How to file for divorce in Illinois, step by step

Illinois publishes a complete set of divorce forms, for free, that every court in the state is required to accept. That sounds unremarkable until you have tried to file in a state where each county invents its own paperwork. The Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice built these, and the current set was approved in March 2025.

How do you file for divorce in Illinois?

Four steps, and the court's own instruction packet lays them out in the same order:

1. Fill out and file a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, together with a Certificate of Dissolution of Marriage/Civil Union, with the circuit clerk in the county where you or your spouse lives

2. Notify your spouse by delivering a summons and a copy of the petition, or have your spouse sign and file an Appearance

3. Get a court date once your spouse responds, or file a Motion for Default if they do nothing within 30 days

4. Finish at a prove-up if you agree on everything, or at a trial if you do not

The petition has to be verified, which means you sign it under oath. That is a difference from ordinary civil pleading and it is easy to miss.

What forms do you need to file for divorce in Illinois?

There are two packets and you pick one. The dividing line is not whether you have children but whether you have children who need something from the court.

Use the Divorce No Children Under 18 set when you have no children together, or only adult children who do not need support for school or a disability. Use the Divorce With Children set when you have minor children, or adult children you are asking your spouse to help support because they are still in school or have a disability.

The no-children packet contains:

• Petition for Divorce, which asks the court for the divorce and gives the information the case needs to start

• Certificate of Dissolution of Marriage/Civil Union, an Illinois Department of Public Health form that records the divorce after it is final

• Divorce Summons, which tells your spouse what they have to do to take part

• Letter to the Sheriff, which is how you send the summons and petition out for service

• Judgment for Dissolution of Marriage/Civil Union, the final order the judge signs

• Certification of Agreement, which shows you and your spouse agreed on what goes in the judgment

The with-children packet adds a Parenting Plan, an Other Information about Children form, and a judgment form built to hold parenting and support terms. Several forms have "Additional" companions for cases with more children, more debts or more accounts than the main form has room for.

Two more forms show up in most cases even though they are not in either packet. The Financial Affidavit (Family and Divorce Cases) is required the moment anyone asks for temporary support, temporary maintenance or interim attorney fees. And an Appearance (Divorce) is what your spouse files, which is the one form to ask them for, because it makes service unnecessary.

What has to be in the petition?

Section 403(a) sets the minimum, and the statewide form walks you through all of it:

• Each party's age, occupation and residence, and how long each has lived in Illinois

• The date of the marriage and the place where it was registered

• Whether a dissolution petition is pending in any other county or state

• The names, ages and addresses of all living children of the marriage, and whether a spouse is pregnant

• Any arrangements already in place for support, allocation of parental responsibilities and maintenance

• The relief you are asking for

That third item is not filler. A praecipe for summons filed in one county is grounds for involuntary dismissal of a later petition filed in another, so the court wants to know whether somebody already started a case somewhere else.

How much does it cost to file for divorce in Illinois?

There is no statewide filing fee, and anyone who quotes you one number for the whole state is guessing.

Under section 27.1b of the Clerks of Courts Act, fees charged by circuit court clerks are set by each county board by ordinance or resolution, within caps the statute writes. For the Schedule 1 civil category, the filing fee may not exceed $371 in a county of 3,000,000 or more, which means Cook, and $321 in any other county. The appearance fee your spouse pays is capped at $235 in Cook and $196 elsewhere.

What that looks like in practice, from two counties that publish their numbers:

• Madison County charges $314 to file a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, and $189 for the other spouse's answer, a total of $503 between you

• Winnebago County charges $342 to file a dissolution with or without children, plus a $217 appearance fee, effective July 20, 2026

Budget somewhere around $300 to $400 to open the case in most counties, plus your spouse's appearance fee, plus the sheriff's service charge. Call your circuit clerk for the exact figure rather than trusting a number you read anywhere, including here.

A few other fees are set by statute rather than by the county. An alias summons, which is what the clerk issues when the first one goes stale, costs up to $6 in Cook and up to $5 elsewhere. A jury demand costs up to $212.50, which is academic in a divorce because there is no right to a jury on the issues in a dissolution case.

What if you cannot afford the filing fee?

File an Application for Waiver of Court Fees. It is a separate statewide form and the judge rules on it.

One trap: a waiver covers your filings, not your spouse's. If your spouse cannot pay their appearance fee, they have to apply for their own waiver. Some counties do not charge for an appearance filed at the same time as the case, so ask.

How do you e-file a divorce in Illinois?

Through eFileIL, using an e-filing service provider you create an account with. Electronic filing is the default in Illinois civil cases, and the court's instructions note that it works far better on a computer than on a phone or tablet.

You can file on paper if you qualify for an exemption. The categories are:

• People in prison or jail who do not have a lawyer

• People with a disability that keeps them from e-filing

• People without home internet or computer access for whom travel is hard

• People who have trouble reading, writing or speaking English

• People filing in a sensitive case, such as an order of protection

• People who tried to e-file and could not because the equipment or help they needed was not available

To claim one, file a Certification for Exemption from E-Filing with your other forms. If you do not have a computer, circuit clerk offices and public libraries have public machines you can use, and some courthouses have scanners so you can turn paper forms into files.

What should you do before you file for divorce in Illinois?

Two things, and neither is legal work.

Pull your financial records while you still have easy access to them. Once a case is filed and passwords start changing, the same statements take a subpoena and three months. What you want is the last three years of tax returns, recent pay stubs, and complete statements for every account either of you touches. The financial affidavit chapter explains what the court will eventually want and in what form.

Then work out roughly what you own and what is marital. Illinois presumes everything acquired during the marriage is marital and it takes clear and convincing evidence to move an asset out of that pile, so the classification argument is worth understanding before you commit to a position. The property division chapter covers how that sorting works.