Home › Guides › Filing for Divorce in Florida Without a Lawyer (Pro Se), Start to Finish
Filing pro se means representing yourself in court instead of hiring an attorney, and in Florida it is the normal way an uncontested divorce gets filed, not a workaround. If both spouses agree to end the marriage and can agree on the terms, you can complete every required form yourself and submit the case through the state's e-filing portal without a lawyer ever entering the picture. This guide walks through who is actually a good fit for filing this way, exactly which forms your situation needs, and the sequence that takes a case from petition to signed final judgment.
"Pro se" is the standard legal term for representing yourself in a case rather than having an attorney appear on your behalf. Florida's courts see pro se divorce filings constantly; the uncontested process is built around the assumption that many petitioners will handle it themselves. Nothing about filing pro se lowers the paperwork standard the clerk applies. Every form still has to be the current, correct version, filled out completely, signed in the right order, and notarized where required, or the clerk can reject it just as it would for an attorney-filed case.
There is a detail worth being precise about: even when a nonlawyer document preparer completes your paperwork, you are still filing pro se. Florida's court rules require the party named as petitioner to be the one who actually submits the case, so a preparer can assemble and check every document, but it cannot become your attorney and it cannot press submit for you. Any service that claims to submit your case on your behalf is describing something Florida does not allow. What a preparer changes is not who files, it's how much of the drafting and proofreading you do yourself first.
Filing pro se works well for divorces that are uncontested, meaning both spouses agree the marriage should end and can agree on how to handle property, debts, and, if there are children, a parenting plan. A few baseline conditions apply to every track:
If those three hold, the remaining question is which of Florida's three uncontested tracks matches your situation, since that determines exactly which forms you'll prepare.
Free eligibility check. If your divorce qualifies, Amicably prepares every Florida court document for a flat $99, reviewed by a specialist, with step-by-step filing help.
Check my eligibilityFlorida runs three uncontested tracks, and the forms differ enough between them that filing the wrong petition is one of the fastest ways to get a case bounced back. All three finish with the same result, a signed final judgment of dissolution.
| Track | Who it's for | Core forms |
|---|---|---|
| Simplified Dissolution | No minor or dependent children, wife not pregnant, agreed property split, no alimony, both spouses willing to attend one short hearing | Joint Petition (12.901(a)), Marital Settlement Agreement (12.902(f)(3)), Notice of Social Security Number (12.902(j)), Final Judgment (12.990(a)) |
| Uncontested, no children | Agreed terms, but one spouse isn't a joint petitioner and signs an Answer and Waiver instead | Petition (12.901(b)(2) or (b)(3)), financial affidavits or the joint waiver, Marital Settlement Agreement (12.902(f)(2)), Answer, Waiver, and Request for Copy of Final Judgment (12.903(a)), Final Judgment (12.990(b)(2) or (b)(3)) |
| Uncontested, with children | Minor or dependent children, or the wife is pregnant even without other children | Petition (12.901(b)(1)), UCCJEA Affidavit (12.902(d)), Child Support Guidelines Worksheet (12.902(e)), Parenting Plan (12.995(a)), Marital Settlement Agreement (12.902(f)(1)), Final Judgment (12.990(b)(1)) |
Every track also needs the Cover Sheet for Family Court Cases (12.928) and, for each spouse, a Designation of Current Mailing and E-mail Address (12.915). If you'd rather skip the financial affidavits, Form 12.902(k), the Notice of Joint Verified Waiver of Filing Financial Affidavits, is available on tracks two and three, but the affidavits still have to be completed and exchanged privately between spouses first; the waiver only covers filing them with the court, and it has to be signed before the settlement agreement, not after.
The waiting period is the same floor for every track, but the realistic path to a signed judgment stretches out from there depending on how much paperwork a track carries:
Filing pro se doesn't remove the court's own costs, it only removes the cost of hiring someone to draft or file for you:
Paid to your county clerk regardless of who prepares the paperwork, roughly $408 to $409 depending on the county, plus small portal or administrative charges some counties add. Neither Amicably nor any preparer sets or collects this fee.
Free if you complete every form yourself from the court's downloadable forms. Amicably's document preparation, review, and guided filing is a flat $99, paid in full, with no payment plan and no separate list price.
Cases with minor children also budget for the parenting course, typically $15 to $40 per parent paid directly to a state-approved provider, and for the notary session if you use remote online notarization. Neither of those is part of the court filing fee or, where you use one, a document preparer's fee.
A specialist reviewing the packet before it's filed catches most of these before the clerk ever sees them, which is the practical difference between filing pro se from scratch and filing pro se with a preparer's review behind you.
Pro se filing assumes the case is uncontested. It stops being a good fit when the disagreement is real: if you and your spouse can't agree on the divorce itself, on dividing property or debt, on custody, or on support, that's a contested case, and it needs an attorney to represent your interests in front of a judge. It's also not the right tool if your spouse can't be located at all, since that requires a publication process with its own court procedure, or if there are safety concerns that make direct cooperation with your spouse unsafe. Those situations deserve a straight answer rather than being squeezed into an uncontested packet that doesn't fit.
Yes. Florida courts allow anyone to represent themselves, called filing pro se, and it is the normal path for uncontested divorces. There is no rule requiring an attorney to file or to appear at an uncontested hearing.
Yes. Florida court rules require the person named as petitioner to submit their own case, so even when a document preparer like Amicably completes every form, the customer is still the one who files it and appears as their own party of record. The preparer is not your attorney and does not appear in court for you.
If the other spouse won't sign the Answer, Waiver, and Request for Copy of Final Judgment, formal service through a sheriff or process server becomes the fallback so the case can move forward. If there is a real disagreement about the divorce, children, property, or alimony that the two of you cannot resolve yourselves, that is a contested case and outside what a pro se, uncontested filing or a document preparer can handle; that situation needs a lawyer.
A Simplified Dissolution typically takes 4 to 6 weeks after filing, a regular uncontested case with no children typically 5 to 8 weeks, and an uncontested case with children typically 6 to 10 weeks. Every track has to clear Florida's 20-day waiting period before a judge can sign the final judgment, so those ranges are floors, not guarantees.
The court filing fee, paid to the county clerk, runs roughly $408 depending on the county, plus small portal or administrative charges in some counties. That fee applies no matter who fills out the forms. Preparing the paperwork yourself from free court forms costs nothing beyond that; using Amicably to prepare and review the same packet is a flat $99, paid in full, with no payment plan.
No. Florida nonlawyer document preparers, including Amicably, prepare and check the paperwork and walk you through submitting it, but the customer presses submit and is the filer of record on every case. A preparer that claims it files for you is describing something Florida law does not allow.
Answer a few plain-English questions and see which Florida route fits, what it costs, and every document you would need.
Start the free checkFlorida Statutes § 61.19, Entry of judgment (20-day waiting period) · Florida Statutes § 28.241, Filing fees for civil actions · Florida Family Law Forms (flcourts.gov) · Family Law Rules of Procedure (The Florida Bar)