No U.S. state bars no-fault divorce outright. Every state and the District of Columbia lets at least one spouse end a marriage by telling the court the relationship is permanently broken, so a list of states without no-fault divorce as a general option would be empty. The only meaningful exception is covenant marriage, a special contract available in three states that couples must affirmatively opt into. California opened the door in 1969, and New York became the last state to adopt a no-fault ground in 2010.
The One Real Exception: Covenant Marriage
Louisiana, Arizona, and Arkansas allow couples to choose a stricter form of marriage known as covenant marriage.1Justia. Louisiana Code 9:272 – Covenant Marriage; Intent; Conditions to Create2Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 25-901 – Covenant Marriage; Declaration of Intent; Filing Requirements3Justia. Arkansas Code 9-11-801 – Covenant Marriage Act of 2001 Couples who choose it agree to premarital counseling and accept significantly tighter rules for ending the marriage.
In Louisiana, a spouse in a covenant marriage can only get a divorce by proving a specific ground: adultery, a felony conviction with imprisonment, abandonment for at least one year, physical or sexual abuse, or living separately for two continuous years. Where the couple has a judicial separation, the waiting period is one year, or 18 months if minor children are involved.4FindLaw. Louisiana Revised Statutes Tit 9, 307 Simply telling the court the marriage is broken is not enough. Arizona and Arkansas use a similar structure.
For couples in these three states who choose a covenant marriage, no-fault divorce is effectively unavailable. The practical reach, however, is narrow. Only about one to three percent of couples in those states have opted in since the laws were enacted. The large majority of residents in Louisiana, Arizona, and Arkansas marry under standard rules and keep full access to no-fault divorce.
If you did not sign a covenant marriage declaration when you married, none of this applies to you, no matter which state you live in.
Pure No-Fault States
At the opposite end of the spectrum, roughly 15 to 20 states are “pure” no-fault jurisdictions. Fault-based grounds are not available at all. Your only option is to tell the court the marriage is irreparably broken.
California’s dissolution statute limits the grounds to irreconcilable differences or permanent legal incapacity.5California Legislative Information. CA Family Code 2310 Florida is similar, allowing dissolution only when the marriage is “irretrievably broken” or when one spouse has been adjudicated incapacitated for at least three years.6The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 61.052 – Dissolution of Marriage Other pure no-fault states include Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington.
Maryland joined this group in 2023, eliminating its fault-based grounds and replacing them with four no-fault options: six-month separation, irreconcilable differences, mutual consent, or permanent legal incapacity.7Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 7-103 – Divorce Older sources that list Maryland as a fault state are out of date.
Hybrid States That Offer Both
The remaining 30-plus states operate as hybrids. They offer a no-fault option and also let you file on traditional fault grounds like adultery, cruelty, desertion, or felony conviction. No one is forced into the fault route, but the choice is there.
Texas is a clear example. Its Family Code lists insupportability (the no-fault ground) alongside fault grounds including cruelty, adultery, felony conviction, abandonment, living apart for at least three years, and confinement in a mental hospital.8Justia. Texas Code Family Code – Subchapter A Grounds for Divorce and Defenses Virginia offers a one-year separation track alongside adultery, cruelty, desertion, and felony conviction.9Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 20-91 – Grounds for Divorce From Bond of Matrimony South Dakota goes further, listing six separate fault grounds alongside its irreconcilable-differences option.
In practice, most divorces in these states are still filed on no-fault grounds. Proving fault takes evidence, time, and money, and most couples want neither the cost nor the exposure. The fault option matters mostly where it changes the financial outcome or lets a spouse avoid a long waiting period.
The Catch Most People Mean: Mandatory Separation
When people search for whether their state lacks no-fault divorce, they are often really asking why their no-fault filing feels blocked. The usual reason is a mandatory separation period.
Roughly half the states require you to live apart from your spouse for a set period before the court will finalize a no-fault divorce. The shortest requirements are around 60 days to six months. Others require a full year, and a few demand 18 months or more. Virginia’s no-fault track, for instance, requires one year of separation, or six months if the couple has a written separation agreement and no minor children.9Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 20-91 – Grounds for Divorce From Bond of Matrimony New York requires a sworn statement that the relationship has broken down irretrievably for at least six months, and the court will not grant the divorce until all financial and custody issues are resolved.10New York State Senate. Domestic Relations Law 170 – Action for Divorce
What counts as “living apart” varies. Some states insist on separate residences. Others allow spouses to share a home but in separate bedrooms, as long as they have stopped functioning as a married couple. Check your state’s specific rule before planning around it.
In hybrid states, filing on a fault ground such as adultery or cruelty can let a spouse skip the separation period and get into court faster. That is one of the main reasons people still choose the fault route despite its higher cost.
Fault Can Still Affect the Money
No-fault divorce means fault is not required as a ground for ending the marriage. It does not always mean fault is invisible to the judge handling support and property division.
Virginia is a sharp example on the support side. State law requires courts to consider the circumstances that led to the divorce when deciding spousal support, “specifically including adultery,” and a spouse who committed adultery is generally barred from receiving permanent spousal support. The court can override that bar only where denying support entirely would be a “manifest injustice” given the relative economic circumstances and degrees of fault.11Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 20-107.1 – Court May Decree as to Maintenance and Support Several other states treat misconduct as a factor that can reduce or eliminate support.
Other states go the opposite direction. Colorado explicitly requires courts to award maintenance “without regard to marital misconduct.”12Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 14-10-114 Which category your state falls into matters more than whether fault grounds appear on the books.
Property division follows a related pattern through the concept of dissipation. If one spouse spent significant marital funds on an affair, gambling, or other non-marital purposes during the breakdown of the marriage, the court can adjust the split to compensate the other spouse. The spouse alleging dissipation has to prove the spending occurred during the breakdown and served no marital purpose. Even some pure no-fault states allow dissipation claims, because the focus is financial harm rather than moral blame.
What This Means for Your Filing
If you are a standard-marriage resident of any U.S. state, you can file for a no-fault divorce. There is no state where that door is closed to you. What varies is how long you may have to wait, whether your state offers fault as an alternative, and whether proving fault would change the financial outcome enough to justify the added cost.
The narrow exception is covenant marriage in Louisiana, Arizona, and Arkansas, and it applies only to couples who signed a covenant declaration when they married. For everyone else, the real questions are the separation period in your state, the fault factors your judge is allowed to weigh, and whether a settlement would move things faster than either track.