Divorce in Delaware: what to expect
What a divorce in Delaware actually involves: how property is divided, how long you must have lived there, what you have to prove, how long it takes, and what the court is deciding about the children. Delaware is an equitable distribution state. The court divides marital property fairly, which is not the same as equally, and the difference is where the argument happens.
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Every line below is taken from the statute or the court, and the citation is next to it so you can check us. It is still not advice about your case. The same statute produces very different outcomes on different facts, and the parts that decide your outcome — the length of the marriage, who earned what, whose name is on what — are not on this page because we do not know them. Use this to know what questions to ask, not to predict an answer.
Delaware at a glance
Every row is cited. Where a row says we could not confirm it, that is exactly what it means — we went looking and would not guess.
| Question | The answer in this state | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Property division | equitable distribution | 13 Del. C. § 1513 |
| How it works in practice | Upon request of either party, the Family Court equitably divides marital property considering factors such as length of marriage, prior marriages, age/health/income of parties, contribution to acquisition of property (including as homemaker), and value of non-marital property. | 13 Del. C. § 1513 |
| Residency requirement | The Family Court has jurisdiction where either petitioner or respondent has been a Delaware resident for at least 6 months before filing (or is a member of the armed forces stationed in Delaware for that period). | 13 Del. C. § 1504 |
| Waiting period | Delaware has no post-filing waiting period as such, but every ground requires ‘separation’, which the Code defines as living separate and apart for 6 or more months immediately preceding the ruling on the petition (the parties may be under the same roof if they occupy separate bedrooms and have no sexual relations). No period of separation is required where the marriage is characterized by separation caused by the respondent’s misconduct (§ 1505(b)(2)). | 13 Del. C. § 1503(8); § 1505(a)-(b) |
| The no-fault ground | The marriage is irretrievably broken, as shown by voluntary separation, separation due to incompatibility, or separation caused by the respondent’s mental illness or misconduct — and reconciliation is improbable. | 13 Del. C. § 1505 |
| Filing fee | $165 petition fee plus a $10 court security fee ($175 total); each ancillary matter requested (property division, alimony, separation agreement) adds $90 | Family Court of the State of Delaware, Schedule of Assessed Costs (eff. July 20, 2026) |
| Alimony | Called ‘alimony’. It may be awarded only to a ‘dependent party’ — one who depends on the other spouse for support, lacks sufficient property (including the marital-property award) to meet reasonable needs, and cannot be self-supporting through appropriate employment or is caring for a child whose circumstances make employment inappropriate. Amount and duration are what the court deems just, without regard to marital misconduct, after weighing the § 1512(c) factors (financial resources, time needed for education or training, marital standard of living, length of marriage, age and health, contributions to the other’s education or career, ability to pay, tax consequences, opportunities foregone). Duration is capped at 50% of the length of the marriage unless the marriage lasted 20 years or more, in which case there is no time limit. | 13 Del. C. § 1512(b)-(d) |
| Custody standard | Legal custody and residential arrangements are determined in accordance with the best interests of the child, considering statutory factors (wishes of parents and child, interaction with parents/siblings, adjustment to home/school/community, mental and physical health of all involved, and any evidence of domestic violence). | 13 Del. C. § 722 |
| Any parenting-time presumption | No statutory presumption in favor of either joint or sole custody. | 13 Del. C. § 722 |
Grounds: what you have to say happened
The no-fault ground in Delaware is: The marriage is irretrievably broken, as shown by voluntary separation, separation due to incompatibility, or separation caused by the respondent’s mental illness or misconduct — and reconciliation is improbable.. 13 Del. C. § 1505
There is effectively no fault-based route here. Which means the affair, the drinking, or whose fault it was is generally not the question the court is deciding, however much it matters to you.
What is unusual about Delaware
The things that surprise people who assumed their state works like the one they read about.
- Delaware has no free-standing fault grounds, but fault is not irrelevant: the court may find the marriage irretrievably broken from ‘separation caused by respondent’s misconduct’ (13 Del. C. § 1505(b)(2)), which the Family Court calls ‘grounds of misconduct’. On every other pathway — voluntary separation, incompatibility, mental illness — the spouses must have been ‘separated’ for at least 6 months as defined in § 1503(8); the misconduct pathway is the one that does not carry that wait.
How long you were married. Almost every alimony statute in the country turns on it, and most have unwritten thresholds judges apply. Whose name is on what. It matters far less than people expect in a community property state and far more than people expect for a house bought before the marriage. Whether either of you brought money in. Separate property stays separate until it is mixed with marital money, and then the argument is about how thoroughly. The questions that decide it are here.
Compiled 31 August 2026 from Delaware statutes and court sources, each linked in the table. Re-read line by line against the statutes on 3 September 2026; every row above was confirmed or corrected at the official source that day. Statutes change, and several states have changed theirs recently. Tell us if we have one wrong.
Keep reading
- The Delaware divorce kit — forms, fees and deadlines
- Legal help in Delaware you can afford
- Who gets what — the questions that decide it
- What a Delaware divorce costs
- What two households cost
- What people wish they had known