What an Oregon 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 stateOregon
It costs $301.00 to file for divorce in Oregon. 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. Oregon charges the $301 to BOTH sides — ORS 21.155 collects it ‘when a complaint or other document is filed for the purpose of commencing’ the case AND ‘when an answer or other first appearance is filed’, so a responding spouse pays the same $301, not a reduced answer fee. Also worth knowing: the waiver statute explicitly reaches the sheriff’s $45 service fee, which most fee-waiver regimes leave the filer to pay.
The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — Oregon publishes no component breakdown.
- Does it change by county? — The filing fee is statutory and statewide: ORS 21.155(1) directs that 'A circuit court shall collect a filing fee of $301', and the Oregon Judicial Department publishes one Circuit Court Fee Schedule that applies in all 36 counties.
- 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 — Oregon publishes no component breakdown.
- Does it change by county? — The filing fee is statutory and statewide: ORS 21.155(1) directs that 'A circuit court shall collect a filing fee of $301', and the Oregon Judicial Department publishes one Circuit Court Fee Schedule that applies in all 36 counties.
- 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
Oregon does not break this down
Oregon publishes no component breakdown. The statewide Circuit Court Fee Schedule has exactly three columns — description, ‘FEE AUTHORITY’, and ‘TOTAL FEE’ — and the domestic relations row reads ‘Dissolution of marriage, annulment, or separation / First appearance by plaintiff, defendant, other party | ORS 21.155(1) | $301’. ORS 21.155 likewise states a single flat figure with no allocation. No breakdown has been fabricated.
Does it change by county?
No — the fee is the same everywhere in Oregon
The filing fee is statutory and statewide: ORS 21.155(1) directs that ‘A circuit court shall collect a filing fee of $301’, and the Oregon Judicial Department publishes one Circuit Court Fee Schedule that applies in all 36 counties. What DOES vary by county is the parent-education program — ORS 3.425 leaves it to each circuit court whether to establish one and to the designated provider what to charge.
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.
Nothing extra to e-file
We looked for a portal fee and a card surcharge in Oregon 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 Oregon kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sheriff service of summons, per case delivered to the sheriff$45 covers service directed to not more than two parties at the same address; if more than two parties at the same address, the fee is $25 for each party. ORS 21.300(1)(a) | $45.00 |
| Motion seeking entry of a supplemental judgment (post-decree modification), each sidePaid by the moving party AND by the party responding. Does not apply to motions under ORCP 68, 69 or 71. ORS 21.205(1) | $167.00 |
| Motion for expedited parenting time under ORS 107.434Listed in the fee schedule under ‘MOTIONS IN DOMESTIC RELATIONS CASES’. ORS 21.205(3); ORS 107.434 | $56.00 |
| Settlement conference before a judge, per party per dayApplies whether the parties request it or the court requires it. Also payable when a settlement conference is requested through a family law facilitation program (ORS 21.215(2)). ORS 21.215(1) | $111.00 |
| Trial fee — no jury, full or partial dayMost contested divorces are tried to the bench, so this is the realistic figure. Six-person jury is $167 and larger juries $250 (ORS 21.225(3)(a)). ORS 21.225(2) | $139.00 |
| Certified copy of a judgment or document ORS 21.258; CJO 23-016 2.b.(1) | $5.00 + $0.25 per page |
| Mandatory parent-education classNo figure, and not mandatory statewide. ORS 3.425(1) says each circuit court ‘may establish’ a parent education program, and 3.425(4) says the court ‘may order’ the parties to participate. ORS 3.425(6)(b): ‘A program provider may charge a person a reasonable fee to attend education programs’ — no amount is fixed by statute and none appears on the statewide fee schedule. Importantly, 3.425(6)(b) also bars a provider from excluding anyone for inability to pay where the court has found them indigent. ORS 3.425 | not published |
| Court-ordered mediationNo figure. The statewide Circuit Court Fee Schedule contains no mediation fee line for domestic relations. Mediation is run county by county; no county figure was confirmed from an official source. | not published |
| E-filing or credit-card surchargeNo e-filing surcharge or card convenience fee appears anywhere in the 23-page statewide fee schedule. | not published |
| Application for waiver or deferral of feesPrinted as $0 in the fee schedule; ORS 21.685 forbids charging for providing or filing the application. ORS 21.682; ORS 21.685 | $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.
Oregon has a way to file without paying up front
This is a normal court procedure, not a favor you have to plead for.
- Who qualifies: No income figure is set by statute. ORS 21.682(1): a judge may waive or defer all or part of the fees ‘if the judge finds that the party is unable to pay all or any part of the fees and costs.’ The Chief Justice may set standards by order under ORS 21.682(4).
- What it covers: Fees and court costs payable to the court — and expressly ‘including sheriff’s fees under ORS 21.300 (1)(a)’, i.e. the $45 service fee. ORS 21.682(3) bars a court from delaying or refusing to enter a judgment because deferred fees are unpaid. Note deferral is not forgiveness: ORS 21.692 allows judgment for deferred fees.
- What to ask for: Application for waiver or deferral of fees or court costs — free to obtain and free to file (ORS 21.685). Available from the OJD Forms Center, Fee Deferral and Waiver section.
- How it works: Application for waiver or deferral of fees and court costs, decided by a judge (or by the court administrator where the presiding judge has delegated that authority in writing, with review by a judge available).
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- No county parent-education class fee could be confirmed from an official source; ORS 3.425 fixes no amount and the statewide schedule lists none.
- No court-ordered mediation fee is published statewide.
- No published income threshold for the fee waiver — ORS 21.682 uses only an ‘unable to pay’ standard, and the Chief Justice order setting standards under ORS 21.682(4) was not retrieved.
- Sources we could not read: https://www.courts.oregon.gov/services/Pages/fees.aspx — HTTP 404. The live page is https://www.courts.oregon.gov/Pages/fees.aspx.; https://www.courts.oregon.gov/courts/multnomah/programs/Pages/family-court-services.aspx — HTTP 404, so no Multnomah County parent-education fee could be checked.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Oregon’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 Oregon 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
Oregon 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 Oregon. Every figure is quoted from Oregon’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in Oregon
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 Oregon?
$301 to open the case. What the court actually publishes is $301.00. Every figure on this page is traced to Oregon’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 Oregon county?
Yes. Oregon sets the filing fee statewide, so the figure is the same whichever county you file in. It is $301.
Is the filing fee the whole cost of a divorce in Oregon?
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 Oregon?
There is a process for asking the court to waive or defer it, and this page sets out what Oregon requires. You do not have to have decided anything, or have a lawyer, to ask.
How current is this Oregon 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.