Court Cost Calculator

Add up the court-side costs of a civil case before you file: the filing fee for the court and case type, plus the per-defendant service charge and the running costs of motions and depositions. Enter a handful of numbers and the page returns an itemised total you can carry into a budget conversation.

Important: Not Legal Advice

This page looks up published fee schedules and performs arithmetic on them. It is not legal advice, and using it does not create a solicitor–client relationship. Fees, exemptions and procedural rules vary by court, case type and jurisdiction, and are revised periodically. Always confirm the current figures with the relevant court, government office or a qualified legal professional.

Four Cost Lines and a Filing Fee Schedule

The estimate is built from four separate cost lines, one of which depends on the state and case type you pick. Rather than hiding the arithmetic, the page prints each line with its multiplier so you can see exactly where the money goes. A collapsible table below the result shows the filing fees used for the selected state across every case type it supports.

• Filing fee. This is the only line that varies by state and case type. California small claims is the exception: it is not a single figure but a three-band schedule.
• Service of process, charged at fifty dollars for each defendant you name. One defendant costs fifty; three cost one hundred and fifty.
• Motion fees, charged at sixty dollars per motion. The default of three motions adds one hundred and eighty dollars.
• Deposition fees, charged at two hundred dollars per deposition. The default of two adds four hundred dollars.
• A small claims guard: if you pick small claims and a claim above the state limit, the page adds a warning that the case may not qualify for that court.

Running an Estimate

1. Choose the State. Seven options are offered — California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Washington and Other (average) — and the filing fee table updates when you change it.
2. Choose the Case type: small claims, limited civil, unlimited civil, family law or probate. This selection decides which filing fee row is used.
3. Enter the Claim amount in dollars. It does not change the court fees directly, but it is checked against the small claims limit for the chosen state.
4. Set Defendants to serve, Motions expected and Depositions. Each of these drives its own line through a fixed multiplier.
5. Press Calculate Costs or the Enter key in any numeric field. The result panel shows the four lines, the multipliers and the total.
6. Open the filing fee schedule to compare the state's other case types against the one you chose, then treat the whole figure as the court's share only.

The Default Estimate in Full

The page opens on Texas, unlimited civil, a fifty-thousand-dollar claim, one defendant, three motions and two depositions. Here is what each line resolves to and why.

• The filing fee for an unlimited civil case in Texas is two hundred and ninety-seven dollars. The page prints it as Filing Fee (Unlimited civil): $297.
• Service of process is fifty dollars times one defendant, shown as $50 with the multiplier spelled out as 1 defendant times $50.
• Motions come to one hundred and eighty dollars, and the page writes it as 3 motions times $60 so the arithmetic is visible rather than assumed.
• Depositions come to four hundred dollars, written as 2 depositions times $200.
• The four lines sum to nine hundred and twenty-seven dollars, which is the Total Estimated figure at the foot of the panel. No small claims warning appears because the case type is not small claims.
• Now switch the case type to Small claims and leave the claim at fifty thousand. The filing fee drops to fifty-four dollars in Texas, but the page adds a red-bordered warning: your claim exceeds the Texas small claims limit of twenty thousand dollars, so the case may not qualify. That warning is the tool telling you the case type is inconsistent with the amount, not an error in the arithmetic.

Ways to Build a Litigation Budget

Alternative	Notes
A court fee estimate, like this page	Good for a fast, order-of-magnitude figure on the statutory fees before filing. It uses national-average and state-level estimates and cannot see county surcharges, so treat it as a floor rather than a quote.
The court clerk's published fee schedule	The authoritative source, and the one to use once you know the county. State fee schedules often set a base that counties adjust, and some add local fees for courthouse construction, dispute resolution or electronic filing. Checking the clerk's own list removes the guesswork the estimator has to accept.
Asking an attorney for a fee projection	Attorney time, not court fees, is normally the dominant cost of a civil case. A practitioner can tie the filing fee, motions and discovery load to the specific procedural posture of your matter, which no self-service estimator can do.
Tracking actual expenditure as you file	Once a case starts, keeping a running ledger of what the clerk and process server actually charged gives you ground truth for later stages and any costs recovery. The estimate is a starting assumption; the ledger replaces it.

What the Estimate Leaves Out

The figure this page returns is only the court's own fees. Several large and ordinary costs of a civil case sit outside it entirely, and the page says so in its own information box. Reading the number without the caveats would badly understate the budget.

• Attorney fees are excluded and are usually the largest single cost. The page's own note puts typical civil case attorney fees in the range of five thousand to fifty thousand dollars and beyond, which is an order of magnitude above the filing fees here.
• County variation is not modelled. The filing fees are state-level estimates, and a county may add its own charges, so the real figure at the window can be higher.
• Fees change, and the schedule carries a verified-2026 label. A fee raised since then will not be reflected, so confirm the current amount before relying on it.
• Costs such as expert witnesses, court reporters, transcripts, mediation, e-filing service charges and postage are not included, and for a discovery-heavy case they can exceed the deposition line several times over.
• The matching is deliberately simple: it does not ask about venue, whether the case is removed to another court, whether you qualify for a fee waiver, or any in-forma-pauperis relief. Each of those can change what you actually pay.

Questions About the Figures

Why is the California small claims fee not a single number?

Because California sets it in bands by the size of the claim. The tool uses thirty dollars for claims under fifteen hundred, fifty dollars for claims up to five thousand, and seventy-five dollars above that. Every other state in the list has one flat small claims figure — fifteen in New York, fifty-four in Texas, fifty-five in Florida, sixty in Illinois, thirty in Washington and fifty for the average.

How is the small claims warning triggered?

When the case type is small claims and the claim amount exceeds that state's limit. The limits the tool carries are twelve thousand five hundred for California, ten thousand for New York, twenty thousand for Texas, eight thousand for Florida, ten thousand for Illinois, ten thousand for Washington and ten thousand for other states. The warning does not stop the calculation; it flags that the amount may put the case in a higher court.

Does changing the defendants, motions or depositions change the filing fee?

No. The filing fee depends only on the state and case type. Defendants affect the service line at fifty dollars each, motions affect the motion line at sixty dollars each, and depositions affect the deposition line at two hundred dollars each. Raising defendants from one to four, for example, lifts service from fifty to two hundred while leaving the filing fee untouched.

Is this legal advice?

No, and the page is explicit about that. It is a fee arithmetic helper, not a source of legal advice, and it cannot account for the specifics of your matter. Consult a qualified attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on how to proceed, and confirm the current fees with the relevant court clerk before filing.

Last verified: October 7, 2026

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Maintained by Huang Bin · Last updated October 3, 2026