New York Divorce Papers: Every Form Your Uncontested Case Needs

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

Type "divorce papers NY" into a search bar and the results make it sound like the paperwork is a product only a company can sell you. It isn't. Every document a New York Supreme Court expects in an uncontested case is a public form published by the Unified Court System, free to download the day you decide to look. What actually holds a self-filed New York case up is rarely the price of a blank PDF. It's picking the right combination of forms for a specific household, getting the settlement agreement right, and keeping the same names, county, and index number consistent across a packet that can run to fifteen documents or more.

This guide names the real New York divorce papers an agreed case files, what each one does, and where it comes from. For the money side, see our New York divorce cost breakdown, and for the filing mechanics themselves, our New York filing guide.

The core papers, form by form

An uncontested New York divorce with no children and no unusual complications still runs on more paper than most states, because the packet documents each stage of the case on its own form rather than folding everything into one petition and one decree. Here's the backbone every standard-track case files, grouped by what each stage accomplishes.

Nearly all of these ship as real, fillable PDFs rather than scans you're expected to print and hand-letter. Where the Unified Court System's own download was a flat, unfillable image, ours has been given a genuine field layer so it opens and completes the same way the handful of forms the court already made fillable do. The full list, and which forms only apply once children or support are in the picture, comes from the Unified Court System's own Uncontested Divorce packet page, the source we build this list from.

Two rows in that table hide a choice, not an extra document. A case starts with either the Summons with Notice or the Summons paired with the Verified Complaint, never both. And it brings the defendant in with either the Affirmation of Service or the Affirmation of Defendant, depending on how cooperative your spouse is willing to be. Everything else on the list applies to every standard-track case.

Starting the case: Summons with Notice or Summons and Complaint

Every New York divorce begins the same way: the plaintiff files one of two starting documents with the County Clerk. Picking between them is the first real decision in the case, and it's worth understanding both routes before you file either one.

The Summons with Notice (UD-1) is the shorter route. It states, in a page of notice language, the type of action, the relief being asked for, and enough about the case to put your spouse on notice that a divorce has started, without laying out the full facts. If your spouse later wants the details, they can demand a copy of the complaint, and the plaintiff then has 20 days to serve one.

The Summons (UD-1a) paired with the Verified Complaint (UD-2) is the fuller route. The complaint itself pleads residency, the no-fault ground, the marriage facts, the children if there are any, both spouses' addresses and health coverage, and the relief being asked for, all in one sworn document served at the outset instead of held back. Most agreed cases use this pairing because it gets every fact on the table the first time, with nothing left to demand later.

Neither starting document is notarized. Both close with a plain affirmation under penalty of perjury rather than a notary's jurat, a distinction that runs through most of the New York packet since a 2024 change to CPLR 2106 let matrimonial filers affirm instead of swear their papers. A handful of forms, covered further down, still need a notary. Most don't.

Proving your case without a courtroom appearance

New York finalizes an uncontested divorce on the papers. There's no hearing where you stand before a judge and answer questions, the way some states require. Instead, three affirmations do that work on paper, and it's worth knowing what each one is actually saying.

The Sworn Affirmation of Plaintiff (UD-6) is the plaintiff's own testimony, filed instead of appearing in court. It restates residency, the no-fault ground, the marriage and the children, both parties' health coverage, how the economic issues were resolved, and a few background facts the court checks in every matrimonial case. The Affirmation of Defendant (UD-7) is its counterpart when your spouse cooperates: they sign to admit service, waive the response window, and consent to the case moving straight to the uncontested calendar. And the Affirmation of Regularity (UD-5) ties the two together, telling the court how the case was started, how the defendant responded, and asking for the matter to be placed on the undefended matrimonial calendar.

All three used to be called affidavits and needed a notary. Since a 2024 CPLR change, all three are affirmed under penalty of perjury on a plain signature line instead, so older guidance may still say "affidavit" where the current form says "affirmation." One document in the packet genuinely still needs a notary, covered in the settlement section below, not here.

If you have children together

Children under 18 add a layer of worksheets and disclosures on top of the core packet, built around New York's Child Support Standards Act. The Child Support Worksheet computes guideline support from both parents' incomes, paired with the state's own Child Support Standards Chart, which prints the percentages and income caps the calculation runs on. The RJI Addendum adds a data sheet of both parents' names, addresses, and the children themselves to the Request for Judicial Intervention. And the Child Support Summary Form, a statistics-only filing that never enters the case file, goes to the court's own research office whenever the judgment carries a support provision.

If support will run through the county's Support Collection Unit rather than paid directly between the two of you, an information sheet and an enrollment form go in as well, and if the children stay on a parent's group health plan after the divorce, a medical child support order keeps that coverage in place. None of this changes which starting documents you file, it layers onto the same packet. For the full breakdown of what changes and why, see our guide to a New York divorce with children.

Filing together: the Joint Divorce Packet

New York runs a second, separate path for couples who already agree on everything: the statewide Uncontested Joint Divorce program. Instead of one spouse filing against the other, both of you sign and file one packet together, as Spouse 1 and Spouse 2, and because nobody is suing anybody there's no summons and no service step at all. Court materials put it plainly: this route is faster because you don't have to prove the grounds and because you file together.

The joint packet replaces most of the standard-track forms with its own bundle, one version for couples without children and a longer one for couples with children, plus the Request for Judicial Intervention, the Certificate of Dissolution, and the same support paperwork the standard track uses. The one page inside it that genuinely needs a notary is the Joint Affirmation of Facts and Agreement, its own combined settlement and testimony document. Details and eligibility live on the court's Uncontested Joint Divorce page. It's only available on the no-fault ground, and it isn't an option once a summons has already been filed, so weigh it before you start, not partway through.

The settlement agreement New York requires

New York's no-fault ground carries a condition most states don't attach to theirs. Under DRL 170(7), a judge cannot sign the judgment until property, debt, spousal maintenance, child support, counsel fees, and any custody and visitation terms are resolved, either by the parties or by the court. In an agreed case, that resolution is a written settlement agreement, and it is the real center of a New York uncontested divorce, not a side document.

The Unified Court System doesn't publish a standard settlement agreement form the way it publishes the UD-series, so it has to be drafted to cover marital property, debts, maintenance, custody and parenting time, child support, fees, a former surname if either spouse wants one restored, and the health-insurance notice New York requires be attached to it. Where retirement accounts are part of the split, dividing a 401(k) or pension typically needs its own separate order matched to that specific plan, drafted apart from the rest of the packet the same way an attorney would handle it, since no general-purpose form can cover every plan's own rules.

Unlike the affirmations covered above, the settlement agreement genuinely has to be signed before a notary, the same formality New York requires for a deed, because DRL 236(B)(3) treats a matrimonial agreement as needing that level of acknowledgment. It's the one signing appointment an otherwise notary-light New York packet actually requires. The health-insurance notice that rides along with it closes with the newer plain affirmation instead, so that one page doesn't need the same trip.

Grounds and the settlement precondition: Domestic Relations Law Section 170, the statute behind New York's no-fault ground.

The index number, the calendar fees, and the fee waiver

New York divorce papers cost nothing to download. Filing them does not. Unlike most states, where the county clerk sets its own number, New York's core fees are set by state law and identical in all 62 counties: $210 buys the index number that opens your case, and roughly $125 more, split between the Request for Judicial Intervention and the Note of Issue, puts the case on the calendar. Budget at least $335 in court fees for a straightforward uncontested case, on top of small extras like filing your settlement agreement and a certified copy of the judgment once it's signed. The full schedule is printed in the court's own Uncontested Divorce instructions.

Filers who can't cover that get a real alternative: a sworn Affirmation in Support of Application for Waiver of Court Costs, Fees, and Expenses, paired with a proposed Order the judge signs if it's granted and a short Affirmation of Service proving the county attorney was notified. Together the three ask a judge to waive the index number, the calendar fees, and a certified copy, essentially the whole $335 core. It's free to apply in its own right, and where a case's answers suggest someone may qualify, FormsPal prepares the full three-document set as part of the packet. For the fuller cost picture, see our New York divorce cost guide or run the divorce cost calculator with New York preselected.

How the papers reach the County Clerk

Your starting documents go to the Supreme Court, County Clerk's Office in a county where you, your spouse, or a minor child of the marriage lives. You buy the index number first, and that number goes on every page of the packet from that point forward. From there the response window runs if your spouse is served, the calendar papers go in once you're ready, and a judge reviews the Findings and the proposed Judgment before signing. Some counties accept matrimonial filings electronically through NYSCEF by consent, optional for filers without a lawyer, and paper filing at the counter works everywhere. Our New York filing guide walks through each stage in county-level detail.

Blank forms or prepared forms

It's worth saying plainly: filling out the New York divorce papers yourself, for free, is a legitimate way to get divorced. The Supreme Court expects self-represented filers, the packet comes with a full instruction booklet, and nothing about doing it by hand disqualifies a case. The trade is your own time against the length of the packet and the risk that a clerk sends something back over a detail that doesn't match from one form to the next.

Nobody needs to pay for access to these forms, so that is not what a service like FormsPal charges for. The paid part is the assembly: one questionnaire feeding the right UD forms and the settlement agreement New York's own law makes a precondition, every name, date, and county matching from the first page to the last, so the packet survives the clerk's review the first time. That runs a flat $69 for the completed documents alone or $199 with support, and it never includes the court's own fees, which go to the County Clerk directly. For a walk through what an agreed case looks like start to finish, see our uncontested New York divorce guide.

All of the above assumes agreement, and in New York that assumption does real work: the no-fault ground itself requires every economic and custody issue to be resolved before the judgment can be entered, so an open dispute doesn't just slow the packet down, it takes the case off the uncontested calendar entirely. At that point a judge decides what the two of you could not, and a family law attorney, not a form, is what protects your side of it. The free packet and FormsPal's New York service are both built for the agreed case only, which is the honest reason this guide never pretends otherwise.

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