Filing an uncontested divorce in San Mateo County

One courthouse for family law: Redwood City

The court's local rules settle the question of where to file before it is asked. Rule 5.2, in Division V of the Local Court Rules as amended effective July 1, 2026, provides that all family law proceedings are filed at and heard at the Southern Division in Redwood City, and the rule names the building: the Hall of Justice and Records at 400 County Center. Because the county has a single family law courthouse, there is no assignment to work out from a zip code or a city, and the office does not need to confirm a courthouse with you before the petition is prepared. The caption on your petition and every later document names the Southern Branch.

The court's Family Law Division page places the family law clerk's office on the first floor at 400 County Center, Redwood City, CA 94063, and its location page for the Southern Branch gives the telephone number as (650) 261-5100. The same page describes the building as the Hall of Justice and Records. The address, floor and number as the court's pages gave them on October 18, 2026:

• Southern Branch, Hall of Justice and Records: 400 County Center, Redwood City, CA 94063. Family law clerk's office on the first floor, (650) 261-5100.
• Clerk's counter hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., by appointment only, as the Family Law Division page states.
• Telephone hours for the family law clerk: Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., as the court's phone-numbers page states.

The clerk takes new petitions by appointment

This is the practice that shapes the filing day in San Mateo County. The Family Law Division page prints the counter hours in capital letters as by appointment only, and the court's In-Person Appointment page explains the limit: an appointment covers one new petition or initial filing per customer, and other new filings may be dropped off through the Court Drop Box or mailed. A person filing an ordinary petition, a joint petition or a joint petition for summary dissolution therefore makes one appointment for that filing, and your filing instructions tell you to do so before the day you plan to file.

The court's pages read for this page name the Court Drop Box and the mail as the alternatives to an appointment but do not give the drop box's location or hours or a separate mailing address, so the office does not state them here; the instructions in your portal say which route they send each filing by and what the court's page said about it when they were released. If you choose to e-file instead, no appointment is needed, and the next sections explain that route.

The court's fees, item by item

The court's Fee Schedule page links a document it labels Civil Fees Schedule, effective January 1, 2026, and that link redirects to the Judicial Council's Statewide Civil Fee Schedule effective January 1, 2026. San Mateo publishes no separate local list, so the statewide schedule is the court's schedule. It was read on October 18, 2026, and it lists the petition for dissolution and the response at $435 each, at items 97 and 98. The schedule marks the fees that vary by county with an asterisk and explains in its footnote that those fees differ only in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Francisco because of a local surcharge for courthouse construction; San Mateo does not appear in the surcharge appendix, so the figure the schedule prints is the figure the clerk charges.

The items on the Judicial Council Statewide Civil Fee Schedule effective January 1, 2026 that arise in an uncontested divorce, as it read on October 18, 2026:

• Item 97: a petition or other first paper for dissolution of marriage or domestic partnership, legal separation or nullity, $435, under Government Code sections 70670(b), 70602.5 and 70602.6. This is the fee paid with an ordinary petition.
• Item 98: a response or other first paper filed in response to a petition for dissolution, $435, under Government Code section 70670(d). Your spouse pays it only by filing a response or an appearance.
• Item 99: a joint petition for dissolution or legal separation, except a summary dissolution, $870, which is both first-paper fees.
• Item 100: a joint petition for summary dissolution of marriage or domestic partnership, $435.
• Item 103: a settlement agreement or stipulation for judgment signed by a spouse who has defaulted, no fee. A spouse who signs your agreement and files nothing is not charged.

How many first-paper fees each path pays here

The court's bill is the number of first papers filed. An ordinary petition where your spouse signs the settlement agreement and files nothing pays item 97 once, $435, and item 103 confirms that the agreement a defaulted spouse signs carries no fee of its own. An ordinary petition where your spouse files a response pays items 97 and 98, $870 between the two of you. A joint petition under Family Code section 2342.5 pays item 99, $870, because subdivision (h) of that section provides that the joint petition is filed with both first-paper fees under Government Code section 70670(b) and (d) unless both spouses have fee waivers. A summary dissolution under Family Code sections 2400 to 2403 pays item 100 once, $435. The joint petition does not save a court fee in San Mateo County; both first-paper fees are paid at the counter.

The office's flat fee is a separate amount, paid to the office and not to the court: $599 for a summary dissolution, $999 for a joint petition and $1,499 for an ordinary petition. It pays for the preparation and attorney review of every document in a limited scope engagement under California Rules of Court, rule 5.425, the written filing instructions for the Redwood City courthouse, one revision round of the settlement agreement, and the first correction of a judgment packet the court returns. If a further revision round is needed, it is quoted before any work is done. The fee is earned in stages, and whatever part has not been earned is refunded if the representation ends early.

The limits of the engagement are the same in San Mateo County as anywhere the office prepares documents. The office does not file your documents, does not serve your spouse, does not appear in court, does not provide a notary and does not prepare or record deeds. You file as a self-represented litigant, holding written instructions the attorney reviewed before they were released to you. The office represents one spouse only; the other spouse is not a client of this office in the divorce, is not advised by it, and may consult an attorney of their own choosing.

If you cannot afford the fee

The San Mateo court does not keep a fee waiver page of its own. Its Divorce and Legal Separation page says that a person who is low income or cannot afford the court filing fees can ask the court to waive them by asking for a fee waiver, and it links the Judicial Council's fee waiver guide, which lists the three grounds and says a person needs to meet only one of them. The statute behind the guide is Government Code sections 68630 to 68634: the court waives its fees for a person who receives a listed public benefit, whose household income is at or below the published limit, or who cannot pay and still meet the household's basic needs, and the clerk files the petition while the request is decided.

The court's Family Law Common Form Packets page carries a Request to Waive Court Fees packet made up of FW-001-INFO, FW-001 and FW-003, and its divorce page tells a filer who needs a waiver to bring the FW-001 and FW-003 with the petition, one copy of each only, rather than the two copies the other petition forms take. On a joint petition, each spouse who wants a waiver files their own request, because section 2342.5(h) requires both first-paper fees unless both spouses hold waivers. The office prepares the request and the order form as part of the flat fee when you ask for them. A waiver reaches the court's fees and nothing else; the office's fee is not changed by it.

If you e-file with a fee waiver request, the court's e-filing page says the court's fees are charged at the outset and offset once the waiver is confirmed or granted, that the court charges nothing for the use of the e-filing system, and that the electronic filing service provider you choose may charge fees of its own.

E-filing: required of attorneys, a choice for you

The court's E-Filing page states that it has required all attorneys to file electronically in family law and probate cases since January 21, 2020, and in the next breath states the rule for everyone else: a self-represented person is not required to use electronic filing but may if they choose. Its In-Person Appointment page says the same thing in different words, that self-represented litigants are encouraged but not required to e-file. You are a self-represented litigant for this purpose, because the attorney prepares your documents under rule 5.425 and does not appear in your case, so the mandatory rule for attorneys does not reach you and the choice is yours.

If you choose to e-file, the court's page says a self-represented party is eligible to e-file through any electronic filing service provider and must first establish an account with one. The court does not name the providers on its own page; it links the eFileCA list of certified providers, which is a site outside the court's own, and the providers charge their own fees. The court's page says nothing on whether a judgment packet is handled differently when e-filed, and the research for this page found no statement either way, so your filing instructions treat the paper route as the one the court's pages describe.

The court also offers Self-Prep and File, a free guided interview built on Odyssey Guide and File, which its page describes as a service to help a person fill out court forms, with Divorce, Legal Separation or Nullity among its interviews, and which for some case types e-files the completed forms. The office's documents are prepared and reviewed before you see them, so you do not need the interview to produce them; it is named here because the court's page offers it to a person filing without an attorney.

What you bring at each step

At the petition. The court's divorce page tells a filer to bring the forms with two copies, and its Dissolution Without Children packet names the set: FL-107-INFO, the Petition (form FL-100), the Summons (form FL-110) and local form FL-2. The office releases the petition, summons and FL-2 to you completed, signed in ink where your instruction sheet shows, with the originals and two copies of each; a couple filing a joint petition under section 2342.5 bring the Joint Petition (form FL-700) and its summons instead, and a couple who qualify for summary dissolution bring the Joint Petition for Summary Dissolution (form FL-800) with the property settlement agreement and the Judgment (form FL-825). With any of them go the fee, or the FW-001 and FW-003 in one copy each if you are asking for a waiver, and your counter appointment, made before the day you file.

At service, on an ordinary petition. Nothing is filed until your server has signed the Proof of Service of Summons (form FL-115), or your spouse has signed and returned the Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt (form FL-117). Local rule 5.5(B) requires the Notice of ADR Options to be served on your spouse with the petition and a proof of its service filed, so your server's packet includes FL-2. Your preliminary declaration of disclosure under Family Code section 2104 is served, never filed; only the Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure (form FL-141) goes to the clerk.

At the judgment. The forms the court's divorce page and Judgment Packet list, described in their own section below, with the self-addressed stamped envelopes the court asks for, and nothing more, since California Rules of Court, rule 5.405 fixes the list on the Judgment Checklist (form FL-182). The clerk stamps your copies with the filing date and, at the petition, the case number; you enter both in your portal, and the next set of documents is prepared from them.

Local rules and the one local form

The Local Court Rules of the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, as amended effective July 1, 2026, put family law in Division V. The rules an uncontested divorce meets are few: rule 5.1 on the applicability of the division, rule 5.2 on the court location, rule 5.3 on the matters heard in the family law department, rule 5.4 on case flow management, rule 5.5 on alternative dispute resolution, rule 5.8 on trial setting, status conferences and mandatory settlement conferences, rule 5.9 on judgment by default or uncontested hearing, rule 5.10 on the preparation of orders after hearing and judgments, rule 5.11 on declarations of disclosure and financial information, and rule 5.15 on the Family Law Facilitator's duties. Rule 5.9 adds nothing of its own; it refers the reader to rules 5.401 through 5.415 of the California Rules of Court, which is to say the statewide judgment procedure governs here.

One local form is mandatory. Rule 5.5(B) requires every party to file the Notice of ADR Options and have it served on the other party with any petition or response under the Family Law Act, with a proof of service filed, and rule 5.5(C) adds the consequence: the clerk sets no hearing or trial date until the notice has been filed and served, apart from emergency orders or a request for order filed with a petition. The court's local forms table marks the form mandatory and dates its current revision July 1, 2026. The court's pages call it by two names, Notice of ADR Options on the Local Forms page and in the rules, and Alternative Dispute Resolution Options on the Common Form Packets page, where it appears in both dissolution packets; the rule text cites it as FL-02. It is the same form, FL-2, and the office prepares it with your petition.

The court's Local Forms page lists other family law forms, among them FL-1 Stipulation and Order re Continuance, FL-3 Status Conference Statement, FL-4 Status Conference and Trial Setting Order, FL-6 Stipulation and Order, PR-CV-FL-7 Uncontested Calendar Request, FL-13 Stipulation and Order to Defer Setting of Status Conference and FL-14 Request to Set Status Conference. None of them is stated by the court to be required for an uncontested dissolution petition, default or judgment, and the office prepares none of them unless the court asks for one in your case.

Two further rules shape the judgment itself. Rule 5.10(B) requires at least two lines of text on the page that carries the judge's signature and forbids any text after the signature; the office lays the judgment out to that rule. Rule 5.11(A) provides that no judgment on the parties' property rights is entered unless each party has executed and served their declaration of disclosure and filed their proof of service, absent good cause under Family Code section 2106. The disclosure the office prepares for you, and the FL-141 that proves it was served, meet that rule.

The judgment packet in San Mateo County

The court describes the judgment filing in two places. Its Family Law Common Form Packets page lists a Judgment Packet of four forms: the Judgment Checklist for a dissolution or legal separation (form FL-182), the Judgment (form FL-180), the Declaration for Default or Uncontested Dissolution or Legal Separation (form FL-170) and the Notice of Entry of Judgment (form FL-190). Its Divorce and Legal Separation page lists the default or uncontested judgment filing as the Request to Enter Default (form FL-165), FL-170, FL-180 and FL-190, and adds the envelopes: three self-addressed stamped envelopes where no response was filed, two addressed to your spouse and one to you, or two envelopes where a response was filed with an agreement, in which case the Appearance, Stipulations and Waivers (form FL-130) and a stipulated judgment go in as well.

Those lists sit inside the statewide rules. California Rules of Court, rule 5.405 limits what a court may require of a judgment packet to the forms on the FL-182 checklist, rule 5.411 governs a judgment entered on the parties' stipulation, and rule 5.415 is the reason for the envelopes, since the clerk mails the entered judgment and the notice of entry to each spouse in them. Local rule 5.9 points to those same rules rather than adding local ones, so what the court's divorce page lists is the statewide packet with the envelope counts spelled out. Family Code section 2336 lets the court enter the judgment on your declaration, without a hearing, and that is how an uncontested divorce on a written agreement is decided in this county.

How the packet reaches the clerk is the one point the court's pages leave open. The methods the court states for family law filings are an appointment at the counter, the Court Drop Box, the mail and optional e-filing through a provider, and its statements about the drop box and the mail speak of new filings generally rather than of judgments. No judgment review turnaround is published, and the court's page does not say whether the envelopes are needed when a packet is e-filed. Your filing instructions name the route and say what the court's page stated when they were released, and the first correction of a packet the court returns is included in the flat fee.

The court's Family Law Facilitator runs a program, described on its Getting Help Finishing Your Divorce page, for self-represented parties whose case is ready for judgment: the spouse has been served and the proof of service or a response is on file, and the couple either have a full agreement or a default has been taken. Participation is by appointment, with sign-up through the LiveChat on the Self-Help Center's page, and the page carries two cautions worth knowing even if you never use the program. It warns that a judgment cannot be completed through the program unless any retirement benefits are listed in the petition or the response, and it says the responding spouse may not take part without the spouse who filed. The office prepares your judgment packet, so the program is not part of your path; it is described here because the court offers it to anyone in your position.

Appearing remotely, if a hearing is ever set

An uncontested divorce on a written agreement needs no hearing; the judgment is entered on your declaration under Family Code section 2336. If a hearing is set in your case, the court's Family Law Remote Appearance Protocol says the court has expanded remote appearances by way of Zoom audio and video, and the page lists which family law calendars are heard remotely and which may be either remote or in person, pointing to its Calendar Appearance Requirement Matrix for the detail. The protocol asks a participant to sign in 15 minutes before the hearing under their full name, gives a remote-appearance help line at (650) 298-5758, and warns that recording a proceeding without authorization violates California Rules of Court, rule 1.150.

The court's Zoom credentials page explains where the sign-in details live: a case assigned to one of the Family Law Direct Departments uses the credentials on that department's own web page, and the credentials for the domestic violence and child support calendars are on the Family Law Division page. If the court sets a hearing in your case, your portal tells you and the instructions say what the court has asked for; the office does not appear at it.

The Self-Help Center and the Family Law Facilitator

The court runs the two as one office, the Self-Help Center / Family Law Facilitator, which its flyer calls the Office of the Family Law Facilitator / Self-Help Center, and local rule 5.15 sets out the Facilitator's duties. The flyer places the office on the sixth floor of 400 County Center, Redwood City, CA 94063, and notes that it has moved there. The court's page says the office provides its services remotely through expanded LiveChat hours and asks that a person contact it through the LiveChat on that page before coming to the office.

Hours are published on the flyer the court links, which is dated and carries an end date, so read it before you go. The court's Southern Branch location page and the flyer give different in-person weekdays; the flyer, which that page and the Self-Help Center page point to for current hours, lists two weekday mornings in person, first come, first served, with sign-ups on the sixth floor, and LiveChat every weekday morning and two afternoons. The flyer's hours carry an end date, and the two court pages differ, so this page prints no hours and follows the flyer's instruction to read it first. The flyer admits the customer alone: friends, family and children are not admitted, and the court's page says there is no childcare at the courthouse.

For a divorce or legal separation, the court's page lists help with starting a petition, a response, the preliminary disclosures, a default judgment and an agreement. Its limits, as the court's page states them: the staff give no legal advice, no attorney-client relationship is formed, and what you tell them is not confidential. The court publishes no direct telephone number for the Self-Help Center; the court's chosen channel is the LiveChat. You will not need the Facilitator to complete the office's documents, and your questions go first to your portal and the office; the court's Center answers the questions about the clerk's practice on the day that no outside office can.

Outside the flat fee: a case with minor children, a business, a pension that needs its own order, real property outside California, a legal separation or an annulment, a spouse who cannot be found, and a dispute the two of you will not settle. The State Bar of California's Lawyer Referral Service directory, at calbar.ca.gov/Public/Need-Legal-Help/Lawyer-Referral-Service, lists the certified lawyer referral services for every county.

After the judgment, in this county

The court's divorce page states the timing rule the way the statute does: the soonest a person can be divorced is six months and one day from the earliest of the dates it lists, which are the date your spouse was served and the date your spouse appeared. That is Family Code section 2339, counted as form FL-107-INFO counts it, and the judgment states the date your marriage ends under section 2340. Filing in San Mateo County, filing by appointment, e-filing or using the Facilitator's program changes nothing about that date; the judgment is entered once the complete packet has been reviewed, and the date of termination it carries is never earlier than the six months allow.

The clerk mails the entered Judgment and the Notice of Entry of Judgment to each spouse in the envelopes your packet supplied, which is why the court asks for them addressed and stamped. Any transfer of California real property your agreement calls for is a separate matter after the judgment, because the office does not prepare or record deeds.

The residence rule is the one the court's divorce page repeats from Family Code section 2320: six months in California and three months in the county where you file before the petition is filed. If you have lived in San Mateo County for less than three months, the petition belongs in the county that meets the rule, and the office confirms the county in the intake. The sources below were each read on October 18, 2026; every address, hour, fee, rule number and form number on this page comes from one of them, and anything the court's materials did not confirm is left off.

Rozsa Gyene, State Bar of California No. 208356, 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505.