California Divorce Checklist: Forms, Waiting Period, and QDRO

A California divorce checklist comes down to a predictable sequence: confirm residency, file three forms with a $435 fee, serve your spouse, exchange financial disclosures, wait out the mandatory six months, and submit the final judgment. The order matters, and so do the deadlines tucked inside it. Miss the 30-day response window, skip a disclosure, or overlook a retirement-plan order, and the case either stalls or produces a result you did not want.

Confirm You Meet the Residency Rule

Before filing anything, one spouse must have lived in California for the past six months and in the filing county for the past three.¹ The requirement attaches to the person filing the petition. If you are not there yet, you can file for legal separation now (no residency requirement) and convert the case to a divorce once you qualify.²

Check Whether You Qualify for Summary Dissolution

California offers a lighter joint-petition process called summary dissolution, filed on Form FL-800. The six-month waiting period still applies, but the paperwork is much shorter. You qualify only if every one of the following is true:²

Married five years or less from marriage to separation.
No children born or adopted during the marriage, and neither spouse is pregnant.
Neither spouse owns any interest in real estate.
Community property totals less than $57,000, and neither spouse has separate property over $57,000 (cars excluded).
Community debts total $7,000 or less (excluding cars).
Both spouses waive spousal support.
Both spouses agree on how to divide everything.

Miss any one of these and you use the standard process below.

File the Initial Forms and Pay the Fee

The standard case opens with three Judicial Council forms:³

Petition (Form FL-100), the formal request to end the marriage and the list of issues you want decided.
Summons (Form FL-110), which notifies your spouse of the case and carries the automatic restraining orders on page 2.
UCCJEA Declaration (Form FL-105), required only if you have children under 18, to establish the court’s jurisdiction over custody.

File with the Superior Court clerk in the county where you meet residency. The fee is $435 in most counties, with a few charging slightly more because of local courthouse surcharges.⁴ If you cannot afford it, request a waiver on Form FW-001 at the same time you file.⁵ The clerk stamps your papers, assigns a case number, and hands back the copies you need for the next step.

Know What Filing Locks In Immediately

The automatic temporary restraining orders printed on page 2 of the Summons take effect the instant you file, and bind your spouse as soon as they are served. Both of you must follow them until the case ends or a judge changes them. They prohibit:⁶

Taking children out of California, or getting new or replacement passports for them, without written consent or a court order.
Canceling, cashing out, or changing beneficiaries on life, health, auto, or disability insurance covering either spouse or the children.
Transferring, hiding, or otherwise disposing of any property, community or separate, outside of normal living expenses and reasonable attorney fees.
Changing nonprobate transfers like revocable trusts or payable-on-death designations.

You also have to give the other spouse at least five business days’ notice before any extraordinary expenditure. Draining a joint account or dropping a spouse’s health coverage after filing is exactly the kind of move that produces sanctions, contempt findings, and a judge who is no longer inclined to see the property split your way.

Serve Your Spouse and Start the Clocks

Once filed, the stamped Petition and Summons have to be delivered to your spouse through service of process. You cannot do this yourself. Any adult who is not a party to the case must physically hand your spouse the papers. That person then completes and signs the Proof of Service of Summons (Form FL-115), which you file with the court.⁷

Service starts two clocks that shape the rest of the case: your spouse’s 30-day window to file a response, and the six-month statutory waiting period before the marriage can legally end.⁸

If Your Spouse Does Not Respond

If no Response (Form FL-120) comes in within 30 days of service, you can ask the court to enter a default. That means your spouse loses the right to participate, and the judge decides based on what you filed, which usually tracks what you asked for in the Petition.⁹

Default does not fast-forward the case. You still owe the court financial disclosures and the judgment paperwork, and the six-month wait still runs. If your spouse missed the deadline but you have not yet asked for the default, a late response may still be accepted, so acting quickly matters on both sides.

Exchange Financial Disclosures

California requires both spouses to lay out their full finances before a judge will sign a judgment. Family Code section 2100 treats this as a public-policy obligation the parties cannot agree to skip.¹⁰ Each spouse serves a Preliminary Declaration of Disclosure on the other, made up of:

Declaration of Disclosure (Form FL-140), the cover form.
Income and Expense Declaration (Form FL-150), with the past two years of tax returns attached.¹¹
Schedule of Assets and Debts (Form FL-142), an itemized list of everything owned and owed, community or separate.

The petitioner has 60 days from filing the petition to serve this package; the respondent has 60 days from filing the response.¹¹ The disclosures themselves are not filed with the court, but the proof of service (Form FL-141) is. A Final Declaration of Disclosure is also required before judgment, though both spouses can mutually waive it by stipulation.¹² The preliminary disclosure cannot be waived.

Concealment is punished hard. Under Family Code sections 1101 and 2107, a spouse who hides an asset can be ordered to give the other spouse 50 percent of it, or 100 percent plus attorney fees if the court finds fraud.

Attend Custody Mediation if Parenting Is Contested

If you and your spouse cannot agree on custody or visitation, California law requires mediation through Family Court Services before any judge will hear the dispute.¹³ The court sets it automatically once the pleadings show custody is contested. An agreement reached in mediation goes into the judgment; if none is reached, the case moves to a hearing. Either way, the custody hearing does not get scheduled until mediation has been tried.

Wait Out the Six Months and Submit the Judgment

No California divorce can be finalized less than six months after the respondent was served or first appeared, whichever came first.⁸ The court can extend that period for good cause. It cannot shorten it.

To close the case, you submit the Judgment (Form FL-180), the court’s final order covering property division, support, and custody. A written Marital Settlement Agreement, if you have one, attaches to it. Once the judge signs, a Notice of Entry of Judgment (Form FL-190) has to be served on the other spouse and filed with the court. That notice is your proof the divorce is complete. Keep a certified copy; you will need it to change your name, remove your former spouse from accounts, and remarry.

Handle a QDRO for Any Retirement Account

A pension, 401(k), or similar employer plan is not actually split by the divorce judgment itself. Splitting it requires a Qualified Domestic Relations Order, a separate document that meets federal ERISA requirements before the plan administrator will divide the account. A valid QDRO names the plan participant and the alternate payee, identifies each plan, and states the dollar amount or percentage to be paid. It cannot make the plan pay benefits it does not otherwise offer or increase the total benefit.¹⁴

Get the QDRO drafted, approved by the plan administrator, and signed by the judge alongside the judgment, not months later. Couples who forget this step find out too late that the retirement account was never actually divided.

Settle the Tax, Insurance, and Benefits Issues Before You Sign

Property Transfers and Their Hidden Tax

Property moved between spouses as part of the divorce is tax-free at the time of transfer; the receiving spouse takes the transferor’s original tax basis. The tax is not eliminated, only deferred. Take the house with a low original purchase price and you inherit the capital-gains bill when you sell. A 50/50 split on paper can look very different after tax. The tax-free treatment applies to transfers within one year of the divorce becoming final or otherwise related to the end of the marriage, and does not apply if the recipient is a nonresident alien.¹⁵

Spousal Support

For any divorce or separation agreement executed after December 31, 2018, spousal support is not deductible by the payer and not taxable to the recipient.¹⁶ The rule is permanent.

Claiming the Children

The custodial parent, meaning the one with the child for the greater part of the year, generally claims the child on taxes. The custodial parent can release the child tax credit and dependency exemption to the other parent by signing IRS Form 8332. Some benefits stay with the custodial parent no matter what the settlement says: the Earned Income Tax Credit, head of household status, and the dependent care credit. A court order does not override those IRS rules.¹⁷

Health Insurance

If you are covered under your spouse’s employer plan, the divorce is a qualifying event under COBRA that would otherwise end your coverage.¹⁸ COBRA lets you continue the same group plan for up to 36 months, but you pay the full premium. The plan administrator has to be notified of the divorce within 60 days, or the continuation right can be lost. Contact the administrator directly and get written confirmation. If COBRA is unaffordable, the divorce opens a special enrollment period for Covered California or a new employer’s plan.

Social Security if the Marriage Lasted 10 Years

A marriage of at least 10 years opens the door to Social Security retirement benefits based on your former spouse’s earnings record. You must be at least 62, currently unmarried, and your own benefit must be smaller than what you would get on your ex-spouse’s record. If your ex has not yet applied but is old enough, you can still collect on their record once you have been divorced for at least two continuous years.¹⁹ It does not reduce your ex’s benefit or a new spouse’s benefit.

1
California Courts. Divorce in California
2
California Courts. Find Out if You Qualify for Summary Dissolution
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California Courts. Divorce Forms
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Superior Court of California. Statewide Civil Fee Schedule Effective January 1, 2026
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California Courts. File Your Divorce Forms
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Judicial Council of California. Form FL-110 Summons (Family Law)
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Judicial Council of California. Form FL-115 Proof of Service of Summons
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California Legislative Information. California Family Code 2339
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California Courts. Default in a Divorce or Legal Separation
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California Legislative Information. California Family Code 2100
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California Legislative Information. California Family Code 2104
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California Legislative Information. California Family Code 2105
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Justia Law. California Family Code 3170-3173
14
U.S. Department of Labor. QDROs – An Overview FAQs
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 1041 – Transfers of Property Between Spouses or Incident to Divorce
16
Congress.gov. Public Law 115-97 (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act)
17
Internal Revenue Service. Divorced and Separated Parents
18
GovInfo. 29 U.S. Code 1163 – Qualifying Event
19
Social Security Administration. Code of Federal Regulations 404.331