What a South Carolina 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 stateSouth Carolina
It costs $150.00 to file for divorce in South Carolina. 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. There are two ways to pay nothing, and the second one is easier than the poverty affidavit: if a legal aid society, legal services or other nonprofit organization, or the South Carolina Pro Bono Program attorney represents you and certifies it in writing, the $150 fee is not charged at all under Rule 3(b)(2), SCRCP — no judge’s ruling on a poverty motion required. And a responding spouse never pays to answer: § 8-21-310(D) bars any fee for filing an answer or return in a court of record.
The short version7 points · tap one to jump to it
- Where the money goes — South Carolina does not publish a component table on its Family Court fee page — the page states a flat '$150 Filing Fee' for divorce.
- Does it change by county? — The filing fee is uniform statewide: § 8-21-310 opens 'the clerks of court, registers of deeds, or county treasurers… shall collect the following uniform filing fees,' and the Judicial Branch publishes one Family Court fee schedule for all 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 — South Carolina does not publish a component table on its Family Court fee page — the page states a flat '$150 Filing Fee' for divorce.
- Does it change by county? — The filing fee is uniform statewide: § 8-21-310 opens 'the clerks of court, registers of deeds, or county treasurers… shall collect the following uniform filing fees,' and the Judicial Branch publishes one Family Court fee schedule for all 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
South Carolina does not publish a component table on its Family Court fee page — the page states a flat ‘$150 Filing Fee’ for divorce. The two-line breakdown above is taken directly from the two statutes, which by their own terms stack ($100 base plus a $50 add-on ‘added to the fee imposed pursuant to Section 8-21-310(C)(1)’). No further itemization is published.
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Base filing fee for a first complaint or petition in a civil action or proceedingStatutory text: ‘in addition to the fee imposed by Section 14-1-204(B)(1), collect one hundred dollars for filing a first complaint or petition… There is no further fee for filing an amended or supplemental complaint or petition or for filing any other paper in the same action of the proceeding, with the exception of motions.’ Section history prints ‘2019 Act No. 58 (H.3243), SECTION 1, eff August 1, 2019.’ S.C. Code § 8-21-310(C)(1) | $100.00 |
| Statutory add-on fee distributed to the Judicial Department, Indigent Defense, Probation/Parole/Pardon, Prosecution Coordination and Appellate DefenseStatutory text: ‘There is added to the fee imposed pursuant to Section 8-21-310(C)(1) an additional fee equal to fifty dollars.’ Section history prints ‘2017 Act No. 96 (S.289), Pt. II, SECTION 4.B, eff July 1, 2017.’ S.C. Code § 14-1-204(B)(1) | $50.00 |
Does it change by county?
No — the fee is the same everywhere in South Carolina
The filing fee is uniform statewide: § 8-21-310 opens ‘the clerks of court, registers of deeds, or county treasurers… shall collect the following uniform filing fees,’ and the Judicial Branch publishes one Family Court fee schedule for all counties. Mediation does not vary by county either. The official Family Court Coversheet (SCCA 467, rev. 11/2024) states that ‘Effective January 1, 2016, family court actions in all counties are subject to mediation,’ and ADR Rule 3(a) subjects ‘all contested issues in domestic relations actions filed in family court’ to court-ordered mediation statewide. An uncontested divorce, where the spouses agree on every issue, files the Certificate of Exemption (SCRFCMFORM02) instead and pays no mediator.
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 in South Carolina most of it turns out to be published, in the statute or in a Supreme Court rule, even where the fee schedule is silent.
You cannot e-file this yourself — and where e-filing exists, it costs extra
- E-filing technology fee
- $25.00 on a Summons and Complaint case initiation; $5.00 on a motion — plus payment-processing charges from SCGov, amount not printed
Two separate facts, and we previously reported neither. First, this charge cannot reach you as a self-filing divorce plaintiff: the Judicial Branch’s own E-Filing FAQ says “Self-Represented Litigants, or Pro Se Litigants, may not E-File at this time,” and the system that FAQ describes runs in the Court of Common Pleas — so you file on paper at the clerk’s counter and pay in cash, by cashier’s check or by money order. Second, the amount the statute leaves to the Chief Justice is published, and it is not nothing: the E-Filing Technology Fees schedule prints $25.00 for a Summons and Complaint and $5.00 for a motion, and the same FAQ states “A technology fee is added to all transactions that require a filing fee. Any transaction with fees will also incur charges from SCGov for payment processing.” The SCGov processing amount is not printed on any source we could find, so no figure is given for it. Whether you have to e-file at all is on the South Carolina kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sheriff service of the Summons and Complaint, per respondentMANDATORY only if other service methods fail. The amount IS published statewide, in statute: ‘For mechanics’ liens, attachments, citations, decrees, summons, and complaints, the fee is fifteen dollars for each initial service and five dollars for each attempted service thereafter; however, the sheriff may not charge for more than two attempted services on the same matter so that the party, or his attorney, making the service in the matter may not be charged any more than a maximum total of twenty-five dollars.’ So $15.00 if the deputy finds your spouse first time, $25.00 at the statutory ceiling. Section history prints no amendment later than ‘1987 Act No. 66, SECTION 1.’ Subsection (e) adds that necessary expenses of the service — it names towing, wrecker service, storage and publication — are charged at actual cost on top; no mileage charge is authorized. The Supreme Court-approved Simple Divorce Packet says only ‘There may be a charge for this service by the Sheriff’s office,’ and notes that a granted in forma pauperis order should be provided to the Sheriff’s office. S.C. Code § 23-19-10(d), (e) | $15.00 – $25.00 |
| Court-appointed mediator, if any issue is contestedRequired statewide, not county by county, and the rate IS published. ADR Rule 3(a) subjects ‘all contested issues in domestic relations actions filed in family court’ to court-ordered mediation; the Family Court Coversheet (SCCA 467) says ‘Effective January 1, 2016, family court actions in all counties are subject to mediation.’ Where the Clerk of Court appoints the mediator, ADR Rule 9(b) sets the charge: ‘the mediator shall be compensated by the parties at a rate of $200 per hour, provided that the court-appointed mediator shall charge no greater than one hour of time in preparing for the initial ADR conference. Travel time shall not be compensated.’ Expenses are capped at IRS-rate mileage plus costs advanced ‘not to exceed $150’; cancellation is ‘no more than $200’. Rule 9(c): fees ‘shall be paid in equal shares per party’ unless the court orders otherwise, so $100 an hour each. Rule 9(d): where leave to proceed in forma pauperis has been granted, ‘a party is exempt from payment of neutral fees and expenses, and no application is required to be filed.’ Rule 9(a): where the parties pick their own mediator they agree the rate themselves, and no rate is published for that. An uncontested divorce files a Certificate of Exemption and pays nothing here. Rule 9 last amended by Order dated April 29, 2021; Rule 3 by Order dated May 1, 2019. S.C. ADR Rule 9(b)–(d) | $200.00/hour, split equally |
| E-filing technology fee — Common Pleas only, and closed to self-filersThe statute authorizes clerks to ‘collect an amount set by the Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court for filing court documents by electronic means from an integrated electronic filing or e-filing system owned and operated by the South Carolina Judicial Department.’ That amount is published, on the Judicial Branch’s own E-Filing Technology Fees schedule: $25.00 for a Summons and Complaint case initiation, $25.00 for a Petition where a filing fee is required, $5.00 for a motion, $5.00 for a proposed order filed without a motion. The schedule’s case types are Court of Common Pleas types; the E-Filing FAQ says ‘Self-Represented Litigants, or Pro Se Litigants, may not E-File at this time’ and ‘A technology fee is added to all transactions that require a filing fee. Any transaction with fees will also incur charges from SCGov for payment processing.’ The SCGov processing amount is not printed. Whether any Family Court filing can be e-filed at all is not settled by any source we could read. SC Judicial Branch, E-Filing Technology Fees · S.C. Code § 8-21-310(C)(3) | $25.00 initiation; $5.00 per motion |
| Motion fee, per motionPublished twice over, and we previously said it was not published at all. The statute sets it: ‘There is assessed for every motion made in the court of common pleas and family court, not including motions made in family court juvenile delinquency proceedings, a fee of twenty-five dollars. The fee must accompany each motion filed.’ The Chief Justice’s Motion Fees List, approved by Administrative Order effective September 30, 2016, prints $25.00 against each motion individually — including the one a divorce actually turns on, ‘Motion for Temporary Relief in Family Court: Rule 21, SCRFC: $25.00. This Motion may include numerous standard forms of relief, such as temporary custody, visitation, support, etc. However, only one fee charged.’ The list also sets out what costs nothing: rules to show cause for child or spousal support, anything contained in an answer, a motion for order of publication, and ‘Matters Involving Indigency in Common Pleas or Family Court where a Party has been allowed to proceed without costs. No Subsequent Motion Fees for that Party.’ The statute adds that the Supreme Court ‘may waive the filing fees imposed by this section upon a proper showing of indigency.’ S.C. Code § 8-21-320 · Motion Fees List (eff. 30 September 2016) · approving Administrative Order | $25.00 |
| Mandatory parent-education classThere does not appear to be one. We read South Carolina’s divorce chapter (Title 20, Chapter 3) and the Family Court chapter (Title 63, Chapter 3) end to end: neither contains a parent-education, parenting-class or divorce-seminar requirement, and neither authorizes a fee for one. The Judicial Branch Family Court fee page and the Supreme Court-approved Simple Divorce Packet both list the forms and the one $150 fee, and mention no class. We make no claim about what an individual family court judge may order in a contested custody case, and none about what a private provider would charge if one were ordered. S.C. Code Title 20, Ch. 3 · Title 63, Ch. 3 | none published |
| Payment method restriction (not a surcharge)The official packet instructs: ‘Only bring cash, a cashier’s check, or money order for the filing fee ($150); do not bring a personal check.’ So at the Family Court counter there is no card to surcharge. No credit-card surcharge is published by the Judicial Branch; we did not read any individual county clerk’s own payment page, and clerks can charge for things they do not put on a web page. SCCA 400P SRL-DIV (06/2024), Plaintiff Instructions | $0.00 stated; no credit-card surcharge published |
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.
South Carolina 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: The official divorce packet frames eligibility around the federal poverty guidelines: ‘If you feel you are unable to pay the filing fee because you do not meet the federal poverty guidelines, you may submit the form titled Motion and Affidavit to Proceed In Forma Pauperis.’ No dollar figure or percentage multiplier is published.
- What it covers: The Family Court filing fee. The packet also directs that a granted IFP order be provided to the Sheriff’s office for service of process. Separately, § 8-21-310(D) provides that ‘No fee may be charged to a defendant or respondent for filing an answer, return, or other papers in any civil action or proceeding in a court of record.’
- What to ask for: SCCA 405 (Motion and Affidavit to Proceed In Forma Pauperis) and SCCA 405.1 (Order In Forma Pauperis), with SCCA 430 Financial Declaration attached
- How it works: Two independent routes, both listed by the Judicial Branch under ‘No filing fee is required in the following cases.’ (1) In forma pauperis: file a ‘Motion and Affidavit to Proceed In Forma Pauperis’ (SCCA 405) with a signed and notarized Financial Declaration attached, under Rule 3(b)(1), SCRCP; a judge reviews it and, if granted, signs an Order In Forma Pauperis (SCCA 405.1). If the motion is denied the fee must be paid by the date the court sets or the case is dismissed. (2) Legal aid / pro bono representation: no fee at all where ‘a party is represented by an attorney working on behalf of or under the auspices of a legal aid society, a legal services or other nonprofit organization, or the South Carolina Pro Bono Program (written certification from the attorney required) pursuant to Rule 3(b)(2), SCRCP.’
- What a granted waiver also covers: more than the $150. Under ADR Rule 9(d), ‘where leave to proceed in forma pauperis has been granted, a party is exempt from payment of neutral fees and expenses, and no application is required to be filed’ — so the $200-an-hour mediator is waived too, automatically. The Chief Justice’s Motion Fees List charges no motion fee to a party ‘allowed to proceed without costs’, and § 8-21-320 lets the Supreme Court waive motion fees ‘upon a proper showing of indigency’. The packet directs that a granted order be taken to the Sheriff’s office for service.
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- No effective date is printed on the Judicial Branch Family Court fee page, so none is given. The underlying statutes print amendment dates (§ 8-21-310 eff. August 1, 2019; § 14-1-204(B) eff. July 1, 2017) but the page itself carries no date.
- The SCGov payment-processing charge that the E-Filing FAQ says ‘any transaction with fees will also incur’ is nowhere quantified on a source we could read. The technology fee beside it is published; this one is not, so no figure is given for it.
- Whether any Family Court filing can be e-filed at all. The E-Filing Technology Fees schedule lists only Court of Common Pleas case types, and the FAQ describes a Common Pleas program; the Judicial Branch also links a separate ‘Family Court Attorney Portal’, which returned no readable content to us. We are not claiming Family Court e-filing does or does not exist.
- Where the parties choose their own mediator rather than having one appointed, ADR Rule 9(a) leaves the rate to agreement and no figure is published. The $200 an hour above is the appointed-mediator rate only.
- The clerk’s copy fee. The Plaintiff Instructions say Clerk of Court offices ‘may charge their standard copy fee’ for the packet forms; no county’s standard copy fee was read.
- No individual South Carolina county clerk’s payment page was read from this runner, so the absence of a counter card surcharge rests on the Judicial Branch’s own sources and the packet’s cash / cashier’s check / money order instruction, not on a county-by-county check.
- This page previously attributed a quotation to an ‘official Family Court FAQ’ saying some counties require mediation and that the Coversheet lists them. No such page is now locatable on sccourts.org, and the current Coversheet says the opposite. The quotation has been removed rather than re-sourced.
- The Judicial Branch fee page contains an internal citation typo — it cites ‘§ 8-21-310(12)’ for the no-fee-for-answers rule, which is now codified at § 8-21-310(D). Noted for accuracy, not treated as a substantive discrepancy.
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what South Carolina’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.
Two sources have to agree before a figure goes on this page, and here they do: § 8-21-310(C)(1) and § 14-1-204(B)(1) stack to $150.00 by their own terms, and the Judicial Branch’s Family Court fee page independently prints ‘$150 Filing Fee’ against ‘Divorce, Annulment, and Separate Support and Maintenances Actions’.
A codified statute page can be a session behind without saying so, so we checked the session as well as the section. The Legislature’s Ratifications and Acts log for the 126th General Assembly, current as of 13 October 2026, records no act amending § 8-21-310 or § 14-1-204. The one court-fee act of the session, Act No. 155 of 2026, raises magistrate court fees under §§ 8-21-1010, 8-21-1060 and 22-3-340 and takes effect 1 January 2027. It does not touch the Family Court filing fee. We read the log’s act summaries, not the full text of every act of the session.
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 South Carolina 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
South Carolina 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 South Carolina. Every figure is quoted from South Carolina’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Common questions about filing costs in South Carolina
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 South Carolina?
$150 to open the case. What the court actually publishes is $150.00. Every figure on this page is traced to South Carolina’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 South Carolina county?
Yes. South Carolina sets the filing fee statewide, so the figure is the same whichever county you file in. It is $150.
Is the filing fee the whole cost of a divorce in South Carolina?
No, and it is the small number. The filing fee is what it costs to open the case. Serving the papers ($15.00 to $25.00 if the sheriff does it), a $25.00 fee on every motion, a court-appointed mediator at $200.00 an hour split between you if any issue is contested, 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 South Carolina?
There is a process for asking the court to waive or defer it, and this page sets out what South Carolina requires. You do not have to have decided anything, or have a lawyer, to ask.
How current is this South Carolina 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.