Home › About

About Court Cost Guide

Court Cost Guide exists for one narrow job: telling you, state by state and procedure by procedure, what it actually costs to file in court — divorce, name change, civil, probate, and bankruptcy — before you hand a clerk your money.

Editorial policy & methodology: how the figures are sourced and verified

Every fee on this site comes from a named official source that we opened and read during the October 2026 research pass, in this order of preference:

Official court fee schedules first — state judiciary and court-system fee schedules (for example the California Statewide Civil Fee Schedule, the South Dakota UJS Schedule of Court Costs, and the U.S. Courts' federal fee schedules for bankruptcy, district, and appeals fees).
Statutes and court rules second — where no schedule is published, the figure is taken from the statute or rule itself (for example Miss. Code §25-7-9 for Mississippi chancery fees, or ORS ch. 21 for Oregon).
Official county schedules as labelled examples — where a state sets fees county by county, we publish a named county's official figure as an example (Miami-Dade County, Fulton County, Jackson County) and say plainly that the total is county-set.

Three working rules follow from that method. Where a state sets fees county by county, we print the example and say so rather than dress one county's fee up as statewide fact. Where a figure cannot be verified from an official source, we mark it unverified on the page or leave it out — Kentucky's and New Hampshire's filing fees, Idaho's general civil fee, and Pennsylvania's divorce example are handled exactly that way — instead of filling the gap with a plausible number. Where our reading of a schedule involves an inference, we flag it — Montana's name-change fee is the standing example. Figures are re-checked against the issuing court's schedule when we update a page, and every page carries its research date.

Cost figures that are not court fees — private process-server charges and newspaper publication rates — are always labelled as market costs, with the range or the instruction to enter your own quote, never blended into a court's fee.

What this site is not

Court Cost Guide is an educational publisher, not a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice, creates an attorney–client relationship, or predicts how any court will rule. We do not recommend or endorse attorneys, and we publish no case results or testimonials. Court fees and rules change and vary by county and court: confirm every figure with the clerk of the court where you file, and consult a licensed attorney in your state for advice about your specific situation.

The rest of the network

This site is part of a small portfolio of cost-guide sites built on the same principle — researched figures, named sources, free calculators — including small claims costs at smallclaimscost.com, business formation fees at llccostguide.com, and home project costs at averagehomecost.com.

Corrections

Fees change mid-year in some states and clerks' schedules are the ground truth. If a figure here no longer matches your court's published schedule, tell us through the contact page with the court's link, and we will update the page and note the change.