How we research our guides
Divorce law is state law. Every state sets its own residency rule, waiting period, grounds, forms and fees, and many changed something in 2024, 2025 or 2026. This page explains where our information comes from and how the tools work.
Sources
Each state page is built from official sources only: the statutes on the state legislature's website, the state courts' self-help centers, official court forms and fee schedules, and the state child support agency. Law-firm and blog sites may help us find a citation, but we confirm every fact in official text. Each page lists its sources and when it was checked.
How we check
- Every state page is researched and then checked by a second, independent reviewer against the official text, with special care for residency periods, waiting periods, grounds, filing fees and answer deadlines.
- A state page is published only after that check. Until then, the state appears in our tables with a link to the court's own self-help page.
- Where we could not confirm something, we leave it out or say so on the page instead of guessing. Fees in particular change often and vary by county; always confirm with the court clerk.
The tools
The timeline estimator adds your state's waiting period to your filing date, or to the date your spouse was served when the rule counts from service. It computes a date only when the rule is one simple number of days or months counted from filing or service. Where the time depends on living apart, on children or on the kind of case, it shows the rule's own words instead. It never predicts how long a court will actually take.
The divorce checklist combines a standard list of documents with your state's forms, fee or fee waiver, service rule, parenting class, waiting period and name rule from our data. It is made on your device, and you can print it or download it as PDF, Word or text.
Report an error
Email us at [email protected] with a link to the official source and we'll check it.