Filing for Divorce in Georgia

At least six (6) months of Georgia residency immediately before filing, per O.C.G.A. § 19-5-2. Georgia's official complaint form gives three ways to meet this: (a) the filing spouse has lived in a specific Georgia county for at least 6 months; (b) the filing spouse is a Georgia resident who has been stationed at a military post in that county for at least 1 year; or (c) the filing spouse lives out of state but the other spouse has lived in a specific Georgia county for at least 6 months.

O.C.G.A. § 19-5-2

Source: fultonclerk.org

Minimum 31 days after the defendant is served (or signs an Acknowledgment of Service) before a divorce can be heard and finalized. Georgia's official uncontested-divorce packet implements this with a 'Consent to Trial 31 Days After Service' form, signed by both spouses, waiving their right to a jury trial and consenting to a hearing any time 31 days after service is perfected. The underlying grounds statute, O.C.G.A. § 19-5-3, separately bars a court from granting a no-fault divorce until at least 30 days have passed from the date of service.

O.C.G.A. § 19-5-3

Source: southernjudicialcircuit.com

Not set statewide, Georgia divorce filing fees are set at the county Superior Court / Clerk level, not by state statute. Confirmed current representative examples: Cobb County Superior Court $218.00 (in effect since 1/1/2020, listed under 'General Civil including Adoptions, Divorces, and Name Changes'); DeKalb County Superior Court $217.00 (effective 10/10/2025, reflecting a fee increase tied to SB 322's amendment of O.C.G.A. § 47-16-61 on 7/1/2024). Expect roughly $200-$220 in most counties, but readers must confirm the exact current fee with their own county Superior Court Clerk.

Georgia does not use a statewide numbered form system (unlike, e.g., California's numbered Judicial Council forms). The official document is named 'Complaint for Divorce,' published by Georgia's self-help site in separate 'Divorce Without Minor Children' and 'Divorce with Minor Children' versions, alongside a companion 'Answer and Counterclaim for Divorce.' No form number is assigned. County Superior Courts and judicial circuits (e.g., the Southern Judicial Circuit) also publish their own county/circuit-specific versions of the same named 'Complaint for Divorce' document for use where a county has no packet of its own.

Source: georgiacourts.gov

Affidavit of Poverty, the fee-waiver document listed as a required checklist item on Georgia's official statewide self-help divorce instructions, used to ask the court to waive filing fees. Some county Superior Courts publish their own versions of this affidavit under close variants of the same name (e.g., 'Poverty Affidavit').

Source: assets.georgiacourts.gov

County-by-county patchwork, not a single mandatory statewide system. Georgia Superior Courts use up to three different e-filing platforms (PeachCourt, Odyssey eFileGA/Tyler Technologies, and GreenFiling/InfoTrack), and georgiacourts.gov's own e-filing status chart shows voluntary-to-mandatory adoption dates that vary court by court, under Georgia Supreme Court e-filing rules adopted December 7, 2018. Individual courts set their own mandatory dates, e.g., McDuffie County Superior Court became mandatory for civil actions (including divorce) on January 1, 2019. Statewide mandatory e-filing generally targets attorneys (per O.C.G.A. § 15-6-11(b)(1) as applied county by county); Georgia's statewide page does not state a uniform rule for pro se filers, so self-represented divorce filers should confirm current e-filing status and any paper-filing option with their specific county Superior Court Clerk.

Source: georgiacourts.gov

How property is divided

Equitable distribution, not community property. Georgia's own official Settlement Agreement template for uncontested divorces frames property division in these terms, asking the court to adopt 'an equitable division of property and debts.'

Source: southernjudicialcircuit.com

Court structure

Georgia has no unified statewide family court. Divorce cases are filed in the Superior Court of the county where the plaintiff or defendant resides. Georgia's Superior Courts are organized into county-based judicial circuits (e.g., the Southern Judicial Circuit spans several south Georgia counties and publishes shared self-help forms that counties without their own packets are directed to use). This county/circuit structure is the direct cause of the fee, form, and e-filing variation documented in this file: procedure is set locally by each Superior Court and its elected Clerk, not by a single statewide family-court administrator.

Source: georgiacourts.gov

Serving the other spouse

The defendant must be formally served (by sheriff, or by a private process server) or sign an Acknowledgment of Service waiving formal service. DeKalb County's official fee schedule lists sheriff service at $50 per service and private process server at $217 per service. Once served, Georgia's standard Summons form (used statewide on official complaint packets) gives the defendant 30 days after service, exclusive of the day of service, to file an Answer or risk a default judgment.

Source: southernjudicialcircuit.com

Child support guideline

Income Shares model, confirmed still current post-SB 454. Confirmed directly via browser from the official Georgia Child Support Commission's (csc.georgiacourts.gov) own '2024 Updates to the Child Support Guidelines' page: SB 454 amended specific mechanics of the existing combined-income guideline system rather than replacing the underlying model. The changes are: (1) a new Basic Child Support Obligation (BCSO) Table with the combined-monthly-income vertical axis extended from $30,000 to $40,000, effective 7/1/2024; (2) a Veterans Affairs disability-benefit offset credit for the noncustodial parent's obligation; and (3) removal of the discretionary Parenting Time Deviation in favor of a formula-based Parenting Time Adjustment, effective 1/1/2026. The BCSO-Table mechanism itself (mapping combined parental income to a total support obligation, then dividing proportionally) is the structural signature of an Income Shares model; O.C.G.A. § 19-6-15 remains the statutory basis.

Source: csc.georgiacourts.gov

Parenting class requirement

Not confirmed either way from a primary source.

Cases involving minor children require a parenting/divorcing-parents seminar. Georgia's official statewide self-help checklist lists a 'Divorcing Parents Seminar Certificate' as a required filing item whenever there are minor children of the marriage, alongside a Parenting Plan and Child Support Worksheets. This research could not independently verify the exact underlying court rule citation (commonly referenced elsewhere as Uniform Superior Court Rule 24.9) against a primary Georgia court-rules source, so no rule number is asserted here.

Source: assets.georgiacourts.gov