This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.
2026 cost estimates for divorce in New York, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a divorce in New York costs on average $10,100, typically $5,600-$16,900 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $240 to $475 per hour. A moderate-complexity case typically takes 3-6 months to resolve. Common related costs include court filing fee ($100-$400) and service of process ($50-$100).
Data verified: June 29, 2026
| Complexity | Low | Median | High | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | $1,800 | $3,600 | $6,000 | 1-3 months |
| Moderate | $5,600 | $10,100 | $16,900 | 3-6 months |
| Complex | $18,050 | $26,450 | $42,100 | 6-18 months |
Last verified: June 2026
$240 – $475/ hour
Median: $355/hr
3-6 months
For moderate complexity cases
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</script>Divorce costs form around two variables that compound each other: how much the spouses disagree on, and how many separate issues (property division, child custody, child support, alimony) are in dispute. An uncontested divorce with no minor children and no real estate can resolve with a single court filing fee and a document-preparation charge. Once custody or asset division is contested, cost accumulates from discovery (formal document exchange), mediation sessions billed hourly, and — in the most complex cases — expert witnesses such as forensic accountants (business or investment valuation) and custody evaluators.
Attorney billing in divorce is typically hourly rather than flat-fee, because the number of court appearances and negotiation rounds is not knowable in advance. A retainer is paid upfront and drawn down as the attorney bills time; complex cases often require replenishing the retainer more than once. Court filing fees and mediation fees are set by the state or county and apply regardless of which attorney is hired.
Take a moderate-complexity divorce matter in New York. The recorded median total is $10,100, with reported quotes clustering between $5,600 and $16,900. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $700–$2,600, which leaves roughly $7,500–$9,400 of the New York median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes. One further recorded fee is not itemised above and is not in that total.
At $10,100, the median divorce cost in New York runs 15% above the $8,798 national average across all 50 states and DC.
New York carries 3 rows — simple, $1,800–$6,000 at $180–$355/hr over 1-3 months; moderate, $5,600–$16,900 at $240–$475/hr over 3-6 months; complex, $18,050–$42,100 at $325–$595/hr over 6-18 months — on 4 shared citations. They put it above the midpoint, short of the top quarter.
$10,100 is a median, not the middle of the band — $4,500 above the $5,600 floor, $6,800 under the $16,900 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 51.
At 12th of 51, New York sits above the midpoint of the divorce table: $1,550 more than the $8,550 median state, or 18%, with 11 states recording a higher median.
Delaware ($10,200) and Vermont ($10,100) bracket New York inside a $100 window — narrow enough that 12th is close to arbitrary.
5 tracked states — New Hampshire, Delaware, Vermont, New Jersey among them — record a median within three percent of New York's $10,100. The figure sits in the densest part of the divorce distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
The two rankings disagree sharply. New York attorneys sit 4th of 51 on hourly rate at $355 an hour, but the state is only 12th on total divorce cost — the recorded matters resolve in fewer billed hours than the rate alone would produce.
| Rank | State | Median | Against New York |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Alaska | $10,650 | +$550 |
| 7 | California | $10,600 | +$500 |
| 8 | Maryland | $10,550 | +$450 |
| 9 | Colorado | $10,450 | +$350 |
| 10 | New Hampshire | $10,350 | +$250 |
| 11 | Delaware | $10,200 | +$100 |
| 12 | New York | $10,100 | — |
| 13 | Vermont | $10,100 | −$0 |
| 14 | New Jersey | $10,050 | −$50 |
| 15 | Connecticut | $10,000 | −$100 |
| 16 | District of Columbia | $9,700 | −$400 |
| 17 | Illinois | $9,650 | −$450 |
| 18 | Michigan | $9,600 | −$500 |
The 12th position is not a stable fact about New York: $100 up or $0 down moves New York a row, and a ten percent revision in either direction would cross 16 rows, 8 above and 8 below in near-equal numbers.
Climbing five places would mean passing California, Maryland, Colorado, New Hampshire, Delaware and adding $500 to the $10,100 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois: $450.
$2,800 short of Hawaii ($12,900), $4,050 clear of Alabama ($6,050).
The $10,100 median divided by the $355 median rate implies roughly 28 billable hours. The peer median is 30 hours: New York reaches its total in 2 fewer implied hours, because the rate rather than the workload carries more of it.
The 7.3x step from the simple to the complex tier breaks down as 4.5x the hours against 1.65x the rate — 13 hours at $270 becomes 59 hours at $445. Hours dominate, but the rate contribution is large enough to notice.
In dollars the New York moderate band is wide: $5,600 to $16,900, a $11,300 range, $1,750 wider than the peer-median band of $9,550. End to end that is 32 hours at $355.
Per month of elapsed time the two tiers are close: about $2,244 a month across the 3-6 months recorded for a moderate matter, and $2,204 a month across the 6-18 months recorded for a complex one.
By implied hours New York falls to 36th of 51 at 28 hours, 24 places below its 12th on cost — the divorce total arriving on less recorded work.
26% up the $5,600–$16,900 band sits the $8,550 table midpoint, buying 24 hours at $355 against the 28 the local divorce median implies — 4 hours apart.
| Measure | New York | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $10,100 | 12th |
| Hourly median | $355 | 4th |
| Implied hours | 28 | 36th |
| Simple median | $3,600 | 8th |
| Complex median | $26,450 | 9th |
$355 an hour puts New York between New Jersey ($355) and California ($350) — not the divorce cost pairing.
New Jersey records the same $355: rate cannot separate them, totals do.
$10,100 buys 37 hours at $270, 28 at $355, 23 at $445.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Washington | $360 |
| 3 | New Jersey | $355 |
| 4 | New York | $355 |
| 5 | California | $350 |
| 6 | Connecticut | $350 |
The ranking barely moves across tiers — 8th at the simple tier, 12th at moderate, 9th at complex of 51 — so New York keeps roughly the same relative position whether the divorce is straightforward or contested.
$3,600 is 8th of 51 on a straightforward divorce, under Connecticut ($3,600) and over Colorado ($3,550), $700 over the $2,900 tier midpoint.
$26,450 is 9th of 51 once contested, between Connecticut ($26,550) and Texas ($25,250), $4,650 off the $21,800 tier midpoint.
The lower two bands run into each other — the simple tier tops out at $6,000 against a moderate floor of $5,600 — but there is a clear gap of $1,150 between the moderate ceiling of $16,900 and the complex floor of $18,050. In New York the jump into contested work is a step, not a slope.
| Tier | New York | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $3,600 | 8th | $2,900 | 13 |
| moderate | $10,100 | 12th | $8,550 | 28 |
| complex | $26,450 | 9th | $21,800 | 59 |
$3,600 puts New York 8th of 51 on straightforward matters, 4 up on its moderate position, and $700 (24%) over the $2,900 tier midpoint.
13 implied hours at $270: 46% of the moderate tier's 28, over 1-3 months.
Connecticut ($3,600) and Colorado ($3,550) bracket it — a $50 window.
5 states sit within three percent of the $3,600 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
$26,450 puts New York 9th of 51 on contested matters, 3 up on its moderate position, and $4,650 (21%) over the $21,800 tier midpoint.
59 implied hours at $445: 211% of the moderate tier's 28, over 6-18 months.
Connecticut ($26,550) and Texas ($25,250) bracket it — a $1,300 window.
3 states sit within three percent of the $26,450 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Massachusetts | $3,700 |
| 7 | Connecticut | $3,600 |
| 8 | New York | $3,600 |
| 9 | Colorado | $3,550 |
| 10 | District of Columbia | $3,500 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | Vermont | $26,900 |
| 8 | Connecticut | $26,550 |
| 9 | New York | $26,450 |
| 10 | Texas | $25,250 |
| 11 | Colorado | $24,750 |
$10,100 ranks a divorce 2nd of 8 in New York, under Criminal Defense, over DUI / DWI. At 81% of Criminal Defense ($12,450).
Across practice areas New York ranges from 2nd of 51 for Immigration to 12th for Divorce — a 10-place spread, with its 12th on divorce inside it.
The spread across practice areas is wide. Immigration runs 32% above its own midpoint, while Estate Planning / Probate runs 8% above its own midpoint — 24 percentage points apart. A single "New York is expensive" or "New York is inexpensive" claim would be wrong for at least one of the matter types tracked here.
New York's practice areas fan out more than most: its largest tracked median is 5.5x its smallest, against 5.1x for the typical state. Prices here are set matter by matter rather than by one statewide level.
Every one of the 8 matter types tracked for New York places it in the upper third of its table, which is why the 12th on divorce is not an outlier.
In percentile terms it sits at the 78th percentile of the 51 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $4,250 | $12,450 | $34,800 | 35 | 4th | +22% | New Hampshire |
| Divorce | $3,600 | $10,100 | $26,450 | 28 | 12th | +18% | Delaware |
| DUI / DWI | $4,250 | $8,800 | $20,600 | 27 | 9th | +18% | Alaska |
| Immigration | $2,300 | $6,250 | $12,950 | 19 | 2nd | +32% | Hawaii |
| Personal Injury | $1,600 | $5,700 | $19,400 | — | 8th | +10% | Connecticut |
| Bankruptcy | $1,650 | $4,300 | $5,950 | 14 | 6th | +19% | California |
| Real Estate Closing | $1,100 | $2,800 | $5,600 | 9 | 2nd | +26% | Hawaii |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $800 | $2,250 | $7,050 | 7 | 10th | +8% | Rhode Island |
Simple tier. $3,600 ÷ $270 = about 13 hours, spread over 1-3 months at roughly $1,800 a month. The $6,500 step to the moderate tier is 15 more hours at that rate.
Work against price. $10,100 to $26,450 is a $16,350 step, mostly work: 31 more hours at $355 is $11,005, while moving to $445 across 59 hours adds $5,310. Work carries 67%.
Borrowing the wrong row. Vermont ($10,100) is $0 light, Delaware ($10,200) is $100 heavy — but the $8,550 table midpoint is out by $1,550, 16x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $5,600 is 16 hours at $355; $16,900 is 48. Over the 3-6 months recorded for a moderate divorce, that is 4 to 11 hours a month — the difference between an occasional file review and continuous work.
Contested against simple. At New York's own recorded figures, $26,450 buys 7.3 matters at the $3,600 simple median — or, counted in time, 59 implied hours against 13, a factor of 4.5 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the New Yorkcourt's own schedule; billing models are covered in the legal fees guide.
This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.