What a Texas 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.
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It costs $350.00 to file for divorce in Texas. 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. Texas divorce filing fees are almost perfectly uniform despite being described as county-set: Harris, Dallas and Bexar – three counties with different clerks and different ordinances – all charge exactly $350.00 for a divorce with no children, because $213 + $137 of that is fixed by statute with “Local Option: No.” The money that actually varies is service: getting your spouse served by a constable costs $85.00 in Harris and $80.00 in Dallas, roughly a quarter of the filing fee again, and it is charged per respondent.
Where the money goes
Texas publishes an unusually complete official breakdown. The OCA “District Court Civil Suits and Actions” chart states the total directly: Divorce (Not Involving Children) = $350.00, and Divorce (Involving Children) = “x >= $350.00*” with the footnote “*$350.00 is the fee if your county does not have a Domestic Relations Office.”
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Local Consolidated Civil Fee – any new civil case (family-law cases included)Mandatory, no local option. The county treasurer splits it among ten funds: Appellate Judicial System, Court Facility, Clerk of the Court, Clerk’s Records Management and Preservation, Court Reporter Service, County Law Library, Courthouse Security, Language Access, County Jury, and County Dispute Resolution. Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code § 135.101 | $213.00 |
| State Consolidated Civil Fee – any new civil caseMandatory, no local option. Remitted to the Comptroller for the State Judicial Fund, Basic Civil Legal Services Account, Statewide Electronic Filing System Fund, and Judicial and Court Personnel Training Fund. A county may not keep a service fee for collecting it. Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code § 133.151 | $137.00 |
| Domestic Relations Office (DRO) Initial Child Support Service Fee – only in divorces involving childrenLocal option. Collectible only if the Commissioners Court has established a Domestic Relations Office and the county has a child-support cooperative agreement with the Title IV-D agency; the administering entity sets the exact amount within the range. Tex. Fam. Code § 203.005(a)(2) | $0.01 to $36.00 |
| Domestic Relations Office (DRO) Initial Operations Fee – only in divorces involving childrenLocal option, only in counties that have established a Domestic Relations Office; the administering entity sets the amount. Tex. Fam. Code § 203.005(a)(1) | $0.01 to $15.00 |
How it changes by county
Less than Texas’s reputation suggests. The $350 base is 100% statutory and mandatory in all 254 counties – the OCA chart states “Local Option: No – Fee is mandatory” for both the $213 Local Consolidated Civil Fee and the $137 State Consolidated Civil Fee. The only county-set variation in the divorce FILING fee is the pair of Domestic Relations Office fees, which apply only to divorces involving children and only in counties whose Commissioners Court has created a DRO, capped by statute at $36.00 + $15.00 = $51.00. Real county variation shows up instead in service-of-process fees, which Commissioners Courts set locally.
The published range
$350.00 – $401.00 across the counties we were able to confirm from official sources.
| County | Published fee | Schedule dated |
|---|---|---|
| Harris | $350.00 divorce no children / $365.00 divorce with children | January 1, 2026 (schedule cover states “Effective January 1, 2026”; footer states “(Updated July 15, 2026)”)official source |
| Dallas | $350.00 divorce no children / $401.00 divorce with children (“Includes DRO fees”) | January 1, 2024 (printed on the schedule: “DISTRICT CIVIL & FAMILY COURT FILING FEES PURSUANT TO SENATE BILL 1612, 88th LEGISLATURE, EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2024”)official source |
| Bexar | $350.00 divorce or annulment w/no children / $401.00 divorce or annulment w/children | no date printedofficial source |
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 Texas 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 Texas kit.
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Service of process by sheriff/constable, per respondentSeparate from and on top of the filing fee. Harris County: “2025 Harris County Civil Process Fees” – CITATION $85.00 for service within Harris County. Dallas County: Sheriff & Constable Fees FY 2025 (ordered 9/17/2024) – $80.00 for a “Citation, Summons, Notice, Subpoena, Order, Injunction, or other service not listed” (https://www.dallascounty.org/Assets/uploads/docs/district-clerk/fee-schedules/SHERIFF-CONSTABLE-FEES-FY-2025-with-revisions.pdf); citation by publication/certified mail $65.00 plus costs; a simultaneous TRO and notice in a domestic relations case $95.00. The clerk also charges $8.00 to issue the citation itself (Harris). County civil-process fees set by Commissioners Court; clerk’s issuance fee under Tex. Gov’t Code §§ 51.317(b)(4), 51.318(b)(2) | $80.00 – $85.00 in the counties checked |
| Parenting/parent-education class, if requiredCOULD NOT BE CONFIRMED, so reported as null. No parenting-class fee appears in the OCA statewide filing-fee charts. Texas Family Code § 105.009 (which addresses parenting courses) we could not read because statutes.capitol.texas.gov now serves its statute text through a JavaScript single-page application that returns only the app shell to a plain HTTP client – see the sources we could not reach, below. Whether a class is MANDATORY with minor children in Texas therefore we could not verified from an official source and is not asserted here. | not published |
| Court-ordered mediationThe only mediation-related money published statewide is the County Dispute Resolution Fund share of the mandatory $213 local fee (Harris County itemises it as “Dispute Resolution fee 601 – $15.00”). The cost of an actual court-ordered mediation session is not published in any statewide Texas fee chart, so no amount is asserted. Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code § 135.101(b) allocates part of the $213 Local Consolidated Civil Fee to a County Dispute Resolution Fund | not published |
| E-filing or credit-card surchargeNo e-filing fee or credit-card surcharge appears in the OCA statewide charts or in the Harris County District Clerk’s 15-page civil and family fee schedule. Part of the $137 State Consolidated Civil Fee is routed to the Statewide Electronic Filing System Fund, i.e. e-filing is funded out of the base fee rather than billed separately by the court. Any charge added by the eFileTexas service provider is a vendor charge, not a published court fee, so it is left null. | not 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.
Texas 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 table is published. Rule 145(d) instead lists three forms of PRIMA FACIE evidence of inability to pay: (1) the declarant or a dependent receives benefits from a means-tested government entitlement program; (2) the declarant is represented by an attorney providing legal services through a provider funded by the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, a provider funded by the Legal Services Corporation, or a nonprofit serving people at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines; or (3) the declarant applied to such a provider, was found financially eligible, but was declined representation.
- What it covers: Rule 145(a) defines costs broadly as “any fee charged by the court or an officer of the court, including, but not limited to, filing fees, fees for issuance and service of process, fees for copies, fees for a court-appointed professional, and fees charged by the clerk or court reporter for preparation of the appellate record.” Rule 145(c) requires the clerk to make the Statement available free without request, to return it only if it is unsworn, and on filing to docket the case, issue citation, and provide any other ordinary service. The Harris County District Clerk’s schedule repeats this: with an uncontested Statement you are entitled to copies and other documents at no charge.
- What to ask for: Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs, approved by the Supreme Court of Texas (or another sworn document containing the same information)
- How it works: Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs, sworn before a notary or made under penalty of perjury, filed under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 145. No motion or court permission is needed to file it.
What we could not find out
Open questions on this page
- Whether a parenting class is mandatory in a Texas divorce with minor children, and what it costs, could not be confirmed – the Texas statutes website (statutes.capitol.texas.gov) now serves Family Code text only through a JavaScript application that returns no statute text to a plain HTTP client.
- Bexar County’s fee schedule page prints no effective date; its table is headed only “2025 FEE”, so effective_date is reported as null rather than inferred.
- The cost of an actual court-ordered mediation session is not published in any Texas statewide fee chart.
- eFileTexas service-provider charges are vendor charges and are not published as court fees.
- Sources we could not read: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.105.htm – the Texas Legislature’s statute site is now a JavaScript single-page application; every path (including the legacy /Docs/…/*.htm and *.pdf URLs) returns the s
We would rather show you a blank than a plausible number. Everything above is a real limit on what Texas’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 Texas 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
Texas attorneys, mediators, CDFAs and therapists, credentials checked against the state’s own records. Nobody paid to be there.