Reviewed July 2026
Filing for Divorce in Texas
A plain-language look at how divorce works under Texas law: who can file, how long it takes, what it costs, and where Texas's own court forms and self-help resources are.
Virdix's document-preparation product currently prepares divorce paperwork for California cases only. This page explains how the process works under Texas law, using Texas's own court forms and self-help resources, for people researching before they file. It is not legal advice, and Virdix does not prepare or file Texas divorce paperwork. See how Virdix works for California divorces.
Texas is a genuine procedural outlier among the states in this batch. It has no standardized, numbered state petition form the way California has FL-100 or Florida has 12.901(a)/(b), the 'Original Petition for Divorce' is a drafted pleading, and the closest thing to a numbered form (TexasLawHelp's FM-DivA-100/FM-DivD-100) is a legal-aid organization's own internal kit-numbering scheme, not a state-issued form number. Filing fees are set by each of the state's 254 county district clerks individually rather than by statute, so there is no statewide dollar figure to publish; Travis County's confirmed $350 base fee (effective for new cases filed on or after January 1, 2026) illustrates the range but should not be read as representative statewide. E-filing is split by filer type rather than by county: it is mandatory for attorneys statewide through eFileTexas.gov, but optional (encouraged, not required) for self-represented filers, who can still choose to file on paper with their county clerk. Because the state judiciary publishes no official numbered divorce petition, the self-help forms Texans actually use come from TexasLawHelp.org, a legal-aid nonprofit, rather than from a state judiciary forms portal, the fee-waiver affidavit is the one piece of this process the Texas Judicial Branch does publish directly as an official statewide form, under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 145.
Grounds for divorce in Texas
No-fault grounds
- Insupportability (Fam. Code § 6.001), the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship, with no reasonable expectation of reconciliation; no proof of specific wrongdoing required
Fault-based grounds
- Cruelty (§ 6.002)
- Adultery (§ 6.003)
- Conviction of a felony (§ 6.004)
- Abandonment (§ 6.005)
- Living apart at least 3 years (§ 6.006)
- Confinement in a mental hospital (§ 6.007)
Source: texas.public.law
Who can file: residency rules
Either spouse must have been a domiciliary of Texas for the preceding 6-month period AND a resident of the specific county where the suit is filed for the preceding 90-day period. Both the statewide and the county-level residency requirements must be satisfied before the case can be filed; this is a two-tier requirement, not just a single statewide rule.
Tex. Fam. Code § 6.301
Source: texas.public.law
How long it takes
60 days from the date the petition is filed; the court may not grant the divorce before the 60th day. Two family-violence exceptions waive the waiting period: (1) the respondent has a final conviction for, or received deferred adjudication for, an offense involving family violence against the petitioner or a household member, or (2) the petitioner has an active protective order or magistrate's emergency protection order against the respondent for family violence during the marriage.
Tex. Fam. Code § 6.702
Source: texas.public.law
That figure is the statutory floor, not a promise. Service, exchanging financial disclosures, and the court's own hearing calendar routinely add time on top of it, and a contested case takes longer than an uncontested one regardless of the minimum. California, by comparison, requires a mandatory six month waiting period from the date of service.
Cost and filing fees
Texas has no statewide divorce filing fee, filing fees for an Original Petition for Divorce are set at the county/district-clerk level, not by state statute. Example sourced from Travis County: as of new cases filed on or after January 1, 2026, the District Clerk's total base filing fee for an original petition is $350.00 (this is Travis County's general civil/family original-petition base fee, not a divorce-specific line item; confirm the current amount and any case-specific add-on fees directly with the filing county's district clerk). TexasLawHelp.org, the state's recognized self-help legal-aid source, tells filers plainly: fees vary by county, and to contact the district clerk in the filing county to learn the current fee.
Source: traviscountytx.gov
California's own statewide filing fee is generally $435 to $450 statewide, with a fee waiver available for those who qualify.
Divorce forms and papers
The petition
No standardized, state-issued numbered petition form exists in Texas. The pleading that starts a divorce case is called the 'Original Petition for Divorce,' a term used throughout the Family Code and by the courts, but it is drafted as an attorney-style pleading rather than filled in on a Judicial-Council-style numbered form. TexasLawHelp.org (a legal-aid nonprofit, not a state judiciary source) publishes its own self-help kit versions of this pleading under its own internal kit-numbering convention (e.g., FM-DivA-100 for opposite-sex marriages, FM-DivD-100 for same-sex marriages) so users can track the kit's own document set, those numbers are TexasLawHelp's organizing scheme, not an official Texas court form number, and no equivalent numbered form is issued by the state judiciary itself.
Source: texaslawhelp.org
Fee waiver
Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs (or an Appeal Bond), a bilingual (English/Spanish) statewide form published by the Texas Judicial Branch under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 145, available directly from txcourts.gov/tjb.texas.gov. Unlike the petition itself, this fee-waiver affidavit IS an official, standardized, state-judiciary-published form, not a legal-aid-only document.
Source: tjb.texas.gov
Texas publishes fillable forms for this process. IMPORTANT SOURCING NOTE: These fillable divorce petition kits are published by TexasLawHelp.org, a legal-aid organization (a project of Texas Legal Services Center), not by the Texas Judicial Branch or Office of Court Administration. This is used here specifically because Texas is the exception described in the sourcing rules: the state judiciary itself does not publish a numbered, fillable statewide divorce petition form the way California or Florida do, so the recognized self-help source is the legal-aid sector, not a state forms portal. https://texaslawhelp.org/guide/i-need-a-divorce-we-do-not-have-minor-children and https://texaslawhelp.org/guide/i-need-a-divorce-we-have-children-under-18
California uses standardized Judicial Council forms, starting with the Petition (Form FL-100), across every county. See California's own divorce forms.
Filing online
Mandatory for attorneys statewide: e-filing is required for attorneys filing civil, family, probate, or criminal cases in the Texas Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, Courts of Appeals, and all district and county courts, through the eFileTexas.gov portal. Optional (not required) for self-represented/non-attorney filers: eFileTexas.gov states non-attorney filers are 'not required' to e-file but are 'encouraged' to do so; participation and local practice can still vary court to court, and some Justice of the Peace courts permit e-filing only voluntarily.
Source: efiletexas.gov
Uncontested and simplified divorce
Texas does not have a separate statutory simplified or summary divorce track. An uncontested case still uses the standard process, it just moves faster because there is nothing to litigate.
Texas does not have a separate statutory summary/simplified dissolution track with its own eligibility caps (e.g., a short-marriage or low-asset threshold) distinct from a regular divorce. An uncontested, agreed divorce using the no-fault insupportability ground follows the same Family Code process as any other divorce; what changes is that both parties sign an agreed final decree, and the same 60-day waiting period and county-set filing fee still apply. TexasLawHelp's 'kits' streamline the paperwork for uncontested, no-real-property-dispute cases, but that is a self-help resource, not a distinct statutory simplified-procedure category.
Source: texaslawhelp.org
California's equivalent is uncontested divorce in California, which uses the same statewide forms as any other case but moves faster once both spouses agree on every term.
Filing without a lawyer
Texas allows self-represented filers, and most divorces filed in the state proceed this way. Because Virdix prepares paperwork for California cases only, a Texas filer handling their own case works directly from Texas's own forms and self-help materials rather than a Virdix-prepared packet. Texas's official self-help resources are the direct source for the current forms and instructions.
For how self-representation works in the state Virdix does serve, see divorce without a lawyer in California and DIY divorce vs. hiring a lawyer.
More about divorce in Texas
How property is divided
Community property. Texas is one of nine community-property states in the country. Family Code Sec. 7.001 requires the court to order a division of 'the estate of the parties' in a manner the court deems 'just and right,' having due regard for the rights of each party and any children, this just-and-right standard operates within Texas's community-property framework, distinguishing it from the equitable-distribution approach used in most other states.
Source: texas.public.law
California is the only state on this site with a full county-by-county breakdown. See how California's divorce process compares across its 58 counties.
This page is general information about Texas divorce procedure, not legal advice for your situation. Laws, fees, and forms change over time; confirm current details with Texas's own courts before relying on anything here. Virdix is not a law firm, is not licensed to practice law in Texas, and does not prepare or file Texas divorce paperwork. It is not a substitute for an attorney licensed in Texas.