Utah Divorce Filing Fee

We all know Utah divorces cost. If you want to hire an attorney, that will cost — although not as much as you might think. (For a comparison of divorce costs compared to maintaining a car for one year, click here.) Another cost consideration is the filing fee for divorce.

During the Great Recession, the Court dramatically increased its filing fee for civil cases. As it stands now, the filing fee for a divorce in Utah is $310. That’s not all though, you also have to pay $8 to file a divorce certificate with the Utah Department of Vital Records. That $8 is paid to the Court, so the total is really $318.

There are also costs associated with service. See, once you file your initial divorce documents with the Court, you have to have someone serve your soon-to-be ex with those documents. The Utah Rules of Civil Procedure specify you can’t do that personally (too much room for monkey business), so you should have a professional process server do it. That might be a constable with the sheriff’s office, or a company that serves these sort of documents regularly. Either way, the cost will likely range from $15 to $30.

All told, the Utah divorce filing fee and service costs average around $350.

(Note: If you hire an attorney to help you with your divorce, this $350 will probably come out of your retainer.)