How to Find Divorce Records Online: State, County, and Sealed Files

To find divorce records online, start at one of two places depending on what you need: your state’s vital records office if you want a divorce certificate confirming the divorce happened, or the county court’s online case index where the case was filed if you want the full divorce decree with settlement terms. USA.gov maintains a directory that routes you to the correct office in every state.¹ The rest comes down to knowing which document you actually need and having enough identifying information to run a useful search.

Decide Which Document You Need First

A divorce certificate and a divorce decree are two different records held by two different offices, and searching the wrong one wastes time and money.

A divorce certificate is a vital record, similar to a birth certificate. It confirms that a divorce happened and lists both parties’ names, the date, and the location. That’s about it. A divorce decree is the actual court order that ended the marriage, and it contains the full terms: property division, custody, alimony, and debt allocation.¹

A certificate is usually enough if you only need to prove the divorce occurred, for example to remarry or change your name. The decree is what you need to enforce a custody order, verify how assets were divided, or provide full terms to an immigration officer.¹

Gather Your Search Information

Online record databases only work as well as the details you feed them. Before you start clicking through portals, pull together:

The full legal names of both spouses, including maiden names, former married names, and any known aliases. Court records use the legal names on the filing, which may not match names used socially.
An approximate date the divorce was finalized. Even a rough year range helps narrow results, and the filing date and finalization date are often different.
The county and state where the divorce was filed. Divorces are processed at the county level, and searching the wrong county returns nothing.

The county is the most important item. A statewide vital records office can find a certificate with just names and a date range, but for the full decree, you almost always need to know which county handled the case.

Search State Vital Records Online

Each state has a vital records office, usually housed in the Department of Health, that maintains records of divorces occurring in the state. These offices issue divorce certificates rather than full decrees. USA.gov links to every state’s office and shows what each one offers, its fees, and how to order.¹

Not every state issues divorce certificates through its vital records office. Some send all requests to the county court that handled the case. Check your specific state’s process before assuming the vital records route will work for you.

Many state vital records offices contract with VitalChek, an online ordering service that partners with more than 450 government agencies. If a state uses VitalChek, you’ll typically be redirected there from the state’s own site. VitalChek adds a processing fee on top of the state’s base fee, so you’re paying for convenience. The record itself still comes from the government agency.

Search County Court Case Indexes Online

The county clerk or clerk of court in the jurisdiction where the divorce was filed holds the complete case file, including the decree with all settlement terms.¹ Go directly to the county court’s website. Most county courts now have some form of electronic case index that lets you search by party name or case number.

Online access varies widely. Some counties let you view and download documents directly. Others only let you confirm a case exists, then require you to request copies by mail or in person. A few smaller or rural counties still have no online search capability, and you’ll need to call or write the clerk’s office.

When you find the case in the index, note the case number. You’ll need it to request copies, and it speeds up everything that follows. If you’re requesting a certified copy, one bearing an official seal that courts and agencies will accept as authentic, specify that when ordering. An uncertified copy is just a photocopy and won’t be accepted for most legal purposes.

What You’ll See and What Stays Hidden

Divorce cases are civil proceedings, and in most states the basic case information and final judgment are public record. But public record doesn’t mean everything in the file is freely visible.

Redacted Personal Information

Federal rules require certain personal identifiers to be redacted from court filings, whether electronic or paper. Filings may include only the last four digits of Social Security and taxpayer identification numbers, the year of a person’s birth rather than the full date, a minor child’s initials rather than the full name, and the last four digits of financial account numbers.² Many state courts follow similar or identical rules. Even when a divorce file is publicly accessible online, the most sensitive personal data should already be stripped out.

Sealed and Restricted Cases

A judge can order a divorce case sealed entirely, which removes it from public access. Sealing typically happens when disclosure would harm a party’s privacy, endanger someone’s safety, or expose confidential business information like trade secrets. Some states go further and restrict who can access divorce records at all. A handful limit access to the parties, their attorneys, or people with a court order. In states that allow public access, some make only the certificate or final decree public while keeping the rest of the file restricted.

If you search an online court index and find nothing, the case may be sealed rather than nonexistent. Contact the clerk’s office directly to ask whether a record exists but is restricted.

Third-Party Search Sites

When you don’t know which county or even which state a divorce was filed in, private aggregator sites offer a way to search across multiple jurisdictions at once. They pull public record data from various government databases and consolidate it into a single search interface. They’re most useful as a starting point to identify the right jurisdiction, after which you can go directly to the county court for official copies.

A caution: this space is full of sites that overcharge for records you could get free or cheap from the government directly. Some present themselves as official-looking portals but are just reselling public data at a steep markup. Before paying a third-party site, check whether you can get the same record from the court or vital records office for less. The aggregator’s real value is locating the jurisdiction, not being the final source for the document.

Older Records That Aren’t Fully Online

If you’re searching for a divorce that predates electronic court records, the process gets slower but is rarely impossible. Most counties digitized records back to a certain cutoff year, and anything older lives on microfilm or in paper archives.

Start with the county clerk where the divorce was filed. Even if the online index doesn’t reach that far back, the clerk’s office can usually search older physical indexes by name given an approximate date range. Some states have transferred very old court records to their state archives, so if the county no longer has the file, check whether the state archives hold historical court records from that county and time period.

For genealogical research into divorces from the early twentieth century or before, FamilySearch.org has digitized a significant number of historical court records and vital records indexes that are searchable for free. The National Center for Health Statistics also collected detailed divorce data from states for decades, though that detailed collection was suspended in 1996.³ For very old records, you may need to visit a physical archive in person.

When the Online Copy Isn’t Enough

A printout or screenshot from an online search is not a legal document. Many situations require a certified copy, meaning an official reproduction bearing the court’s seal or the vital records office’s stamp of authenticity.

The Social Security Administration requires an original or certified copy of your divorce decree to update your name on your Social Security card. Photocopies and notarized copies are not accepted.⁴ The State Department similarly requires an original or certified decree to change your name on a U.S. passport.⁵ USCIS requires proof that any prior marriage was legally terminated before it will approve a marriage-based immigration petition, and the divorce must be final under the law of the jurisdiction that issued the decree.⁶

If you need to present a divorce decree in a foreign country that is part of the Hague Apostille Convention, the document needs an apostille. For state-issued documents like divorce decrees and certificates, the apostille comes from the Secretary of State in the state where the document was issued, not from the federal government.⁷

Fees and Delivery Timelines

Costs vary by state and county. State vital records offices generally charge between $10 and $25 for a divorce certificate, though some states are cheaper. County courts typically charge a per-page fee for copies plus an additional fee for certification, which adds up depending on the length of your decree. VitalChek and similar services layer their processing fee on top.

Standard delivery by mail from either a state office or county court usually takes one to four weeks. Some courts offer electronic delivery of uncertified copies as a PDF download, which is much faster but won’t carry a seal. If you need a certified copy urgently, call the clerk’s office directly. Many courts allow in-person pickup or offer expedited processing for an additional fee.

Some offices still process requests manually, especially for older records. If your request requires someone to pull a physical file from storage, expect it to take longer than the standard timeline posted on the website.

1
USAGov. How to Get a Copy of a Divorce Decree or Certificate
2
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 5.2 – Privacy Protection for Filings Made With the Court
3
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NVSS – Marriages and Divorces
4
Social Security Administration. US Citizen – Adult Name Change on Social Security Card
5
U.S. Department of State. Name Change for U.S. Passport or Correct a Printing or Data Error
6
USCIS. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part B Chapter 6 – Spouses
7
U.S. Department of State. Preparing a Document for an Apostille Certificate