How Long Does a Divorce Take in Michigan?

By the FormsPal Editorial Team · Updated October 28, 2026 · 12 min read

Michigan is unusually specific about time. A judge may not hear proofs until 60 days after the Complaint for Divorce is filed, or until six months after filing when there are dependent minor children under 18. That number is a minimum, not a promise. No Michigan divorce is granted on paperwork alone. Each one closes at a short hearing in open court, on a day the court picks. So the useful answer to "how long" has three parts: the statutory wait, the work finished while it runs (notifying your spouse, an Answer or a default, the judgment), and the gap between the end of the wait and the first hearing date your court can offer. You will not find an average here, because no official source publishes one and an invented figure would mislead you.

Residency: the time that passes before you can file

The first clock runs before your case even exists. Under MCL 552.9, the court cannot grant a divorce unless you or your spouse lived in Michigan for the 180 days immediately before filing, and one of you lived in the county where the case is filed for the 10 days immediately before filing. Either spouse can satisfy either test. That flexibility matters if one of you recently moved: a filer who just arrived in a new county can still file in the county where the other spouse has been living.

A tighter rule applies when your spouse lived outside Michigan at the time you file, or lived elsewhere when the marriage broke down. The last sentence of MCL 552.9f then requires you to show either that the two of you lived together in Michigan as a married couple, or that you have lived here in good faith for the whole year before filing. For someone who came to Michigan alone, that turns 180 days into a full year. Michigan Legal Help's introduction to divorce without children explains the basic 180-day and county rules in plain language.

The 60-day and six-month waits

The waiting period lives in MCL 552.9f. It bars proofs or testimony until 60 days after the complaint is filed, or six months after filing where there are dependent minor children under 18. Because a Michigan judgment of divorce follows the judge hearing proof, that bar on testimony is a bar on finishing. Three details trip people up.

• It starts on your filing date. The day the clerk accepts your Complaint is day one. Serving your spouse later does not restart the count, and the date you separated plays no part in it.
• The children test reads more broadly than "our kids." The statute speaks of dependent minor children under 18. A minor child of you both, including one born before the wedding, puts the case on the six-month wait. So does a child born to the wife during the marriage, whom Michigan law presumes to be a child of the marriage. Children who have already turned 18 do not trigger it.
• It is a floor, not a finish line. When the 60 days or six months run out, nothing happens on its own. Your case still needs a hearing date, and that comes from the court.

Source: MCL 552.9f, read with MCR 3.210(A)(2).

A six-month case also carries extra paperwork, which our guide to a Michigan divorce with children walks through. The clock works the same way, with a later end.

Asking the court to shorten six months

On a motion and a proper showing of unusual hardship or compelling necessity, the court may take testimony, and under the court rule enter the judgment, at any time after 60 days from filing. Note the word "may." You have to ask, you have to show why your situation qualifies, and the judge decides. The statute does not define hardship or necessity, so there is no checklist to meet in advance.

Two limits are fixed. No motion gets below 60 days from filing. And a case without minor children has no early option, because 60 days is already its minimum. That is why our case tracker and reminders use the six-month date for every case with minor children: plan for the date the law sets, and treat an earlier hearing as a bonus.

Where the weeks go, step by step

The statutory wait is not dead time. Most of the work that decides your end date happens while it runs. Here is the order an uncontested Michigan case follows, and which rule, if any, puts a number on each step.

Steps two to four overlap the wait. In a cooperative case they can all be finished well before day 60, leaving the hearing date as the only open question. When one drags past the end of the wait, it sets your timeline instead of the statute. Our list of Michigan divorce papers covers every form those steps involve.

The final hearing sets the real end date

Michigan does not let a divorce finish on the papers. MCL 552.6(3) tells the court to enter a judgment when evidence is presented in open court that the marriage has broken down, and court rule MCR 3.210(B)(5) adds that a divorce judgment may not be entered as a matter of course on default or by consent. So every case, the friendliest included, ends in a courtroom with brief testimony. Once the wait is over and your spouse has either answered or been defaulted, the court sets a date, and the Notice of Hearing (FOC 7) gives your spouse notice of it.

The hearing itself is short when everything is agreed. The judge takes proof before granting the divorce, and you should expect questions about whether the court has jurisdiction, whether either of you is pregnant, the breakdown of the marriage, and how property is being divided. No official source we have read says which spouse has to testify or attend, so ask the clerk what your court expects from each of you.

In an agreed case you arrive with the Judgment of Divorce already approved as to form and content and signed by both of you (MCR 3.210(E)(1)). If the judge finds a term that is not in accordance with law, you submit a corrected judgment within 14 days or on whatever schedule the judge sets. That correction is the one built-in delay at the end of an agreed case. One more short deadline: if the court changes the judgment in a way that alters the Domestic Relations Judgment Information form (FOC 100) you served on the friend of the court, a new one goes to that office within 7 days.

How long after the wait your hearing lands is the one piece nobody outside your court can tell you. It depends on the judge's docket, and no official source we rely on gives a statewide figure. Practice differs by circuit even at the filing stage: Wayne's Third Circuit does not take family filings on MiFILE, for example, while Oakland's 6th Circuit does. Ask your clerk how hearings are set.

The timeline when your spouse never answers

A spouse who ignores the papers does not stop the divorce, but the default route has its own sequence and its own deadlines on top of the statutory wait. The court rules lay it out in order:

1. Request the default. You file the Default Request and Entry (MC 07), sworn before a notary or a deputy clerk.
2. Give notice of the entry. Once the clerk enters the default, you mail a copy first-class to your spouse's last known address, sign the certificate of mailing on page 2, and file that copy. Everything you file afterward is also served on your spouse.
3. Get a hearing date, then count backward. You ask the court to schedule the hearing. Your Motion for Entry of Default Judgment of Divorce, the Notice of Hearing, and the proposed Judgment of Divorce must reach your spouse at least 14 days before that date, by first-class mail or by hand. The motion itself is filed at least 7 days before the hearing, unless the court sets another time.
4. The hearing. You hand up the proposed judgment before the judge takes proofs. If the court does not approve it as written, a modified judgment is due within 14 days.
5. After entry. Within 7 days you mail the entered judgment to your spouse and file a Proof of Mailing (MC 302).

So a default case cannot be squeezed into the last days of the wait. For a hearing soon after the wait ends, the default and its mailed notice have to be finished early enough that the 14-day service window fits before your court's date.

What stretches a Michigan case

Whether you finish near the minimum or well past it comes down to a short list:

• Service that does not happen. A spouse who cannot be found, or who avoids being handed the papers, holds everything up, and the Summons will not last forever. Service has to be completed before it expires.
• A counterclaim instead of an Answer. If your spouse files a counterclaim, the case is no longer uncontested, and the agreed-case timing described here stops applying. That is the point to talk to a Michigan attorney. Our guide to an uncontested divorce in Michigan covers where that line falls.
• A judgment the judge cannot sign as written. A term that is not in accordance with law sends the judgment back for correction, due within 14 days or as the judge directs. Use the wait to check that the Judgment of Divorce, and the children's orders (FOC 89 and FOC 10/52) where they apply, are complete and match what the two of you agreed.
• The financial information form. Unless you both waive it in writing, or a consent judgment signed by both of you was filed with the case, each of you owes the other a CC 320 within 28 days of the first responsive pleading. A consent judgment signed later does not excuse it.
• Sworn papers left late. The UCCJEA Affidavit (MC 416) in a children's case and the MC 07 on the default route are sworn before a notary or deputy clerk, unlike everything else, which is signed under penalty of perjury. Book the notary early.

A delay from any of these is open-ended until it is fixed. For the full filing sequence, see our guide on how to file for divorce in Michigan.

Time and money usually get planned together. Michigan's filing fees are set by statute, $175 to start and $80 more when custody or parenting time is decided, and our breakdown of Michigan divorce costs explains when that $80 is waived and how a fee waiver works. The divorce cost calculator compares the self-help and attorney paths with Michigan already selected.

If you are still working out whether an agreed, do-it-yourself case fits your situation, our Michigan online divorce page sets out the residency rules, the two waiting periods, and what the packet contains in one place.

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