DIY divorce without a solicitor: doing it yourself, safely

You can get divorced without a solicitor. In England and Wales you apply yourself, online, through the official government service, either on your own or jointly with your spouse, and pay a single court application fee of £628. Since no-fault divorce came in, nobody has to prove blame, and the paperwork is designed for ordinary people to complete without a lawyer. The legal divorce takes a minimum of 26 weeks from start to finish, whether or not you use a solicitor.

The one thing a DIY divorce must not skip is the money. Ending the marriage and settling the finances are two separate legal steps, and getting divorced does not close off financial claims between you. This guide walks through the whole process you can run yourself, what it costs, and where the real risk sits. To put a figure on your own case first, the divorce cost calculator lets you estimate the total cost of the DIY route against using a solicitor, so you can see what you would actually save.

You really can do the divorce yourself

There is no legal requirement to instruct a solicitor to get divorced. The divorce itself, the part that legally ends your marriage, is an administrative process you complete through the government's online service. Under the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, which came into force on 6 April 2022, divorce in England and Wales became no-fault. That means you no longer have to blame your spouse or cite adultery or unreasonable behaviour. You simply confirm that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and that statement cannot be contested.

Removing fault is what makes DIY realistic for so many people. The old system encouraged couples to make allegations against each other just to get the divorce moving, which invited disputes and often needed a solicitor to manage. Now the divorce is a form-filling exercise with a fixed timetable. Where couples still need help is on the finances and any arrangements for children, which are genuinely separate from the divorce and are where most of the money and risk actually sits.

Sole or joint: two ways to apply

When you apply for a divorce you choose one of two routes:

• A sole application: you apply on your own and your spouse becomes the respondent. They are notified and asked to acknowledge the application, but they cannot stop it. This is the route to use if your spouse is not fully cooperating, or you simply prefer to lead the process.
• A joint application: you and your spouse apply together as joint applicants. This suits couples who both accept the marriage is over and want to proceed cooperatively, and it is often the natural choice for a genuinely amicable DIY divorce.

You can switch a joint application to a sole application later, for example if one person stops engaging, but you cannot convert a sole application into a joint one. If you are unsure which fits, the sole route keeps things moving even if the other person goes quiet, so many people default to it.

The step-by-step process you run yourself

The whole divorce follows a fixed sequence. You can complete every stage yourself online:

1. Check you are eligible. You must have been married for at least a year, your marriage must be legally recognised in the UK, and England and Wales must be the right place to divorce.
2. Apply. Complete the application online (or by post on form D8), confirm the marriage has broken down irretrievably, and pay the £628 fee or apply for Help with Fees. In a sole application your spouse then acknowledges receipt.
3. Wait out the 20-week reflection period. The law builds in a minimum of 20 weeks between applying and being able to confirm you want to continue. This is a deliberate pause for reflection and, crucially, the window in which most couples sort out their finances.
4. Apply for the conditional order. After the 20 weeks you confirm you want to proceed, and the court issues a conditional order (formerly the decree nisi), stating you are entitled to divorce.
5. Wait 6 weeks and 1 day. A further fixed wait runs between the conditional order and the final stage.
6. Apply for the final order. This is the final order (formerly the decree absolute), and it is the document that legally ends your marriage.

Add those minimums together and the divorce cannot complete in less than 26 weeks, no matter how amicable you are or how fast you fill in the forms. In reality many divorces take longer, because it is usually sensible to finalise the financial settlement before you apply for the final order rather than after, for reasons covered below. For a fuller breakdown of the timeline and what can slow it down, see how long a divorce takes.

What a DIY divorce costs

The headline cost of a DIY divorce is the court application fee of £628, in force from 13 July 2026. That is the only unavoidable cost of the divorce itself. Using the official gov.uk service to apply is free apart from that fee; you are paying the court, not a middleman.

Cost	Amount	Notes
Divorce application fee	£628	The only unavoidable cost; Help with Fees can reduce it to as little as £0
Financial consent order fee	£62	Optional but strongly advised, to make your financial settlement binding
Typical DIY total	£690	Both fees together, before any charge for drafting the consent order

If you are on a low income or receive certain benefits, you may pay less or nothing through Help with Fees. You apply using form EX160, and the outcome depends on your income, your savings and capital, and any qualifying benefits. The scheme tapers the fee as income rises above the threshold, and there is a 3-month window to claim a refund if you paid a fee you should not have. For a joint application, both applicants need to qualify. You can check where you might stand with the Help with Fees checker before you apply.

Some commercial websites sell an online divorce package that completes the government forms for you for an extra fee on top of the £628. You do not need one. The forms are the same whether you use them or the free official service, and no package replaces advice on the finances, which is the part that actually matters. For the full picture of what divorce costs across every route, the cost of divorce guide compares DIY, mediation and solicitor-led approaches.

The critical warning: the divorce is not the finances

This is the point that catches DIY divorcers out, so it is worth being blunt about it. Getting divorced ends your marriage. It does not end the financial claims that spouses can make against each other. Those claims can remain open even after the final order, which means an ex-spouse could, in principle, come back years later for a share of savings, a property, an inheritance or a pension, long after you believed everything was settled.

The final order does not close that door. The document that does is a financial consent order: a written agreement between you, drafted into a court order and sealed by a judge, which makes your financial settlement legally binding. It can include a clean break, which dismisses future claims so neither of you can come back for more. The court fee for a consent order is just £62, which is trivial against the value it protects. You can reach the agreement yourselves and still have it turned into a proper order.

So the safe version of a DIY divorce is: do the divorce yourself, and still get a consent order. Skipping the order to save time or a small fee is the one shortcut that can cost you dearly. To understand how these orders work and what a clean break does, read consent orders and clean break orders, and for the practical steps and cost of getting one, see the consent order process and cost. This is also why couples often finalise the finances during the 20-week reflection period and time the consent order alongside the conditional order, before applying for the final order.

When DIY is fine, and when it is not

A DIY divorce works best when the situation is simple and both people are cooperating. It becomes risky as the assets, and the scope for disagreement, grow.

DIY is usually fine when

• The marriage was short and you have few assets to divide.
• You broadly agree on how to split what you have.
• There are no pensions of any real value, no property to transfer, and no business.
• Communication is amicable and you both trust each other to be honest about money.

Get advice before you sign when

• Pensions are involved. Pensions are often the largest asset after the home, and dividing them fairly is technical. This is information, not advice, and the trade-offs deserve proper attention. See pensions and divorce.
• There is a home to keep, sell or transfer. Deciding who stays, who buys out whom, and how the equity is split has long-term consequences worth getting right.
• A business, significant debts, or overseas or complex assets are in the mix.
• You do not fully trust the disclosure. If you suspect your spouse has not been open about what they own, agreeing a settlement blind is dangerous. A structured exchange of financial information, and where needed formal disclosure, protects you.
• There is any imbalance of power or history of controlling behaviour. Where negotiating freely and safely is not realistic, DIY is not the right route.

The theme is consistent: doing the divorce paperwork yourself is low risk, but doing the finances yourself is where mistakes are made and where they are hardest to undo. Before you commit to any financial agreement, it is worth understanding what a fair settlement should cover, which the divorce financial settlement guide sets out in full.

A sensible DIY divorce plan

For many amicable couples, the safest DIY approach looks like this: apply for the divorce yourselves online, use the 20-week reflection period to agree the finances (with mediation if you need help reaching agreement), have that agreement turned into a consent order with a clean break, and only then apply for the final order. That way you save the cost of a solicitor running the divorce, while still protecting yourselves with a binding financial order. The part worth paying for, if any, is getting the financial order right, not the form-filling.

If your finances are anything other than straightforward, or you are not sure whether a clean break is appropriate for you, it is worth having a specialist look over the settlement before you sign, even if you handle everything else yourself. If you would like to be connected with a vetted family law specialist for that, get in touch through our contact page. This article is information, not legal advice, and everyone's circumstances differ.