An uncontested divorce in Ontario is available when you and your spouse have lived apart for at least a year, agree on every issue tied to the marriage, and one of you has lived in the province for the past 12 months. Provincial filing fees come to $659, and most couples receive their Certificate of Divorce four to six months after filing.
Who Can File
Two conditions have to be met before the court will take your application. At least one spouse must have lived in Ontario for the full year immediately before the application is started.1Justice Laws Website. Divorce Act – Section 3 You also need a legal ground for divorce. Almost every uncontested filing uses the no-fault ground: a continuous separation of at least one year.2Justice Laws Website. Divorce Act – Section 8
Adultery and physical or mental cruelty are also valid grounds, but each requires proof and tends to invite dispute, which is the opposite of what you want in an uncontested case. Use the one-year separation unless you have a specific reason not to.
One detail trips people up: the one-year separation has to be complete by the time the judge decides the case, not by the time you file. You can submit paperwork a few weeks before the anniversary, and the year will usually be up by the time the court reviews the file.2Justice Laws Website. Divorce Act – Section 8
“Uncontested” means both spouses actually agree on everything: property, spousal support, parenting time, and child support. If any one of those is genuinely in dispute, the case can’t move as uncontested. You either settle the disagreement through negotiation or mediation, or you refile as a contested application.
Simple Application or Joint Application
Ontario gives you two routes, and the choice shapes how much work you do.
A simple application is filed by one spouse. The other spouse must be formally served with the court documents and has 30 days to respond.3Ontario.ca. Ontario Regulation 114/99 – Family Law Rules If no response is filed, the court treats the case as uncontested and continues. This is the usual route when one person is driving the process even if the other won’t fight it.
A joint application is signed by both spouses together. Because both parties are already on the record agreeing to the divorce, there’s no formal service and no 30-day waiting period for a response. That makes joint applications faster and slightly cheaper, since you skip a process server. The trade-off is coordinating the paperwork together.
Both use the same form: Form 8A, Application (Divorce), with checkboxes marking whether the filing is simple or joint.4Ontario Court Forms. Form 8A – Application (Divorce)
What It Costs
Two provincial fees carry the main cost:
- Application filing fee: $214
- Placing the application on the list for hearing: $445
That’s $659 in provincial fees.5Government of Ontario. Ontario Regulation 417/95 – Superior Court of Justice Fees A small federal fee (around $10) also applies for clearance through the Central Divorce Registry in Ottawa, which confirms neither spouse has another divorce case pending elsewhere in Canada. A Certificate of Divorce, once you’re ready to request it, costs an extra $25.
Fee Waivers
If the fees are out of reach, Ontario waives them. You qualify automatically if your main income comes from Ontario Works, the Ontario Disability Support Program, Old Age Security with the guaranteed income supplement, or certain veterans’ benefits, or if Legal Aid Ontario has approved you for legal aid in the same case.6Government of Ontario. Ontario Regulation 2/05 – Fee Waiver
Otherwise, you can qualify by meeting all three of these financial tests:
- Gross household income under the threshold for your household size (for example, under $33,100 for one person, $49,600 for two, or $68,700 for four)
- Liquid assets under $2,800
- Household net worth under $11,100
The thresholds were last updated in 2023 and are set in Ontario Regulation 2/05.6Government of Ontario. Ontario Regulation 2/05 – Fee Waiver The waiver covers the provincial filing fees but not the federal registry fee.
What to Gather Before You File
Have these ready before you touch the forms:
- Your marriage certificate (original or certified copy). If you married in Ontario, order one from the Office of the Registrar General. If you married abroad, you need the foreign certificate plus a certified English or French translation if the original is in another language.
- Government-issued ID for each applicant.
- Proof of Ontario residency for the past year, such as utility bills or a lease.
Form 8A asks for biographical details, marriage dates, the date of separation, and the specific relief you want (divorce alone, or divorce plus support or custody orders).4Ontario Court Forms. Form 8A – Application (Divorce) Every name and date on the form has to match the marriage certificate exactly. A small discrepancy will cause delays or require a corrective affidavit later.
If you and your spouse have worked out property, support, or parenting, put it in a written separation agreement before filing. The agreement itself isn’t usually filed in an uncontested divorce, but it protects both of you and gives the judge confidence that nothing is actually in dispute.
Filing and Serving the Papers
You can file in person at the Superior Court of Justice where either spouse lives, or online through Ontario’s Justice Services Online portal. The online option needs a My Ontario Account and accepts PDF or Word documents. You pay the filing fee by credit or debit card at submission.
Serving a Simple Application
If you filed a simple application, the respondent has to receive a copy of the filed documents, and you can’t deliver them yourself. Someone else does it: a friend, a family member over 18, or a professional process server. That person then completes an Affidavit of Service (Form 6B) confirming delivery, and the affidavit gets filed with the court.3Ontario.ca. Ontario Regulation 114/99 – Family Law Rules In a joint application, both spouses have already signed on, so service isn’t required.
If You Can’t Find Your Spouse
Sometimes a spouse has disappeared or refuses to engage. You still have options. You can ask the court for substituted service, meaning permission to serve the documents by email, by giving them to a relative likely in contact, or by posting at a last known workplace. The judge will want to see what steps you’ve already taken to find your spouse.
If no form of substituted service would realistically reach them, you can ask the court to dispense with service entirely. This is harder to get and requires evidence of thorough efforts to locate the other spouse. If granted, the divorce proceeds without personal notice.
When You Have Children Under 18
Where children under 18 are involved, the court has an extra duty before granting the divorce: it must be satisfied that reasonable arrangements have been made for child support.7Justice Laws Website. Divorce Act – Section 11 This is where uncontested divorces most often stall. Even when both spouses agree, the judge independently checks the proposed support against the Federal Child Support Guidelines. If your number is lower than the guideline amount without a good reason, the judge can refuse to sign the order until you fix it.
The application has to include each child’s living arrangements, the proposed parenting schedule, and the support amount. If you want the court to make a child support order as part of the divorce, you’ll also need financial disclosure, usually Form 13 (Financial Statement), showing income and expenses.
Getting the Order and the Certificate
Once the response window has passed with no challenge (30 days after service in a simple application), you file Form 36, the Affidavit for Divorce.8Ontario Court Services. Affidavit for Divorce This sworn document asks the judge to decide the case on the written record. No courtroom appearance is needed.
A judge reviews the file for consistency. Do the dates line up? Is the separation period complete? Are child support arrangements adequate? If something is missing or unclear, the court sends the file back with notes on what needs fixing. This is the single most common source of delay in uncontested cases, and it’s almost always small paperwork errors.
When the judge is satisfied, they sign the Divorce Order. You’re not divorced yet. Under the Divorce Act, the divorce takes effect on the 31st day after the order is signed, a window that exists so either spouse can appeal.9CanLII. Divorce Act RSC 1985 c 3 (2nd Supp) – Section 12 In rare cases with special circumstances and both spouses in agreement, the court can shorten or eliminate the wait.
After the 31 days, you can request a Certificate of Divorce for $25. That certificate is the document you’ll need to prove the marriage has ended, whether for remarriage or updating government records.
How Long It Takes
If the one-year separation is already complete and your documents are clean, plan on four to six months from filing to receiving the Certificate of Divorce. The main variable is courthouse workload. Toronto, Peel, and York tend to run longer because of case volume. After the 30-day response period passes, a court clerk review typically adds another six to eight weeks before a judge even opens the file.
Counting from the date you first separated, the realistic minimum is 16 to 18 months: 12 months apart plus four to six months of court processing. Paperwork errors stack weeks or months on top, which is why getting the forms right the first time pays off.
What to Handle After the Divorce Is Final
The court doesn’t notify anyone else for you. A few things need attention once your divorce takes effect, and missing deadlines can cost real money.
Tell the CRA
Update your marital status with the Canada Revenue Agency by the end of the month following the month your divorce became final. If your divorce takes effect in June, the CRA needs to know by the end of July.10Canada Revenue Agency. Update Your Personal Information With the CRA Don’t wait for tax season. The status change can recalculate benefits tied to adjusted family net income, including the Canada Child Benefit and the GST/HST credit.
CPP Credit Split
Either ex-spouse can apply to split the Canada Pension Plan credits earned during the marriage. You need to have lived with your former spouse for at least 12 consecutive months, and there’s no deadline to apply after a divorce.11Canada.ca. Divorced or Separated – Splitting Canada Pension Plan Credits Certain situations block the split, including periods where one spouse was already receiving a CPP retirement pension or disability benefit. If your separation agreement addresses CPP, read it before applying; some agreements opt out.
Update Your Will
Under Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act, as amended in 2022, a divorce revokes any gifts to your former spouse in an existing will, and your ex-spouse loses any right to inherit if you die without a will. The revocation happens automatically; you don’t have to update the will for it to take effect.
Relying on the automatic rule is still risky. It removes the ex-spouse but doesn’t tell the law who should inherit instead, and that gap can produce results you didn’t intend. Drafting a new will after the divorce is the safer move.