What a Virginia 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 stateVirginia
It costs $83.00 to file for divorce in Virginia. 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. Sheriff service is $12.00 per respondent and is optional. No with/without-children difference. § 17.1-275(A)(18) exempts divorce from the $10 catch-all per-paper filing fee up to and including entry of the decree, and no fee is charged for a responsive pleading or counterclaim in a divorce. Watch the naming trap: ‘Richmond City Circuit’ ($83.00) and ‘Richmond Circuit’ — Richmond County ($94.00) — are different courts.
Where the money goes
The official Civil Filing Fee Calculator was queried for the ‘Divorce’ case type in all 120 Virginia circuit courts on 2026-08-20, with no sheriff service and a $0 suit amount.
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Clerk FeeCharged in every circuit court. | $50.00 |
| Court Technology Fund, apportioned out of the $60 statutory clerk’s feeCharged in every circuit court. | $10.00 |
| Legal Aid FeeCharged in every circuit court. | $9.00 |
| Technology Trust FundCharged in every circuit court. | $8.00 |
| Writ TaxCharged in every circuit court. | $5.00 |
| Indigent Defense FundCharged in every circuit court. | $1.00 |
| Law Library FeeLocally adopted — this is the part that varies. | $0.00 – $4.00 |
| Courthouse Maintenance FeeLocally adopted — this is the part that varies. | $0.00 – $2.00 |
| Courthouse Construction FeeLocally adopted — this is the part that varies. | $0.00 – $2.00 |
| Paper Submission feeLocally adopted — this is the part that varies. | $0.00 – $5.00 |
How it changes by county
A $83 statewide core plus four locally adopted assessments.
The published range
$83.00 – $94.00 depending on the circuit court across the counties we were able to confirm from official sources.
| County | Published fee | Schedule dated |
|---|---|---|
| Amherst | $83.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Essex | $83.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Northumberland | $83.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Roanoke County | $83.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Fairfax | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Arlington | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Alexandria | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Norfolk | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Henrico | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Richmond County | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Lynchburg | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
| Winchester | $94.00 | no date printedofficial source |
If you cannot afford to file
Nothing extra to e-file
We looked for a portal fee and a card surcharge in Virginia 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 Virginia kit.
More people qualify than apply. If this section applies to you it is the most useful thing on this page.
Virginia 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: Fees and costs.
- What to ask for: CC-1414
- How it works: In forma pauperis petition under Va. Code § 17.1-606, Form CC-1414.
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 Virginia 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
Virginia attorneys, mediators, CDFAs and therapists, credentials checked against the state’s own records. Nobody paid to be there.