How much does a divorce cost in the UK?
The short answer
In England and Wales the divorce itself costs £628: one court fee, paid to HMCTS when you apply. Everything above that is optional help. A DIY divorce with a DIY consent order comes to £690. Online services add £159 to £599. Solicitor fees start above that and have no ceiling.
What moves the number is not the divorce. It is the money. Ending the marriage is a form-filling exercise with a fixed price. Dividing the house and the pensions is where costs either stay near zero or run away from you.
Every route, side by side
This is the table we could not find anywhere else. Institutional sources give you the court fee and stop. Law firms price their own tier and leave the rest blank. Here is the whole range, cheapest first.
| Route | What you pay | What you get, and what you do not |
|---|---|---|
| Help with Fees, if you qualify | £0 to £628 | The same DIY divorce, with the court fee waived in part or in full. Single applicants with monthly income of £1,420 or less, or a couple on £2,130 or less, plus savings of £4,250 or less if you are 65 or under. You apply per court application, so it can cover the consent order fee too. |
| DIY divorce, nothing else | £628 | The marriage legally ended. You complete the online application yourself. Your financial claims against each other stay open, possibly for decades. This route is only finished business if you own nothing and owe nothing. |
| DIY divorce plus DIY consent order | £690 | The marriage ended and the money settled for good. £628 plus the £62 consent order fee. The cheapest genuinely complete divorce in England and Wales. You draft the order and Form D81 yourselves, and a judge can send either back. |
| Online divorce service | £179 to £499, plus £628 | Someone prepares and files the application and chases the deadlines. Divorce-Online charges £179 managed, £399 express, £499 for a solicitor-handled version. Most of these firms are not solicitors, and the cheap tiers do not touch your finances at all. |
| Online consent order service | £159 to £599, plus £62 | A drafted financial order, from a clean break upwards. Divorce-Online lists £159 for a clean break order, £269 for a financial consent order, £599 fully managed. Drafting is not advice: nobody at the cheap end is telling you whether the split is fair. |
| Fixed-fee solicitor, divorce only | £330 to £599 inc VAT, plus £628 | An SRA-regulated firm runs the divorce itself, start to finish. Howells quotes £399 plus VAT to apply and £275 plus VAT to respond. OLS Solicitors quotes £499 plus VAT. VAT and the court fee are extra at all three, and none of it covers the money side. |
| Solicitor on the money, by agreement | Quoted case by case | Advice on whether the deal is fair, then a properly drafted order. Firms quote after a consultation and the quote moves with pensions, a business, or any real disagreement. See our consent order guide for the route-by-route breakdown. |
| Contested financial proceedings | £321 court fee, plus legal costs with no ceiling | A judge decides the split because you cannot. The £321 is the Form A fee when the application is not by consent. It is the smallest number in this row by a wide margin. |
Read the table again and notice what you are actually buying as the price climbs. At £179 you are paying someone to do the typing. At £499 you are paying a regulated firm to be accountable for the typing. Past that, you are paying a qualified person to tell you whether the deal you have agreed is a good one. Those are three different products, and the middle one is the one people most often buy by mistake.
What the £628 court fee actually covers
It covers ending the marriage. That is the whole of it.
£628HMCTS court fee to end the marriage, whichever route you take. Checked on GOV.UK 17 August 2026.
You apply online or on form D8, HMCTS processes it, and after the statutory waiting periods you get a conditional order and then a final order, the thing that used to be called the decree absolute. At that point you are divorced, free to remarry, and no longer married for tax and inheritance purposes.
What you are not is financially separated. The divorce and the financial settlement are two different applications with two different fees, and finishing the first without the second is the single most expensive mistake on this page. Your ex can make a claim against your money years after the final order, and people do.
The fee went up on 13 July 2026, from £612 to £628, a 2.6% inflation rise applied across 170 court fees. Worth knowing because a lot of pages have not caught up. Howells' own fixed-fee page still quoted the older £593 figure when we checked it on 17 August 2026, and it is not the only one.
The thing that costs people the most: getting divorced without a consent order. It saves £62 today. It leaves your ex able to claim against a pension, an inheritance or a house you buy on your own in ten years' time. There is no time limit on those claims, and remarriage only closes some of them.
What is the cheapest way to get a divorce in the UK?
Apply yourself, online, and draft your own consent order. £690 all in, and £62 of that if you qualify for Help with Fees. Nothing legal is being skipped: the DIY route uses the same forms, the same court and the same judge as the £2,000 one.
The steps, in the order that keeps the cost down.
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Check Help with Fees before you pay anything
If you are single on a monthly income of £1,420 or less, or a couple on £2,130 or less, with savings of £4,250 or less and aged 65 or under, you may pay nothing. Add £425 to the income limit for each child aged 0 to 13, and £710 for each child of 14 or over. Apply first, because it is harder to get back afterwards, though refunds are possible within three months.
-
Apply for the divorce yourself
The online service walks you through it. £628. You do not need a solicitor to fill in a form that asks for your marriage certificate details and your ex's address.
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Agree the money in writing, with full disclosure
Everything: property, pensions, savings, debts, both ways. Our fair-split calculator gives you a plain-English picture of how a court tends to look at the numbers, and our settlement checklist covers what to gather. An agreement built on half the facts can be reopened.
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File the consent order after your conditional order
Form D81 plus the draft order plus £62. The timing matters: a judge cannot seal the financial order before the conditional order of divorce has been granted.
Two things genuinely worth paying for even on the cheap route. A one-off session with a solicitor to sanity-check an agreement you have already reached costs far less than full representation, and some firms offer a fixed-price advice hour. And mediation, if you are stuck on one point rather than at war. Citizens Advice notes that mediation costs vary by area and that some mediators charge according to income, so it is worth ringing round.
The cheap route is the right route when
- You broadly agree already, and neither of you is hiding anything
- Your finances are simple: one property or none, similar pensions, no business
- Nobody gave up a career for the children, so the earning capacity is roughly level
- You can both sit down with the same spreadsheet without it turning into a row
Paying more is the better buy when
- A pension is worth more than the house. This is common, and it is the asset DIY orders handle worst
- One of you built the finances and the other has never seen the statements
- There is a business, an inheritance, a trust, or anything overseas
- You are agreeing to less than half because you want it over with. That feeling is expensive later, and a sealed order has no appeal route
Three ways to pay less that most people miss
Help with Fees is the big one, and it is covered above because it comes first. These three sit behind it, and between them they are the difference between a divorce you can afford and one you put off for two years.
Legal aid, if you clear a low bar
Legal aid for the divorce itself is rare. Most people asking about cost will not get it, and it is kinder to say so than to send you through an eligibility checker for nothing.
The financial test is strict. You need a joint monthly income of £2,657 or less before tax and deductions, or a qualifying benefit. Assets above £8,000 usually rule you out, and that figure counts any equity in your home above £100,000, which is what catches most homeowners. A couple with a modest income and an ordinary amount of equity in a house will fail on capital while passing on income.
What legal aid does still reach is mediation. If you qualify, it covers the introductory meeting and the first session for both of you, further sessions for whoever qualifies, and a solicitor's help turning the agreement into a binding order. That is the useful part, because it puts the drafting inside the funded work rather than leaving you with an agreement and no order.
The route that changes the answer is domestic abuse. If you have experienced it, legal aid opens up for the finances and the children, and you need one piece of written evidence to unlock it. The accepted sources are broader than people expect: the police or CPS, a court finding, a doctor, nurse, midwife or social worker, a refuge manager, a MARAC, and in some cases a bank, an employer or a benefits provider. Get advice before you start collecting, because an adviser has to see the evidence before deciding. The means test still applies on top for most family matters, so evidence alone is not the whole answer.
The £500 mediation voucher, and the catch nobody mentions
The Family Mediation Voucher Scheme puts up to £500 towards mediation, it is funded by the Ministry of Justice, and it was confirmed again for the 2026-27 financial year. It is not means-tested, which makes it the rare bit of help that a middle-income couple can actually use.
Now the part that most pages leave out. The voucher is for a dispute about a child, or for a financial dispute where you are also in a dispute about a child. A purely financial disagreement between two divorcing adults with no child arrangements in issue does not qualify.
Worth being blunt about: plenty of divorce-cost pages tell readers to claim the £500 voucher towards splitting the money. If children are not part of your dispute, that advice is wrong and you will find out after you have booked the mediator. Check your eligibility with the mediator before the first session, not after.
Unbundled legal services, for the hour that actually matters
This is the one we would push hardest, and it is the least known. Unbundling means hiring a solicitor for a defined piece of work under a limited retainer rather than handing over the whole case. The Law Society publishes a practice note and a family-specific toolkit for it, so this is an established way of working, not a favour you are asking for.
In a divorce that usually means one of a short list: drafting or checking your consent order, advising on disclosure, reading an agreement you have already reached and telling you whether it is fair. You do the form-filling and the chasing. They do the judgement.
The honest downside is the same thing that makes it cheap. The solicitor is answerable for the task you bought and not for the case, so anything outside that scope is yours, including the things you did not know to ask about. Get the scope in writing, and ask directly what is not covered. If your finances are genuinely complicated, a limited retainer can leave you with a false sense of having been advised.
Used well, it puts a qualified opinion on the single decision that matters, the split itself, for a fraction of full representation. That is the best value on this page.
How much does a consent order cost on its own?
£62 to the court, if you are already going through or have been through a divorce. That is the fee for a financial order made by consent, and it is unchanged by how much money is involved: the same £62 whether you are splitting £20,000 or £2 million.
On top of that you pay for the drafting, if you want help with it. Divorce-Online lists £159 for a clean break order, £269 for a financial consent order and £599 for its fully managed version, checked on 17 August 2026. Solicitor drafting is quoted after a consultation.
Two distinctions worth holding on to. First, drafting is not advice, and most of the cheap online services are drafting businesses rather than regulated law firms. They will say so in the small print. Second, if you cannot agree and have to apply for a financial order that is not by consent, the court fee is £321 rather than £62, and the legal costs behind it are the ones with no ceiling. Our guide to consent orders goes through what a judge is actually checking.
What you get at each price point
The same document arrives at the court whichever route you take. What differs is who is accountable when it goes wrong, and whether anyone qualified has looked at the deal rather than the paperwork.
| What you get | DIY, court fee only | Online service, £159 to £599 | Fixed-fee solicitor, £330 to £599 inc VAT | Full solicitor, quoted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forms prepared and filed for you | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Deadlines chased on your behalf | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Done by someone SRA-regulated | n/a | Usually not | Yes | Yes |
| Professional indemnity insurance behind the work | n/a | Usually not | Yes | Yes |
| Anyone tells you whether the split is fair | No | No | Not in a divorce-only package | Yes |
| Pension sharing thought about properly | Down to you | Template wording | Usually a separate fee | Yes |
| Someone acts if the judge sends it back | No | Sometimes at extra cost | Usually included | Yes |
| Court fee included in the price | n/a | No | No | No |
| VAT included in the advertised price | n/a | Usually | Often not | Often not |
What solicitors charge, and when they earn it
Family solicitors mostly quote either a fixed fee for a defined job or an hourly rate for open-ended work. For the hourly end there is a useful public anchor: the guideline rates the courts use when assessing costs, in force from 1 January 2026. A solicitor of eight years' experience or more is put at £288 to £295 an hour outside London and £579 an hour in central London. A more junior solicitor sits between £200 and £305.
Those are the figures a judge treats as reasonable, not a price list, and family firms often charge under them for straightforward work. But they tell you what the meter looks like once a case stops being straightforward. Twenty hours of a senior solicitor's time outside London is £5,760 before VAT, and twenty hours is not a lot of hours in a contested case.
Here is our honest position on when the money is well spent. Not for the divorce. Ending the marriage is administration, and paying £500 for it buys you convenience rather than protection. The money is well spent on the settlement, and specifically on someone telling you whether what you have agreed is fair before it becomes permanent.
The clearest case is a pension. Pensions are routinely the largest asset in a marriage, they are the hardest to value, and a sharing order is not something to draft from a template. If either of you has a substantial pension, an hour of proper advice is the cheapest insurance on this page. See our guide to spousal maintenance for the other place where getting it wrong compounds quietly for years.
The costs that never make the headline
Every "divorce costs £X" figure you read online is the fee for one form. The bill people actually pay includes several things nobody advertises.
- VAT. Solicitors' fixed fees are usually advertised before VAT. £399 plus VAT is £478.80, and that 20% is not a rounding error on a £2,000 quote.
- Transferring the house. If one of you takes the property, HM Land Registry charges a fee to register the transfer: £20 to £140 through a conveyancer's portal, or £45 to £305 on paper, banded by value. Conveyancing costs sit on top of that.
- The mortgage. Releasing one party from a joint mortgage means a fresh affordability assessment, and possibly an early repayment charge if you remortgage mid-deal. This is frequently the real constraint on the whole settlement.
- Valuations. A property valuation, a business valuation, or an actuary's report on a pension are each separate professional fees, and in a contested case they are often ordered rather than optional.
- Amending a mistake. Getting an application changed after filing costs £61.
- Your own time. Not a fee, but a DIY divorce is a few evenings of careful reading, and it is fair to price that against a £179 managed service.
Common questions
Can I get a divorce for free in the UK?
Close to it. Help with Fees can waive the £628 court fee in full if you are on a low income with savings of £4,250 or less, and the same scheme can be applied to the £62 consent order fee. You still do the paperwork yourself. Refunds are possible for fees paid in the last three months.
Does the £628 include sorting out the money?
No. It ends the marriage and nothing else. Dividing property, savings and pensions is a separate application with a separate fee, £62 if you agree and £321 if you do not. A divorce without a financial order leaves both of you able to claim against the other later, with no time limit.
Who pays the court fee, and do I pay if my spouse applied?
The person making the application pays it. On a sole application the respondent pays HMCTS nothing to respond, though they may pay a solicitor if they instruct one: Howells advertises £275 plus VAT for that. If the fee itself is the problem, Help with Fees is applied for by whoever is making the application.
Is a cheap online divorce safe?
For the divorce itself, generally yes, because it is form-filling and the court checks the forms. The risk is what the cheap tiers exclude. Most are not solicitors, carry no professional indemnity insurance, and do not look at your finances at all. Check whether the provider is SRA-regulated before you assume otherwise.
Sources
Everything above leans on these. Primary sources where they exist.
- GOV.UK – Family court fees (EX50) – the £628 divorce fee, the £62 fee for a financial order by consent, the £321 fee for one that is not by consent, and the £61 amendment fee. Page last updated 13 July 2026. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Get a divorce: how to apply – the £628 application fee and how to pay it online or by post. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Apply for a consent order – the £62 court fee, and the Form A and Form D81 requirement. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Court and tribunal fees: updates from July 2026 – the 13 July 2026 rise from £612 to £628 and the 2.6% inflation uplift across 170 fees. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Get help paying court and tribunal fees – the £1,420 and £2,130 monthly income limits, the £4,250 savings limit, the per-child allowances and the three-month refund window. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Solicitors' guideline hourly rates – £288 to £579 for a Grade A solicitor and £200 to £305 for Grade C, in force from 1 January 2026. Checked 17 August 2026.
- HM Land Registry – registration services fees – Scale 2 transfer fees of £20 to £140 by portal and £45 to £305 on paper, in effect since 9 December 2024. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Citizens Advice – Using mediation to help you separate – that mediation costs vary by area, that some mediators charge according to income, and what legal aid covers. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Citizens Advice – Help with legal fees when you separate – legal aid eligibility for mediation, domestic abuse and homelessness cases, and free half-hour consultations. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Legal aid: financial eligibility – the £2,657 joint monthly income limit, the £8,000 assets limit, and the rule counting home equity above £100,000 as an asset. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Legal aid: domestic abuse – that written evidence of abuse is normally required, the accepted sources (police, courts, health professionals, refuge managers, MARAC, social services, banks, employers, benefits providers), and the advice to speak to an adviser before gathering it. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Legal Aid Agency – Evidence requirements for private family law matters – the requirement for one piece of written evidence of domestic abuse, guidance version 15, 15 June 2026. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Family Mediation Council – Family Mediation Voucher Scheme – the up-to-£500 contribution, and the eligibility limit to a dispute regarding a child, or a family financial dispute where a child dispute is also in issue. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Family Mediation Voucher Scheme – the scheme's continued Ministry of Justice funding, confirmed for the 2026-27 financial year. Checked 17 August 2026.
- The Law Society – Unbundling civil legal services – that unbundling is discrete legal assistance under a limited retainer rather than a full one, and that the scope must be made clear to the client. The Law Society also publishes an Unbundling Family Legal Services Toolkit. Checked 17 August 2026.
- MoneyHelper – How much does divorce or dissolution cost? – the government-backed guidance on divorce costs. Listed for readers; we could not load it on 17 August 2026, so no figure on this page comes from it.
- Provider pricing pages, all checked 17 August 2026: Divorce-Online (£179 to £499 divorce, £159 to £599 consent orders), OLS Solicitors (£499 plus VAT, SRA 628210), Howells Solicitors (£399 plus VAT to apply, £275 plus VAT to respond).