To fill out a civil cover sheet in federal court, you complete form JS 44 and file it alongside your complaint. The Judicial Conference of the United States requires the JS 44 for every new civil case, and the clerk uses it to open the docket and route the case to the right judge.1United States Courts. Civil Cover Sheet It is an administrative routing form, not a pleading, so nothing you write on it replaces what has to appear in the complaint itself.
When You Need a JS 44
You need a JS 44 any time you file a new civil complaint in a United States District Court. That includes original complaints, cases removed from state court, transferred cases, and matters that are part of multidistrict litigation. The clerk will not open a case without it.
The form does not go on the public docket as a substantive document. It is a cover tool: the clerk reads it, assigns a case number and a nature-of-suit category, and files your complaint behind it. If anything on the sheet contradicts the complaint, the complaint controls.
What the JS 44 Asks For
The JS 44 has seven blocks of information you have to complete before filing.
Party Names and Counties of Residence
List the full names of all plaintiffs and all defendants exactly as they appear in the caption of your complaint. Then give the county of residence for the first listed plaintiff and the first listed defendant. You only name counties for the lead parties on each side, not for everyone.
Attorney Information
Provide the firm name, mailing address, and phone number for the attorney of record. If you are representing yourself, your own name and contact information go in this block.
Basis of Jurisdiction
Check the box that identifies why the federal court has jurisdiction over the case. The options cover a federal question (your claim arises under federal law), diversity of citizenship (parties are from different states and the amount in controversy is sufficient), or a case in which the United States government is a party, either as plaintiff or defendant. Pick exactly one.
Nature of Suit
Select the category code that best describes your type of case. The codes cover broad buckets like contract, tort, civil rights, and labor, with narrower subcategories under each. This is the single most consequential entry on the form because it drives how the court tracks and sometimes assigns the case.
Case Origin
Indicate whether this is an original proceeding (filed here first), a removal from state court, a transfer from another federal district, a reinstated or reopened case, or a filing tied to multidistrict litigation. Only one origin applies.
Cause of Action
Cite the specific federal statute you are suing under and add a brief plain-English description of what the case is about. Do not use this space to argue the merits. One or two sentences is enough.
Related Cases
Disclose any pending or closed cases before the same court that involve overlapping parties or legal issues. For each one, list the assigned judge and the docket number. This is how the court catches cases that should be consolidated or sent to the judge already handling related litigation.
Nature of Suit and Related Cases Deserve Extra Care
Two blocks cause more trouble than the rest. The first is nature of suit. Picking the wrong code will not usually get your filing rejected, but it can route your case to the wrong judge or delay processing while the clerk’s office sorts out the mismatch. Read the full code list before you check a box, and if two codes seem to fit, pick the one that captures the primary claim rather than a secondary theory.
The second is the related-cases block. Leaving out a related case is the kind of omission that gets noticed later, when the opposing party flags it or a judge recognizes the overlap. If you know of a related matter, disclose it with the judge name and docket number. If you are not sure whether something qualifies, err on the side of listing it.
Filing the Cover Sheet with Your Complaint
The JS 44 is filed as part of the same submission as the complaint, not separately. In nearly every federal district, that means uploading both through the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system. You need a PACER account and electronic filing privileges at the specific court before you can submit; on the newer NextGen platform, you register through PACER and then apply to the court for filing access.2PACER: Federal Court Records. Attorney Filers for CM/ECF
The cover sheet needs to be submitted as a flattened PDF. If you fill out the JS 44 as a fillable PDF form and upload it without flattening, the content in the form fields may not display correctly, or the system may reject it entirely.3United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. How to Flatten PDF Forms Flatten the PDF before you submit so the typed answers lock into the page.
The filing fee for a new civil case in federal district court is $405, consisting of a $350 statutory fee and a $55 administrative fee set by the Judicial Conference.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1914 – District Court Filing and Miscellaneous Fees The fee is paid when you submit, not separately for the cover sheet. If you cannot afford the fee, you can ask to proceed in forma pauperis by filing an affidavit of your assets under 28 U.S.C. ยง 1915; the administrative portion of the fee does not apply if that request is granted.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1915 – Proceedings In Forma Pauperis
One more thing to check before you upload: redaction. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2 requires you to scrub Social Security and taxpayer ID numbers (keep only the last four digits), full birth dates (keep only the year), names of minors (use initials), and financial account numbers (keep only the last four digits) from anything you file.6Legal Information Institute (LII). Rule 5.2 – Privacy Protection For Filings Made with the Court The clerk does not check your documents for compliance; that burden is on the filer. If a party address or identifier you entered on the JS 44 contains protected data, redact it the same way you would in the complaint.
If the Cover Sheet Is Missing or Wrong
Submitting a complaint without a JS 44, or with an obviously incomplete one, is one of the standard reasons e-filings get rejected. If the clerk spots a problem, you will receive a deficiency notice identifying the specific error. Many courts give you 14 days to fix the deficiency before the submission is stricken from the record, and in some jurisdictions a corrected filing submitted within that window relates back to the original filing date. Check your court’s local rules on relation-back before you count on it to save a deadline.
Less obvious errors, like a questionable nature-of-suit code or a missing related-case entry, usually will not trigger a rejection. They tend to surface later, when the case gets assigned to a judge who then has to reassign it, or when another party points out an omission. Fixing them after the fact is an amended cover sheet rather than a rejected filing, but it still slows the case down.
State Court Cover Sheets Are Different
The JS 44 is a federal form. State courts generally have their own equivalent cover sheets with different fields, different nature-of-case categories, and different filing procedures. Do not assume the JS 44 applies, and do not try to use it as a template for a state filing. Pull the correct form from the clerk’s website for the specific court where you are filing.