# Texas divorce residency requirements and who can file

> Texas divorce residency rules: six months in the state, 90 days in the county. Who qualifies, which county to file in, and what to do if you moved recently.

Before a Texas court will touch your marriage, it has to have the authority to end it. That authority comes from residency, and the rule is short enough to read in one breath and strict enough to get a case thrown out over a calendar week.

You only need one of you to qualify. Not both. That single word does more work than anything else in this chapter.

## How long do you have to live in Texas to file for divorce?

Six months in the state, 90 days in the county where you file. [Family Code section 6.301](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.6.htm) says a divorce suit may not be maintained unless, at the time the suit is filed, either the petitioner or the respondent has been a domiciliary of Texas for the preceding six-month period and a resident of the county in which the suit is filed for the preceding 90-day period.

Two details people get wrong:

- **Either spouse counts.** If you moved to Houston last month but your spouse has lived in Harris County for years, Harris County works. The statute does not care which of you satisfies it.
- **The clock runs backward from the filing date.** "Preceding" means the six months and the 90 days have to be behind you when the petition hits the clerk, not accumulating while the case is pending.

### What does domiciled in Texas actually mean?

Domicile is physical presence plus the intention to stay. A lease and a job in Dallas point to domicile. A short work assignment while your house, your voter registration, and your family stay in Oklahoma points the other way.

Courts look at the ordinary evidence: where you work, where your children go to school, where your mail and your driver's license go, where you vote, where your bank accounts are. No single item settles it. The weight of them together does.

## Can you file for divorce in Texas if your spouse lives in another state?

Yes, and Texas wrote a section specifically for it. Under [Family Code section 6.302](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.6.htm), if one spouse has been a Texas domiciliary for at least the last six months, the spouse living in another state or another country may file for divorce in the county where the Texas spouse lives.

Filing is only half the problem. Ending the marriage is one thing, and getting orders about property, support, and children against someone who lives elsewhere is another, because that takes personal jurisdiction over them. A Texas court can reach a nonresident spouse in several situations, including when Texas was the last marital residence and the suit is filed within two years of the day that residence ended.

If your spouse has left the state and taken the money with them, read the chapter on [financial disclosure and discovery](https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/texas/financial-disclosure-and-discovery) early. Reaching out-of-state accounts is a discovery problem before it is a jurisdiction problem.

## How do residency rules work for military families in Texas?

Military service does not cost you your Texas residency. [Family Code section 6.303](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.6.htm) says time spent by a Texas domiciliary outside the state, or outside their home county, while serving in the armed forces or other service of the United States or of Texas counts as residence in Texas and in that county. The same is true for a spouse who went with them.

The reverse case is covered too. A person who was never a Texas resident but has been stationed at Texas military installations for at least the last six months, and at an installation in a particular county for at least the last 90 days, is treated as a Texas domiciliary and a resident of that county for filing purposes.

## Which Texas county should you file your divorce in?

File in a county where one of you meets the 90-day rule. When both of you qualify in different counties, either works, and the first petition filed usually sets where the case lives.

County choice is not cosmetic. Filing fees are set locally and vary by hundreds of dollars, local rules differ on everything from standing orders to mediation deadlines, and the size of the docket decides how long you wait for a contested hearing. The [filing guide](https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/texas/filing-guide) walks through what your clerk will want and what it costs.

## What if you have not lived in Texas long enough yet?

You have a few honest options, and none of them involve fudging the petition.

- **Wait it out.** If you are a few weeks short, use the time to pull statements, tax returns, and account numbers together. That work has to happen anyway.
- **File where you actually qualify.** If you just left another state where you lived for years, that state may still be open to you, and its residency rule may be shorter.
- **Check whether the 90-day county clock is the only problem.** If you have been in Texas over six months but only recently moved counties, the county you left may still be a valid place to file.

Filing before you qualify is not a technicality a judge waves off. The other side can raise it, and a case can be dismissed after you have paid the fee and lost months.

## Do you need a marriage license to get divorced in Texas?

Not necessarily, because Texas recognizes informal marriage, which most people call common law marriage. Under [Family Code section 2.401](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.2.htm), an informal marriage can be proved either by a signed declaration of informal marriage or by evidence that the couple agreed to be married, then lived together in Texas as spouses and represented to other people that they were married.

Two things follow from that.

- **An informal marriage ends the same way a licensed one does.** There is no informal divorce. You file a petition and get a decree, with the same property and support rules.
- **There is a two-year clock on proving it.** If nobody starts a proceeding before the second anniversary of the date the couple separated and stopped living together, the law rebuttably presumes they never agreed to be married at all.

That presumption cuts both ways. It protects someone from a stale claim, and it can cost a real partner the community property they helped build if they sit on it too long.

## What do you need to gather before you file for divorce in Texas?

Nothing on this list is required to open the case, and all of it is required to finish one. Start now, while you still have access.

- Two to three years of tax returns, including all schedules and any K-1s
- Statements for every bank, credit card, and brokerage account, in either name
- Retirement and pension statements, plus plan documents for anything with a survivor benefit
- Deeds, mortgage statements, and closing documents for real property
- Titles for vehicles, trailers, and equipment
- Business records if either of you owns any part of a company
- Pay stubs going back at least a year, so bonuses and commissions are visible

Texas gives you no automatic exchange of any of this. What the other side produces depends on what you know to ask for, which is covered in the discovery chapter. The [community property chapter](https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/texas/community-property-division) explains why documents from before the marriage matter as much as current ones.

## What comes next after you meet the requirements?

Once residency is settled, the sequence is the same in every Texas county:

1. File the Original Petition for Divorce and pay the clerk, or file a Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs
2. Get citation issued and serve your spouse, or have them sign a waiver
3. Your spouse answers by 10:00 a.m. on the Monday after 20 days
4. Temporary orders, if either of you needs the court to set rules for the months ahead
5. Discovery, mediation, and either an agreed decree or a trial
6. A prove-up or a trial, no earlier than the 60th day after filing

Source: https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/texas/filing-requirements