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Texas Divorce Laws: The Complete Plain-English Guide

Reviewed by the Amicably document team · Updated August 8, 2026

Texas divorce law runs on the Family Code, and several of its rules surprise people who assume every state works like the ones they see on television. Either spouse must meet a residency test before filing, the case cannot finish before day 60 no matter how agreeable both spouses are, the marital estate is divided in a way the court finds "just and right" rather than automatically split down the middle, and the vocabulary itself changes: Texas courts talk about conservatorship and possession and access, not custody and visitation. This guide walks through the rules that apply to nearly every Texas divorce, in plain English, with links to a full guide on each topic.

Who can file, and where

To file for divorce in Texas, either spouse must have been a Texas domiciliary for the six months before filing and a resident of the county where the case is filed for the 90 days before filing. Only one of the two spouses has to meet this test; the other can live anywhere, including out of state.

The county requirement is what sets venue, meaning it decides which district clerk's office receives the petition. A couple who moved counties recently should check which county each spouse can claim before filing, since filing in the wrong county can mean a transfer later.

Grounds for divorce

Texas is a no-fault state: a spouse can file on the ground of insupportability, meaning the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marriage, with no need to prove either spouse did anything wrong. Texas also keeps fault grounds on the books, including cruelty, adultery, a felony conviction, abandonment, living apart for at least three years, and confinement in a mental hospital, but an agreed or uncontested case is typically filed on insupportability because it requires no proof of fault.

Choosing insupportability does not concede anything about who caused the breakdown of the marriage. It simply lets both spouses move the case forward without litigating blame, which is why nearly every amicable filing in Texas uses it.

The 60-day waiting period

A Texas court cannot grant a divorce before the 60th day after the petition was filed, and that clock starts at filing, not at the date the other spouse is served or signs a waiver. There is no general good-cause or by-agreement way to shorten it. The only statutory exceptions involve family violence: a family-violence conviction or deferred adjudication against the respondent, or an active protective or emergency-protection order.

1. Day 0Petition is filed with the district clerk. The 60-day clock starts running from this date, regardless of when the other spouse is served or signs a waiver.
2. Day 0-60The respondent is served or signs a waiver of service, and if children or property are involved, both spouses typically finish the paperwork and reach agreement during this window.
3. Day 60This is the earliest date the court may sign the final decree. Filing early does not move this date up.
4. Day 60+Once the waiting period has passed and the case is ready, the court finalizes the divorce at a prove-up, and the decree becomes final that day.

Nothing about this timeline is unique to contested cases. Even a fully agreed divorce where both spouses sign every document on day one still waits until day 60 for the decree, which is why the step-by-step filing guide treats the waiting period as a fixed part of the schedule rather than something to plan around.

Community property and the "just and right" rule

Texas is a community-property state. Community property is property, other than separate property, that either spouse acquires during the marriage. Separate property is property owned before marriage, or acquired during the marriage by gift, devise, or descent, or as a personal-injury recovery other than for lost earning capacity. Property either spouse possesses at the time of divorce is presumed to be community property, and separate property must be proven with clear and convincing evidence.

A Texas court divides the community estate in a manner it deems "just and right," which is not automatically a 50/50 division. A court also cannot award one spouse's separate property to the other spouse, no matter how the community estate gets divided. Factors like each spouse's earning capacity, health, and who has primary care of the children can push a "just and right" division away from an even split in either direction.

Conservatorship, possession, and access

Texas law does not use the words custody or visitation. It uses conservatorship for the legal rights and duties a parent holds regarding a child, and possession and access for the actual schedule of time each parent spends with the child. There is a rebuttable presumption that appointing both parents joint managing conservators serves the child's best interest, meaning both parents typically share the legal rights and duties even when one parent has the child most of the time.

The Standard Possession Order is the statutory default schedule and is presumed to be in the child's best interest, though parents can agree to a different schedule instead. For parents living 100 miles or less apart, the order generally gives the possessory parent the first, third, and fifth weekends of each month, a Thursday evening period during the school term, and 30 days in the summer; if the parents live more than 100 miles apart, summer possession extends to 42 days with additional weekend options.

Parents who agree on everything else in the case often adopt the Standard Possession Order as written rather than negotiating a custom schedule, since courts already presume it serves the child's best interest.

Child support: percentages and the cap

Texas figures guideline child support as a percentage of the paying parent's net resources, a defined monthly figure under the Family Code, not gross pay. The percentage rises with the number of children in the case, and it applies only up to a monthly net resources cap that the Office of the Attorney General adjusts periodically.

Effective September 1, 2025, the guideline percentages apply to net resources up to $11,700 a month, raised from the $9,200 cap that had been in place since 2019. Texas also requires medical and dental support in every case, ordered in addition to the guideline percentage, and support is generally collected through income withholding from the paying parent's paycheck. See the full child support guide for the low-income schedule and how multiple households change the math.

Spousal maintenance and contractual alimony

Court-ordered spousal maintenance in Texas is narrow and available only in specific circumstances, such as a marriage of 10 years or longer paired with an inability to earn enough for minimum reasonable needs, certain family-violence situations, or disability. Maintenance cannot exceed the lesser of $5,000 a month or 20 percent of the paying spouse's average monthly gross income, and its duration is capped by the length of the marriage, generally five, seven, or 10 years, with indefinite maintenance reserved for disability or disabled-child-care grounds.

Spouses can also agree to contractual alimony instead of court-ordered maintenance. Contractual alimony is enforced as a contract rather than under the Family Code, which changes how it gets enforced if a payment is missed, and it is common in agreed cases where the statutory maintenance grounds do not apply but both spouses want ongoing support built into the decree.

Changing your name in the decree

In a divorce, a Texas court will restore a spouse's previously used name if that spouse asks for it, unless the court states a reason in the decree for denying the request. A name change through a divorce decree does not erase debts or rights held under the prior name, so accounts, titles, and other records still need to be updated separately after the case closes.

Filing, prove-up, and finalizing the case

An uncontested Texas divorce is finalized at a short hearing called a prove-up, where the petitioner presents evidence supporting the decree. Whether a prove-up can be done by written affidavit instead of a live hearing depends on the county and the individual judge, so the honest answer to "do I have to go to court" is that it depends on where the case is filed, not a single statewide rule.

1. File the petition with the district clerk in a county where either spouse meets the residency test, either in person or through the eFileTexas system.
2. Serve the other spouse, or have the other spouse sign a waiver of service after the petition is filed.
3. Wait out the 60-day period while finishing the decree and any required disclosures.
4. Attend the prove-up, in person, remotely, or by affidavit depending on the county, and have the judge sign the final decree.
5. File the decree along with Vital Statistics form VS-165, which every Texas divorce must submit.

Texas courts use the eFileTexas system, and self-represented filers may e-file even though they generally are not required to. See how to file for divorce in Texas for the full walkthrough, the forms overview for which packet applies to your case, and filing without a lawyer for what a self-represented filer needs to track.

Frequently asked questions