Divorce in Maine: what to expect
What a divorce in Maine 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. Maine 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.
See a different stateMaine
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.
Maine 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 | 19-A M.R.S. § 953 |
| How it works in practice | The court sets apart each spouse’s non-marital property and then equitably (not necessarily equally) divides marital property, considering each spouse’s contribution, the value of property set apart to each, and the economic circumstances of each spouse at the time of division. | 19-A M.R.S. § 953 |
| Residency requirement | A divorce complaint may be filed in Maine if any one of four conditions is met: (A) the plaintiff has resided in good faith in Maine for 6 months before the action is commenced; (B) the plaintiff is a Maine resident and the parties were married in Maine; (C) the plaintiff is a Maine resident and the parties resided in Maine when the cause of divorce accrued; or (D) the defendant is a Maine resident. | 19-A M.R.S. § 901(1)(A)-(D) |
| Waiting period | A divorce action is not in order for final hearing until at least 60 days after service of the summons and complaint on the defendant (Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 113, Family Division rules). The rule is a court rule, not a statute; Title 19-A contains no waiting period. | M.R. Civ. P. 113 (Time for Final Hearing) |
| The no-fault ground | Irreconcilable marital differences (§ 902(1)(H)). | 19-A M.R.S. § 902(1)(A)-(H), (J) |
| Filing fee | $120 to enter a family matter action (including a divorce complaint) in the District Court, statewide | Maine Judicial Branch Administrative Order JB-05-26 (Court Fees Schedule), § I.A.3.k, eff. March 9, 2026 |
| Alimony | Called ‘spousal support’, in five statutory types: general, transitional, reimbursement, nominal and interim support. For general support there is a rebuttable presumption that it may not be awarded if the marriage lasted less than 10 years, and that for marriages of 10 to 20 years it may not run longer than one-half the length of the marriage (the court may depart from either presumption on findings that the result would be inequitable). The court weighs the § 951-A(5) factors: length of the marriage, ability to pay, age, employment and income history and potential, education and training, retirement and health-insurance provisions, tax consequences, health, contributions as homemaker and to the other’s education, economic misconduct and economic abuse, the marital standard of living, ability to become self-supporting, the effect of the property award and child support, and any other appropriate factor. | 19-A M.R.S. § 951-A(2), (5) |
| Custody standard | Maine calls the framework ‘parental rights and responsibilities’ rather than custody; the court decides based on the best interest of the child, considering the child’s safety and well-being as the primary and overriding consideration among statutory factors. | 19-A M.R.S. § 1653 |
| Any parenting-time presumption | No statutory presumption about equal time found | — |
Grounds: what you have to say happened
The no-fault ground in Maine is: Irreconcilable marital differences (§ 902(1)(H)).. 19-A M.R.S. § 902(1)(A)-(H), (J)
Fault grounds still exist here. They are rarely worth using and they make a case longer and more expensive, but they exist, and in some states they can affect property or alimony:
- adultery
- impotence
- extreme cruelty
- utter desertion continued for 3 consecutive years prior to the commencement of the action
- gross and confirmed habits of intoxication from the use of liquor or drugs
- nonsupport, when one spouse has sufficient ability to provide for the other and grossly, wantonly or cruelly refuses or neglects to provide suitable maintenance
- cruel and abusive treatment
- a court has appointed for one of the parties a guardian with full powers under 18-C M.R.S. § 5-301 (incapacity)
What is unusual about Maine
The things that surprise people who assumed their state works like the one they read about.
- Maine treats married and unmarried parents identically for custody purposes under its ‘parental rights and responsibilities’ framework.
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 Maine 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 Maine divorce kit — forms, fees and deadlines
- Legal help in Maine you can afford
- Who gets what — the questions that decide it
- What a Maine divorce costs
- What two households cost
- What people wish they had known