judgment years later. You do not need a separate order. If a judgment somehow omitted the provision, the usual route is to ask the matrimonial court for an amended judgment; the fallback is an ordinary Civil Rights Law Article 6 name-change petition. New York also still recognizes the common-law right to adopt a name by consistent usage, so a court order is not the only way, though agencies in practice want a document.

Authority: N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law Sec. 240-a; N.Y. Civ. Rights Law Sec. 60 et seq.

The separate name-change petition

This is the route if the divorce route is closed to you, or if you want a name that is not a former one.

  • Statute: N.Y. Civ. Rights Law Sections 60-64-a (Article 6)
  • Court: Supreme Court or County Court in the county of residence; in New York City, also New York City Civil Court
  • Filing fee: $210.00 in Supreme and County Courts; $65.00 in New York City Civil Court
  • Residency: File in the county where you live (Supreme/County Court), or NYC Civil Court in the county of residence within New York City. No fixed durational residency period was found in the statute.
  • Publication: New York abolished the newspaper publication requirement. The Gender Recognition Act (2021 Senate Bill S4402-B) struck from Civil Rights Law Sec. 63 the clause requiring that ‘[s]uch order shall also direct the publication, at least once, within sixty days after the making of the order, in a designated newspaper…’. The current text of Sec. 63 read on the Senate’s own site contains no publication directive. Note that the NY Courts help page still contains stray legacy language about paying ‘any fees that newspaper charges’ – that reflects older practice and, in some courts, publication that a judge may still direct in a particular case, not a statutory across-the-board requirement.
  • Background check: Civil Rights Law Article 6 requires no fingerprints and no criminal history check. The petition itself must disclose whether the petitioner has been convicted of a crime or adjudicated bankrupt, and whether there are judgments or liens against them – a disclosure obligation on the petitioner, not a state-run background check. Separately, Sec. 64 requires the clerk to notify the Division of Criminal Justice Services when the petitioner has certain convictions, and to notify support enforcement where a support obligation exists. That is post-order notification, not a screening step.
  • Hearing: not required

Official forms

What catches people out in New York

Your divorce judgment is itself the authority to resume your former surname – DRL 240-a requires the provision to be in every divorce judgment. You generally do not need a separate name-change case, and you should not let anyone sell you one.
Agencies want the certified divorce judgment (or a certified copy showing the 240-a provision), not just the decree’s caption. Order several certified copies from the county clerk.
The $65 New York City Civil Court fee is far lower than the $210 Supreme/County Court fee – if you live in one of the five boroughs, filing in Civil Court is the cheaper route.
Publication is gone by statute, but individual courts and clerks have been slow to update their paperwork and some self-help pages still mention newspaper charges. If a clerk tells you to publish, ask what statute they are relying on; Sec. 63 no longer contains the directive.
If you want your papers sealed for safety, ask under Civil Rights Law Sec. 64-a in the petition itself – subdivision 2 gives you interim protection the moment you request it, before the judge has even ruled.
Worth knowing

VERIFIED AGAINST STATUTE TEXT: N.Y. Civil Rights Law Sec. 64-a (‘Sealing name change papers’) is one of the strongest survivor-protection provisions in any state. Sec. 64-a(1): ‘If the court shall find that open record of an applicant’s change of name would jeopardize such applicant’s personal safety, based on totality of the circumstances, the court shall, at the request of the applicant or sua sponte, order the records of such change of name proceeding be sealed, to be opened only by order of the court for good cause shown or at the request of the applicant.’ It defines ‘totality of the circumstances’ to ‘include, but not be limited to, a consideration of the risk of violence or discrimination against the applicant, including such applicant’s status as transgender or as the subject of domestic violence,’ and adds: ‘The court shall not deny such sealing request solely on the basis that the applicant lacks specific instances of or a personal history of threat to personal safety.’ Subdivision 2 adds interim protection: pending the court’s finding, ‘the court shall immediately order the applicant’s current name, proposed new name, residential and business addresses, telephone numbers, and any other information contained in any pleadings or papers submitted to the court to be safeguarded and sealed.’

Sec. 64-a used to be titled ‘Exemption from publication requirements.’ The 2021 Gender Recognition Act renamed it ‘Sealing name change papers’ and deleted the publication directive from Sec. 63 entirely – so the old exemption is now moot because there is nothing to be exempt from, and the section does the more valuable work of sealing the file.

DRL 240-a is mandatory in form (‘shall contain, as a part thereof’) and is not conditioned on a party requesting it before the decree is final. That is genuinely different from most states, where the request must be made before entry of the decree or it is lost.

Common online advice that New York requires publishing your name change in a newspaper is out of date as of the 2021 Gender Recognition Act.

The exact effective date of the current $210 / $65 filing fees could not be confirmed from a published fee schedule with a date on it, so fee_effective_date is left null rather than guessed.

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Sources last checked30 August 2026
Page published30 August 2026
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