Tennessee has published what divorce will cost until 2028.
On 1 January 2026 Tennessee stopped letting counties set the clerk’s divorce fee and wrote a single figure into statute — along with the two increases that follow it.
Almost no state tells you what a filing will cost next year, let alone the year after. Tennessee just did. Public Chapter 486, passed in 2025, rewrote Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-21-401 in its entirety and set the clerk’s fee for a divorce in three columns headed As of January 1, 2026, As of January 1, 2027 and As of January 1, 2028.
The clerk’s fee, as the statute prints it
| Filing | From 1 Jan 2026 | From 1 Jan 2027 | From 1 Jan 2028 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Divorce with no minor children | $175.00 | $200.00 | $225.00 |
| Divorce involving minor children | $250.00 | $275.00 | $300.00 |
That is the whole of the clerk’s fee, and it is the same in all ninety-five counties. Before 2026 it was $127.00 and counties differed on it. They no longer do.
So why does a Tennessee divorce still cost different amounts in different counties?
Because the clerk’s fee is not the bill. On top of it sit litigation taxes, and that is where every remaining difference lives. The state portion is fixed. The county portion is set locally, and it varies more than most people would guess.
The part that surprises people
Davidson County — Nashville — charges a county litigation tax of $33.75. Hawkins County, population about 57,000, charges $73.75.
Which means a divorce filed in rural Hawkins County costs $40 more than the same divorce filed in Nashville. The assumption that the big city is the expensive one is exactly backwards here, and it is backwards for the same reason in several other states: the expensive part is local, and small counties often lean on it harder.
What eight counties actually charge in 2026
Divorce with no minor children, no service of process included. Read on each court’s own published schedule on 28 September 2026.
| County | Total | Schedule date printed on the document |
|---|---|---|
| Franklin | $224.50 | Effective 1 July 2024 — pre-2026 schedule, see below |
| Davidson (Nashville) | $234.50 | Effective 1 January 2026 |
| Hamilton (Chattanooga) | $239.50 | 1 July 2016 and 1 April 2025 — pre-2026 schedule, see below |
| Blount | $245.00 | Effective 1 January 2026, revised 29 June 2026 |
| Anderson | $254.50 | Effective 1 January 2026 |
| Hawkins | $274.50 | Effective 1 January 2026 |
| Knox (Knoxville) | $289.50 | Effective 1 January 2026 |
| Shelby (Memphis) | $356.50 | Effective 1 January 2026 |
Across the six counties publishing a 2026 schedule the range is $234.50 to $356.50, and every dollar of that $122 spread is county litigation tax.
Two of these schedules have not caught up, and we are not going to pretend otherwise
Hamilton County and Franklin County are still publishing schedules built on the old $127.00 clerk fee. Hamilton’s document was current as of its April 2025 litigation tax change and has not been reissued since Public Chapter 486; Franklin’s prints 1 July 2024.
Those figures are genuinely published by those courts, which is why they are in the table. They are also almost certainly not what you will be asked to pay. If you are filing in Hamilton or Franklin, call the clerk before you write the check, and expect the number to be about $48 higher than the page says.
What this means if you are deciding when to file
A plain divorce filed on 31 December 2026 costs $25 less in clerk’s fees than the same divorce filed the next morning, and $50 less than one filed in 2028. With minor children the steps are the same size.
We are not telling you to rush a divorce over $25. Almost nothing about the timing of a divorce should turn on a number that small, and there are far larger costs downstream — service, a master or hearing officer, and the house. But if you are already close to filing and the date is genuinely open, the schedule is published and you may as well know what is in it.
Sources, read 28 September 2026: Public Chapter 486 (2025), the enacted text, hosted by the Davidson County Circuit Court Clerk · Shelby County · Knox County Chancery · Davidson County · Hawkins County · Anderson County · Blount County · Hamilton County · Franklin County. Every date above was read off the face of the document, not off its file name. Nothing here comes from a law firm page, a forms company or an aggregator. Everything else a Tennessee divorce costs · All fifty states · corrections at thecusp.app/corrections.