How much does a divorce cost in the UK?

Court fees in England and Wales

Court fees are the fixed part of the bill, set by order and published in the family court fees schedule EX50. None of it changes with the firm you instruct.

What the fee buys	Fee
Divorce, nullity or civil partnership dissolution application (1.2)	£628
Judicial separation (1.3)	£426
Answer to an application for a matrimonial order (1.6)	£240
Amended application, or a second matrimonial order (1.5)	£61
Financial order by consent, meaning a consent order (5.1)	£62
Financial order other than by consent, meaning Form A (5.4)	£321
New Children Act 1989 application, such as a child arrangements order (2.1)	£270

Four applications carry no fee, the ones people assume are expensive: a non-molestation order, an occupation order, a Domestic Abuse Protection Order, and a forced marriage or FGM protection order.

The £628 application fee, sole or joint

One divorce, one fee. Sole and joint applications cost the same, and the fee to apply for a divorce is not refunded once the court has sent notice that the application has been issued.

The joint route has a trap. Both applicants must apply for help with fees, and if one is not eligible or does not apply, the whole £628 falls due. The trap reaches only joint applicants, and the Office for National Statistics recorded 73.3% of divorces under the current law as sole applications.

The financial order, a second fee of £62 or £321

The divorce ends the marriage and divides nothing. Splitting the house, the pensions and the savings is a second application, so a quote for the divorce alone covers half the job.

Route	Court fee	What happens
Agreement between you, sealed by the court	£62 for a consent order	A judge reads the order and the summary of assets, usually without a hearing
No agreement, so the court decides	£321 to ask a court to decide the finances	A first appointment, then a financial dispute resolution appointment, then a final hearing

The gap between the two court fees is trivial next to the difference in solicitor time. One is a drafting job, the other is three hearings with disclosure and valuations between them.

Solicitor fees and the guideline hourly rates

No government body publishes an average cost for a divorce. What is published is the guideline hourly rates courts use when assessing costs, in effect from 1 January 2026.

Band	Grade A, the most senior	Grade C, other solicitors
London 1	£579	£305
London 2	£422	£276
London 3	£319	£209
National 1	£295	£201
National 2	£288	£200

Those are the rates a judge treats as reasonable, not a price list. Routine work is often priced flat instead. Major Family Law in Newcastle advertises a fixed price divorce from £300 plus VAT and the court fee, Lux Family Law on the Cardiff list publishes £750 plus VAT plus the court fee for uncontested cases, and Alsters Kelley in Coventry charges £300 plus VAT at 20% for an initial family consultation, £360 in total.

Hours on the finances move the bill, not the application, which is the part many people run without a solicitor. A quoted rate means little without the grade of the fee earner behind it, which is why hourly charges differ so widely.

Who pays the legal costs, and Rule 28.3(5)

Ordinary litigation runs on the loser paying. Financial remedy proceedings do not. Family Procedure Rule 28.3(5) states that the general rule is that the court will not make an order requiring one party to pay the costs of another party.

Winning does not get your legal bill paid. Both households budget for their own solicitor, and a long fight over a house costs both sides in full.

The exception is conduct. Rule 28.3(6) and (7) let the court order costs against a party who failed without good reason to attend a mediation information and assessment meeting or try non-court dispute resolution, breached the rules or an order, or ignored an open offer to settle.

Mediation, the £120 MIAM and the £500 voucher

Mediation begins with an assessment meeting, and gov.uk puts that meeting at about £120 per person where neither party is eligible for legal aid. The Family Mediation Voucher Scheme then adds up to £500 towards the sessions themselves, paid direct to the mediator, and never covers the assessment meeting.

The restriction matters more than the money. The voucher is not available where the issues relate solely to a financial remedy dispute. Eligible cases are a dispute about a child, or a financial dispute where the parties are also in dispute about a child, so a couple arguing only about the house and the pensions gets nothing.

Help with Fees, the savings and income limits

Help with Fees covers the £628 and the financial order fees, with a separate application for each.

Test	Limit
Savings, where the fee is £1,420 or less	Up to £4,250
Savings, where the fee is over £7,000, or either partner is 66 or older	Up to £16,000
Monthly income, single	£1,420 or less
Monthly income, with a partner	£2,130 or less
Added to the income limit per child	£425 aged 0 to 13, £710 aged 14 and over

On gov.uk’s own worked example, a person with a partner and two children aged 7 and 5 can report income up to £2,980. Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Universal Credit with earnings under £6,000 a year and Pension Credit Guarantee Credit each replace the income test, and the savings limit still applies. A fee paid in the last 3 months can be refunded on form EX160.

Legal aid is narrower. It may cover advice on finances, children or divorce where there has been an abusive relationship, and it covers family mediation, but the divorce and the money are otherwise out of scope. The criteria for legal aid decide which side of that line a case falls on.

Enforcement, court searches and challenging your solicitor’s bill

A few fees arrive long after everyone stops counting, from the same EX50 schedule as the £628.

Later step	Fee
Attachment of earnings order	£39
Charging order	£44
Bailiff service	£47
Judgment summons	£85
Third-party debt order	£90
Search of the national central index of decrees absolute and final orders	£89

Challenging your own solicitor’s bill has a price too. A hearing date for assessment under Part 3 of the Solicitors Act 1974 costs £335 where the costs claimed are up to £15,000, rising to £1,005 up to £100,000 and £5,600 above £500,000.

Divorce costs in Scotland

Scotland is cheaper at the bottom end and structured differently. Fees come from the Sheriff Court Fees Order 2026 and the Court of Session etc. Fees Order 2026, both in force from 1 April 2026.

Sheriff court step	Fee
Simplified divorce or dissolution application	£156
Initial writ in an ordinary divorce	£191
Service by sheriff officer in a simplified divorce	£15 plus the officer’s own fee
Lodging affidavits in an undefended ordinary divorce	£82
Each day or part day of proof, debate or hearing	£291

Court of Session step	Fee
Simplified divorce or dissolution application	£162
Writ originating another family action	£213
Extract decree	£74

Both principal sheriff court fees cover the extract decree, and a simplified Scottish divorce costs a quarter of the English application fee. It is open only where the ground is separation or an interim gender recognition certificate, there are no children of the marriage under 16, nothing financial to sort out, and nothing else under way that might end the marriage. The affidavit is sworn free before a Justice of the Peace.

There is no Help with Fees scheme. Exemption sits in the fee orders themselves, on the income-related benefits and recent Scottish Welfare Fund assistance, plus Personal Independence Payment or Adult Disability Payment where gross annual income is £26,437 or less. Two exemptions are divorce-specific, one for civil legal aid in the matter and one for a simplified applicant receiving advice and assistance from a solicitor.

There is also no consent order and no £62. Where the parties agree, a solicitor draws a minute of agreement and registers it in the Books of Council and Session, binding and enforceable like a court order without going near a court fee. Scottish civil legal aid names divorce in its own list of civil cases, which English legal aid does not fund outside abuse cases. Firms answer to the Law Society of Scotland, and service complaints go to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

Divorce costs in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland charges three fees where England and Wales charges one, and it is the most expensive of the three jurisdictions.

Northern Irish court step	Fee
Sealing a petition, High Court or County Court	£326
Filing an answer or reply	£163
Personal application fee for a matrimonial interview	£81
Entering or setting down for trial	£407 County Court, £488 High Court
Notice of application for ancillary relief	£407 County Court, £488 High Court
Certificate of decree absolute	£123

Those figures come from the Department of Justice family proceedings fee schedule, in force from 1 April 2026. The three unavoidable ones come to £856 in the County Court, or £937 in the High Court, before ancillary relief and before any solicitor.

The vocabulary is the pre-2022 English vocabulary, and so is the law. There is a petitioner, a petition lodged in the Matrimonial Office, and a decree nisi and decree absolute at least six weeks and one day apart. Exemption and remission on form ER1 replaces Help with Fees, with six months to reclaim a fee already paid, and legal advice and assistance covers divorce with a client contribution capped at £134 paid to the solicitor. Firms are regulated by the Law Society of Northern Ireland.