California Divorce Papers: Every Form Your Uncontested Case Needs

By the FormsPal Editorial Team · Updated September 2, 2026 · 13 min read

Search "divorce papers California" and the results make it sound like the paperwork itself is a product with a price tag. It isn't. Every form a California superior court expects to see in an uncontested dissolution is published by the Judicial Council, the state body that writes the rules every trial court in California follows, and every one of them is a free download. What actually slows a self-filed California case down is rarely the cost of the paper. It's the sheer number of forms, California requires a full financial disclosure in every case, agreed or not, and keeping the same names, county, and case details consistent across every page of a genuinely long packet.

This guide names the real California divorce papers an agreed case files, from the petition that opens the case to the judgment that ends it. For the money side, see our California divorce cost breakdown, and for the filing mechanics themselves, our California filing guide.

The core papers, form by form

An uncontested California divorce with no unusual complications runs on a longer stack of documents than people expect, mostly because the financial disclosure step applies to every case regardless of how cooperative the two of you are.

Every one of these ships as a real, fillable California divorce form PDF you complete on a screen, not a scanned image meant to be printed and hand-lettered. The courts.ca.gov PDFs open in any reader, and selfhelp.courts.ca.gov explains what each one is for in plain language before you ever open the file.

Form list and requirements: the California courts' self-help divorce forms page. Judicial Council forms are the FL-series documents every superior court in the state accepts, publicly published, no purchase or account required.

One line in that table hides a decision, not an extra document. Every case files one of two petitions, covered next, and every case ends with one judgment package, covered further down. What sits between them, the disclosure set, is genuinely required, every time, no matter how settled the two of you already are.

Two ways into the case: FL-100 or the joint petition

Unlike a lot of divorce paperwork, California doesn't split the petition by whether you have children. It splits it by how the case starts.

The joint petition, created by a 2026 law change, is the newer and often simpler route for a couple who already agree on the terms: you file one document together instead of one spouse opening the case and formally notifying the other. Either spouse can back out of the joint filing before judgment by filing a Notice of Revocation of Joint Petition (FL-720), at which point the case converts to the standard route. On the standard track, service happens one of two ways: your spouse signs a Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt (FL-117) confirming they got the papers by mail, or a process server hands them the documents in person and you file a Proof of Service of Summons (FL-115) with the court. A case uses one route or the other, never both, and if neither happens, formal service by a process server is the fallback. For how the six-month clock plays out day by day on each route, see our California divorce timeline guide.

The FL-100 petition, closely

Whichever route a case uses, the petition is what legally opens it and pleads the things every California court needs to see. Filed with the superior court, it starts the clock that decides how soon the marriage can legally end.

Residency comes first. At least one spouse has to have lived in California for six months and in the county where you're filing for three months, the threshold set by Family Code Section 2320. Next, the grounds. California pleads irreconcilable differences, the state's no-fault ground, meaning the marriage has broken down with no reasonable prospect of saving it and neither of you has to prove the other did anything wrong. That's Family Code Section 2310, and it's the only ground an uncontested filing needs. Then the marriage and separation dates, which anchor the six-month clock and the disclosure timeline. And finally, in general terms, how you're asking the court to divide community property and debts, and where you have children under 18, what you're asking for on custody, visitation, and support.

The petition also carries a smaller, easy to miss request: if you want a former name restored, you ask for it here, on the petition, rather than filing a separate case afterward.

Filing the petition, standard or joint, doesn't hand the filer more control over the outcome. It only opens the case and, on the standard track, sets whose name the Summons and its automatic restraining orders are issued under.

A narrower shortcut: summary dissolution

A small slice of couples qualify for an even shorter packet, the Joint Petition for Summary Dissolution (FL-800). The eligibility list is strict: married under five years, no children together and not pregnant, no real estate beyond a short lease, community debt under $7,000, and combined community and separate property under $57,000 each. Every spouse has to read the official Summary Dissolution Information booklet (FL-810) as a condition of using the shortcut, and either spouse can cancel the case during the six-month wait with a Notice of Revocation (FL-830). It ends with its own combined Judgment and Notice of Entry of Judgment (FL-825). Because the property and debt caps are low, most agreed couples with any real assets end up on the standard or joint petition track above even when they agree on everything.

The disclosure packet every case files

This step catches people who assume an agreed case skips the paperwork about money. It doesn't. California requires both spouses to exchange a full financial disclosure in every case, even one where you've already settled every term between yourselves.

The Declaration of Disclosure (FL-140) is the cover sheet for two attachments: the Schedule of Assets and Debts (FL-142), which itemizes what you own and owe, and the Income and Expense Declaration (FL-150), which lays out what you earn and spend. You give these directly to your spouse. FL-140 and FL-142 are served, not filed with the court. FL-150 is the one exception, it gets filed as well as served. Once you've both exchanged the full set, you file the Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure (FL-141) to prove the exchange happened, and the judge cannot sign your judgment without it on record.

Most agreed couples also sign the Stipulation and Waiver of Final Declaration of Disclosure (FL-144), which mutually waives the second, final round of disclosure once things are settled. The preliminary round above is never waivable, by either spouse, no matter how cooperative the case is.

If you have children together

Children under 18 add a handful of papers on top of the core packet, filed alongside the petition and the judgment rather than replacing anything. The Declaration Under UCCJEA (FL-105) is filed with the petition on both the standard and joint tracks, and covers where the children have lived for the past five years and whether any other custody case involving them exists anywhere. At judgment, the Child Custody and Visitation Attachment (FL-341) sets legal and physical custody along with the parenting schedule, and the Child Support Information and Order Attachment (FL-342) carries the guideline support calculation, built from both parents' incomes reported on FL-150. A Child Support Case Registry Form (FL-191) registers the order with the state, and where support is collected through a paycheck, an Income Withholding for Support (FL-195) goes to the paying parent's employer, unless both of you agree in writing to stay it. For the full breakdown of what changes and why, see our guide to a California divorce with children.

Two more papers show up only when specific facts call for them. Where the case involves a house, land, or another piece of real property, a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report and an interspousal transfer deed go through the county recorder rather than the court, and the deed is notarized, the only notarization anywhere in a California divorce packet. Where spousal support is part of the agreement, the Spousal, Partner, or Family Support Order Attachment (FL-343) records the terms at judgment. Where retirement accounts are being divided, a Qualified Domestic Relations Order handles a 401(k) or pension, and it isn't a Judicial Council form, because it has to be written to match that specific plan's own rules.

Finishing the case: the judgment package

An agreed California divorce ends on the papers, not in a courtroom. Once the six-month waiting period has run and your disclosures are on file, the judgment package goes in together: the Appearance, Stipulations, and Waivers (FL-130), where both spouses waive a trial and consent to the judge deciding from the record, the Declaration for Default or Uncontested Dissolution (FL-170), a sworn declaration stating the case is ready, and the Judgment (FL-180) itself, which the judge signs. Your Marital Settlement Agreement, the drafted contract covering property, debts, and support, attaches directly to the Judgment. Once signed, the court mails back a Notice of Entry of Judgment (FL-190), confirming the date your marriage legally ends.

None of these four documents need a notary. That's a real point of relief for a lot of filers: outside the optional real estate deed mentioned above, nothing in a California divorce packet requires you to find a notary at all.

Finalization process: the California courts' self-help guide to finishing an agreed divorce, and, for the joint petition route specifically, the courts' joint petition page.

The filing fee and the FW-001 fee waiver

California divorce forms cost nothing. Filing them does not. The statewide first-paper fee runs $435 to $450, with a handful of counties charging the higher end under a local surcharge, and it's the same fee whether you file the standard petition or the joint one. On the joint track, that's the only fee in the case. On the standard track, your spouse pays their own first-appearance fee if they file a separate Response, though a spouse who signs your settlement without filing one typically pays nothing.

Filers who can't cover that get a real out: the Request to Waive Court Fees (FW-001), a sworn form asking the court to waive the fee based on income, benefits, or hardship, paired with the Order on Court Fee Waiver (FW-003) the court fills in with its ruling. It's free to file in its own right, and each spouse can request it separately. For the fuller cost picture, including attorney rates for cases that don't fit the agreed path, see our California divorce cost guide or run the divorce cost calculator with California preselected.

Fee waiver eligibility: the California courts' fee waiver guide.

Blank forms or prepared forms

It's worth saying plainly: filling out the California divorce papers yourself, for free, is a legitimate way to get divorced. California courts expect people to represent themselves, the Judicial Council forms come with instructions, and nothing about doing it by hand disqualifies a case. The trade is your own time, spent across a genuinely long packet, against the risk of a clerk rejecting something over a detail that doesn't match from one form to the next.

Since the forms cost nothing, a service like FormsPal is charging for something else: the work of picking the right ones for your facts and filling them so that your name, your county, and every case detail read identically from the FL-100 to the FL-180, with the Marital Settlement Agreement drafted to match. The price for that is flat, $69 if you want the completed documents alone or $199 with support included, and it sits beside the court's filing fee rather than replacing it, since that fee is the court's and only ever goes to the court. For a walk through what an agreed case actually looks like start to finish, see our uncontested California divorce guide.

Everything above assumes the two of you agree. Once a real dispute is on the table, over the house, the retirement accounts, custody, or support, the forms don't change but their purpose does: a judge is now going to decide something the two of you couldn't, and a self-help packet has no way to argue your side of it. That is attorney territory, and the earlier you accept it the less the disagreement tends to cost. Blank forms and prepared forms alike are built for the agreed case, which is the only kind FormsPal's California service takes on.

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