What an Oklahoma 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 stateOklahoma
It costs $245.89 to $258.39 to file for divorce in Oklahoma if you file it yourself, depending on whether your county charges the courthouse security assessment. If a lawyer files it for you, every one of those figures goes up by $10. 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. No with/without-children difference — the same paragraph of the statute covers divorce, custody and support, and every county schedule we read prints one divorce figure for both. Only two things move the number: whether your county charges the courthouse security assessment, and whether a lawyer signs the petition. Charged separately, not at filing: summons issuance $10.00 per person (§ 152.1(A)(8)), sheriff service $50.00 per person, or one flat $50.00 where two people are served at the same address (§ 152.1(A)(5)), posting notices and filing statutory certificates $30.00 (§ 152.1(A)(1)), notice by publication $25.00, jury demand $349.00 paid at the pretrial conference by the party asking for it (§ 152.1(A)(7) and (B)). Modifying a decree as to custody or support: $43.00 is the flat fee in § 152(A)(2), but the figure clerks actually publish is $92.89 — nobody hands the clerk $43.00.
The short version6 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Two of the charges are set outside Title 28, which is why § 152 alone does not add up to what the clerk takes.
- How it changes by county — $245.89 to $258.39 if you file it yourself, $255.89 to $268.39 if an attorney does. Seven counties published a figure we could read.
- 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 6
Where the money goes
The short version6 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Two of the charges are set outside Title 28, which is why § 152 alone does not add up to what the clerk takes.
- How it changes by county — $245.89 to $258.39 if you file it yourself, $255.89 to $268.39 if an attorney does. Seven counties published a figure we could read.
- 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 6
Oklahoma publishes a clean breakdown, but two of the charges are set outside Title 28 — which is why § 152 alone does not add up to what the clerk takes. With all of them in, the components reconcile to the published county totals to the cent.
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Flat fee: divorce, alimony without divorce, separate maintenance, custody or support § 152(A)(1) | $183.00 |
| Oklahoma Court Information System Revolving Fund § 152(C) | $25.00 |
| Oklahoma Court-Appointed Special Advocates § 152(D) | $10.00 |
| Court Clerk’s Records Management and Preservation Fund (sunsets November 1, 2027) § 152(G) | $10.00 |
| Law Library Fund § 152(B) | $6.00 |
| Council on Judicial Complaints $1.55 + Supreme Court interpreter services $0.45 § 152(E) | $2.00 |
| Alternative dispute resolution court cost — taxed “as other court costs in all civil cases”, and waived by the dispute-resolution center on an affidavit in forma pauperis 12 O.S. § 1809(A) | $7.00 |
| Courthouse security / Sheriff’s Service Fee Account — OPTIONAL, each county may assess up to $10 with board of county commissioners approval 28 O.S. § 152(F) | $0.00 – $10.00 |
| Court clerk’s administrative fee — 10% under § 220(C) plus 15% under § 220(D) on fees the clerk collects for agencies other than the court. The Uniform Oklahoma Fee Schedule issued by the Administrative Office of the Courts prints those two percentages in columns of their own, filled in against the special-advocates fee, the Council on Judicial Complaints fee and the courthouse security fee, and § 220(C) exempts the law library and dispute-resolution money by name 19 O.S. § 220(C)–(D) | $2.89 – $5.39 |
| What the clerk publishes for a self-represented divorce filing Oklahoma County Court Clerk, Summary of Court Costs; county schedules below | $245.89 – $258.39 |
| Lengthy Trial Fund fee — collected “from each attorney who files a civil case”, so it is not charged to a self-represented filer 28 O.S. § 86(D)(2) | $10.00 |
The last row is the whole of the difference between the figure on one county’s page and the figure on its neighbor’s. Add it and the published totals become $255.89, $262.14 and $268.39 — which is what several counties print, because they publish the attorney-filed figure and nothing else.
How it changes by county
Published county totals run $245.89 to $258.39 for a self-represented filer, and $255.89 to $268.39 where an attorney files. The only variable in the fee itself is the courthouse security assessment under § 152(F), up to $10 — but a county that publishes only its attorney-filed figure will show you a number $10 above what you would hand the clerk.
| County | Filed by you | Filed by an attorney | Security fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian | — not published | $255.89 | none |
| Cleveland | $258.39 | $268.39 | $10 |
| Comanche | $258.39 | $268.39 | $10 |
| Kay | $258.39 | $268.39 | $10 |
| Cherokee | — not published | $268.39 | $10 |
| McCurtain | $252.14 | $262.14 | $5 |
| Tulsa | $252.14 | — not published | $5 |
Where $245.89 comes from, and what we are not claiming
$245.89 is the figure the Oklahoma County Court Clerk’s Summary of Court Costs gives for a county that charges no courthouse security assessment. No county page we found prints $245.89 itself, so we show it as the clerks’ own floor rather than as any particular county’s published fee. Canadian County is the one county above that we can place in that column, and it does so only by publishing $255.89 — the same cell plus the attorney’s Lengthy Trial Fund fee.
That schedule is a statewide document, not an Oklahoma County one. Its own footnote says so: “the amount of the County Commissioner Courthouse Security fee may vary by county. This spreadsheet displays the maximum $10.00 amount. This may not be the applicable amount for your county.” We previously attributed $258.39 to Oklahoma County on the strength of that document. Oklahoma County publishes no divorce total of its own, and we no longer say it does. Call your own clerk, or ask which assessment the county commissioners adopted.
If you cannot afford to file
What it costs to file it electronically
- Portal fee
- No additional cost. The official OSCN e-Filing FAQ, footer-stamped 1/28/2025, states: "At this time, there are no additional fees for e-Filing. The same fees and costs prescribed by statute, court rule, or order of the Supreme Court for filing paper documents shall apply to e-Filed documents."
So there is no surcharge to budget for in Oklahoma. One warning from the same FAQ, and it matters if you are reading this section: if a pauper’s affidavit is already on file, a fee-bearing document "should" be filed on paper, because "you will have to pay the fee if you e-File the document, even if there is a Pauper’s Affidavit on file." Whether you have to e-file at all is on the Oklahoma kit.
More people qualify than apply. If this section applies to you it is the most useful thing on this page.
Oklahoma 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: Court costs.
- What to ask for: Affidavit in forma pauperis
- How it works: Affidavit in forma pauperis sworn before an officer authorized to administer oaths, plus a showing of inability to pay and inability to employ counsel.
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- Oklahoma County publishes no divorce filing total of its own. Its court clerk hosts the statewide Summary of Court Costs, which gives a figure for counties that charge the $10 courthouse security assessment and a figure for those that do not, and says in terms that it may not be the amount for your county. We could not find a document stating which the county itself charges.
- Tulsa County prints “$154.14–$252.14” for a divorce without minor children. We cannot reconcile $154.14 with § 152(A)(1), which sets $183.00 as the flat fee for an action for divorce and calls it the only charge for court costs unless some other law provides otherwise. Budget $252.14 and ask the clerk about the low end.
- Which counties charge the assessment, and at what level. Seven counties publish a divorce figure we could read. There are 77. Nothing we found maps the rest, and § 152(F) leaves the amount to each board of county commissioners.
- Sources we could not read: the statute application on oscn.net sits behind a Cloudflare Turnstile challenge and was not bypassed, so § 152 is quoted from the Legislature’s own complete-title compilation of Title 28. OSCN’s static files — the e-Filing FAQ and the court forms — are served normally and are linked above where used.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Oklahoma’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 Oklahoma 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
Oklahoma 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 Oklahoma. Every figure is quoted from Oklahoma’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in Oklahoma
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 Oklahoma?
$245.89 – $258.39 to open the case if you file it yourself. The county’s courthouse security assessment is the variable: $245.89 where there is none, $252.14 where it is $5 (Tulsa, McCurtain), $258.39 where it is the full $10 (Cleveland, Comanche, Kay). If an attorney files the petition, add $10 at every tier — $255.89, $262.14 or $268.39 — and several counties publish only that higher figure. Every figure on this page is traced to Oklahoma’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 Oklahoma county?
No, but it varies by less than most states. The state fixes every component except one: under 28 O.S. § 152(F) each board of county commissioners may add a courthouse security assessment of up to $10, and the 25% administrative fee in 19 O.S. § 220 rides on it. That makes three published figures for a self-represented filer — $245.89, $252.14 and $258.39 — and the same three plus $10 where an attorney files. Seven counties publish a figure we could read; the other seventy do not, and this page says so rather than mapping the state by arithmetic.
Does an attorney filing the case change the Oklahoma filing fee?
Yes, by $10. Under 28 O.S. § 86(D)(2) the clerk collects a $10 Lengthy Trial Fund fee “from each attorney who files a civil case”, so an attorney-filed divorce is $255.89, $262.14 or $268.39 depending on the county assessment. It is not charged to you if you file it yourself. Some counties publish only the attorney-filed figure — Canadian prints $255.89 and Cherokee $268.39 and nothing else — which is why a county page can show a number $10 above what you would hand the clerk.
Is the filing fee the whole cost of a divorce in Oklahoma?
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 Oklahoma?
There is, and it is a sworn affidavit in forma pauperis rather than a favor anyone grants you: 28 O.S. § 152(H) says that on that affidavit, plus a satisfactory showing that you cannot pay and cannot employ counsel, “no fees or costs shall be required” — and that until a final order says you are ineligible, the clerk must let you litigate without paying. The $7.00 dispute-resolution cost is waived on the same affidavit under 12 O.S. § 1809(A). One catch: file on paper, because the OSCN e-Filing FAQ says the fee is still taken if you e-File a fee-bearing document with a pauper’s affidavit on file.
How current is this Oklahoma 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.