Throughline Clarity

How much does a divorce cost, and where the money actually goes

By Throughline Clarity

This is not legal advice. It is general information, and divorce rules differ by state. For advice about your situation, talk to a licensed family lawyer where you live.

Laws and court fees vary by state. This is general information to help you plan, not legal or financial advice. For advice about your situation, talk to a family lawyer licensed where you live.

If you've searched this already, you've seen numbers anywhere from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. Both ends are real. The honest answer is that a divorce costs roughly what the disagreement costs. The more the two of you have to fight out, the more hours someone bills.

Below are the best national numbers we could find, where they come from, and what they actually pay for.

The national numbers

The best national source we found is a 2019 survey by Martindale-Nolo, written up by Nolo (page updated 5 June 2024). Two things to hold in mind as you read it: it's from before the pandemic, so treat it as a floor, and it's a national average, so your county may be well above or below it. (Nolo, "How Much Does Divorce Cost?", read 16 Oct 2026)

Here's what people in that survey paid in total, by how their divorce went:

| How the divorce went | Average total cost | |---|---| | No lawyer at all | $925 (median $300) | | Uncontested, with lawyers | $4,100 | | Disputes, settled without a trial | $10,600 | | Trial on one issue | $20,400 | | Trial on two or more issues | $23,300 |

Read that table from top to bottom and you can see the whole story. The jump isn't caused by the paperwork. It's caused by how much is in dispute, and whether a judge ends up deciding it.

Attorney fees, the biggest piece

For people who hired a lawyer for the whole case, the survey found average attorney fees of $11,300 per person. The median was $7,000, and 42% paid $5,000 or less. (Nolo)

Why is the average so much higher than the median? When half of people pay $7,000 or less and the average is $11,300, a smaller number of expensive cases are pulling the average up. Most people pay less than the average. Some pay a lot more.

Those fees are almost all hours. The survey put the average divorce lawyer at about $270 an hour in 2019. Nolo also reports Clio's 2023 figure of $312 an hour. (Nolo) If your lawyer bills by the hour, ask what counts toward it: phone calls, emails, letters to the other side. The time you spend in the office working out what you want counts too.

Not everyone hires a lawyer for the whole case. People who only consulted a lawyer, or hired one for part of the work (called limited-scope help), paid an average of $4,600, with a median of $3,000. (Nolo) Our guide to questions to ask a divorce lawyer has more on how limited-scope help works and how to ask about billing.

Everything else

Costs on top of the lawyer. The survey found people spent an average of $1,480 on costs other than attorney fees, with a median of $500. (Nolo)

Court filing fees. Nolo puts these at roughly $100 to over $400, depending on the state. One example: in California, the fee to file a response to divorce papers is "usually between $435 and $450," and the court says you can ask for a fee waiver if you can't afford it. (Nolo; California Courts Self-Help, "Fill out and file forms to respond", read 16 Oct 2026) If you're in another state, ask the court clerk or your state's court self-help center whether you can apply for a waiver.

Online divorce services. Nolo puts these at $150 to $750. (Nolo)

Private mediation. Nolo cites ADR Times (2023) at about $3,000 to $10,000, usually split between the spouses. (Nolo) Some courts run their own mediation programs at low or no cost, so it's worth asking your court before assuming the private price. (AFCC, A Brief Guide to Family Mediation for Parents who are Self-Represented, July 2017) There's more on how mediation and lawyers fit together in mediation or a lawyer: which do you talk to first?

If money is the wall

There are lower-cost doors in, and none of them means you're doing it badly.

Where you have some control

You can't control what your spouse disputes. You can control how much of the lawyer's time goes to sorting out your own story.

It's easy for a first meeting to get spent on things you could have worked out at the kitchen table: what you want to happen with the house, what you need each month, what you're most worried about. At $270 an hour, that's expensive thinking. Walking in with your papers together and your questions written down means more of the hour goes to the things only a lawyer can answer. Our guides on what to bring to your first consultation and what happens at a divorce consultation cover that part.

Where Throughline fits

We're the one part of this with no meter. You talk with one of us for about thirty minutes, by phone or video, from anywhere in the United States. You pick who: Dusan, Jennileen, or Rosa, who works in Spanish and English. Each of us has been through a separation. The same day, you get your real asks written down, the questions your own story raises for your lawyer, and a one-page summary they can read in a minute. You pay after, and only if it helped. We're not lawyers and this isn't legal advice. It's what makes the billed hours count. Talk to us.

Sources

More guides

This is general information, not legal advice. Divorce rules differ by state. For advice about your situation, talk to a licensed family lawyer where you live.