Divorce in France for Americans: The Four Procedures, Costs, Time and Your Permit

Yes, you can get divorced in France as an American, whether your spouse is French, American or of another nationality, and whether you married in France or in the United States. French law knows four kinds of divorce: one by mutual consent, signed with two lawyers and registered by a notaire without a judge, and three decided by a family judge, each with a lawyer for each spouse. This guide covers the courts and the law that apply, the four procedures, their periods and costs, what a divorce settles, how a US marriage and a US divorce are recorded, and what a separation does to a residence permit that rests on the marriage. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Rules change, and your situation may differ: always verify current requirements with the relevant French authorities or a licensed professional.

Can You Get Divorced in France as an American?

Yes, when your life as a couple is in France: the grounds on which a French court can take a divorce are tied to where the spouses habitually live, and none of them is the place of the wedding. They come from Regulation (EU) 2019/1111, cited by service-public on a page written for citizens of EU countries (verified on July 23, 2025). It lists five situations in which a divorce can be filed in a French court:

• you live in France with your spouse;
• your last shared habitual residence was in France and one of you still lives there;
• the divorce is filed against you and your habitual residence is in France;
• you are the one who files, your habitual residence is in France, and you have lived there for at least one year immediately before filing;
• you file jointly and one of you lives in France.

Your Europe, the EU’s official information portal (checked on June 12, 2026), lists the same residence grounds. Neither page is written for an American couple, and no official French page spells the rule out for spouses from outside the EU: make jurisdiction the first question for a family lawyer, before either of you files anywhere. Whether a US court could also take your case is a matter of US state law, not covered here.

Inside France, the judge is the one of the place where the family lives: the juge aux affaires familiales (family judge, JAF) of the tribunal judiciaire.

Which Country’s Law Applies to the Divorce?

For spouses who both live in France and have chosen no other law, the divorce is governed by French law. The European e-Justice Portal’s page on divorce in France (updated on February 22, 2024) gives the rule, from Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010: the spouses may choose the law applicable to their divorce, and when they have not, it is the law of the State where they habitually live when the court is seized. Failing that, the portal lists, in order, the State where they last lived if one of them still lives there, the State of their common nationality and the law of the court seized.

That rule is stated for the divorce itself. The service-public pages on dividing property describe the French matrimonial regimes and say nothing of a couple married in the United States: which law governs your property is the second question for the lawyer.

The Four Kinds of Divorce in French Law

French law has one divorce without a judge, by mutual consent, and three before the family judge: accepted divorce, divorce for definitive breakdown of the marriage, and divorce for fault. Service-public’s section on divorce has a page for each, and each spouse must have his or her own lawyer in all four.

A couple before the judge can move to mutual consent once they agree. One door closes: after accepting the principle of the divorce in writing, you can no longer ask for a divorce for fault or for definitive breakdown. Divorce concerns marriage only: a PACS ends by a joint declaration, or by a decision served on the other partner.

Divorce by Mutual Consent: Two Lawyers, 15 Days and a Notaire

If you agree on the divorce and on everything that follows from it, you divorce without a judge: your lawyers draft an agreement (convention), you sign it after a 15-day reflection period, and a notaire registers it. The steps on service-public’s page on divorce by mutual consent (verified on February 4, 2025):

1. Each spouse chooses a lawyer, who cannot belong to the same firm as the other’s, and signs a fee agreement (convention d’honoraires).
2. The lawyers draft the agreement. It gives no reasons for the divorce, and must set out, among other things, parental authority, any prestation compensatoire, the settlement of your property (or a sworn statement that there is nothing to divide) and the use of the other’s name.
3. Each lawyer sends the draft to his or her client by registered letter (how a French registered letter is delivered). You then have 15 days of reflection, and both spouses and both lawyers sign together only once they have passed.
4. Within 7 days, a lawyer sends the agreement to the notaire, who registers it within 15 days of receiving it. Registration makes it enforceable, and there is no appeal.

A judge steps in only when a minor child asks to be heard: the agreement then goes to the family judge for approval, and in that one case a single lawyer may act for both spouses.

One sentence of that page matters to Americans: if you need your divorce recognized in a foreign country, you must check whether that country recognizes a divorce not pronounced by a judge. Put the question to a lawyer in the US state concerned before you sign. If the answer is uncertain, a divorce before the judge ends in a judgment.

Divorce Before the Judge: Accepted, Definitive Breakdown and Fault

The three other divorces follow one procedure before the family judge and differ in what has to be shown. The common procedure (page verified on September 11, 2026) runs like this:

• The petition. One spouse’s lawyer drafts an assignation (summons), served on the other by a commissaire de justice, or both spouses file a joint petition. A spouse who receives an assignation has 15 days to appoint a lawyer and cannot take part without one.
• The orientation hearing. The judge can order provisional measures for the length of the case: who uses the family home, a pension between spouses, the children’s residence and the contribution to their upkeep.
• The preparation of the case. The lawyers exchange written arguments and evidence on a calendar set by the judge. Service-public gives no length for this phase.
• The judgment. The judge pronounces the divorce, or refuses it, and rules on what the spouses asked for.
• Appeal. One month from the day the judgment is served.

Accepted divorce. You both agree to divorce and leave the consequences to the judge, who does not examine the reasons for the breakup. The acceptance is written, and it is final: you cannot go back on it, even on appeal.

Definitive breakdown. One spouse obtains the divorce without the other’s agreement and without giving reasons, after at least one year of living apart on the day the petition is filed. If the petition did not state this ground, the year runs from the filing. Dividing the home into two separate spaces is not enough to prove the separation.

Fault. The ground is a serious or repeated breach of the duties and obligations of marriage that makes shared life intolerable: the page gives adultery, leaving the home and violence as examples. Evidence obtained by violence or fraud can be set aside. The judge can refuse a prestation compensatoire to the spouse found solely at fault.

How Long Does a Divorce Take in France?

No official page gives a total time for any kind of divorce. The law sets periods inside each procedure, and the last average published by the Ministry of Justice dates from 2020: 28.0 months for the divorces handled by the courts.

How long two lawyers take to negotiate and draft a mutual-consent agreement is on no official page. For the divorces before a judge, the Références statistiques Justice, 2025 edition still give the 2020 averages, among them 24.3 months for an accepted divorce and 33.7 months for definitive breakdown. They measure the procedure in force before January 1, 2021, which had a conciliation phase that no longer exists and required two years of separation, not one. That edition gives no average for the current procedure.

How Much Does a Divorce Cost in France?

The official pages state three amounts: 49.44 euros for the notaire’s registration of a mutual-consent agreement, a 50 euro tax stamp to file before the judge, and a 1.10% duty on the property divided. Lawyers’ fees are not regulated: each lawyer sets them in agreement with the client, as a flat fee or an hourly rate written into a fee agreement, and each spouse pays his or her own. A notaire’s fees are added when real estate is divided.

Legal aid (aide juridictionnelle) pays all or part of the lawyer’s fees. A foreigner can receive it when he or she habitually lives in France, even with a residence permit that is no longer valid (page verified on June 12, 2026). For one person, the 2026 ceilings are a reference tax income (revenu fiscal de référence) of 12,957 euros for full aid, 15,316 euros for 55% and 19,433 euros for 25%, with savings up to 12,957 euros and real estate other than the main home up to 38,866 euros.

What a Divorce Settles, and Who Decides

A French divorce ends the marriage and settles the division of property, a possible prestation compensatoire, the children and the family home. By mutual consent you decide all of it yourselves in the agreement. Before the judge, you agree on what you can and the judge decides the rest.

Property. Service-public’s rules of division also cover the separation of property, where only jointly owned property is divided. By mutual consent, the division must be agreed before the notaire registers the agreement; before the judge, the law sets no deadline. You are no longer your ex-spouse’s heir, but a will is not cancelled automatically: reread yours with how French inheritance law treats an American’s estate.

Prestation compensatoire. It must be requested during the divorce procedure: once the divorce is final, it is too late. The judge weighs the length of the marriage, each spouse’s age, health and career, their assets once the property is divided and their pension rights.

Children. The child’s residence, called garde in everyday French, is first for the parents to choose, and the judge decides in the child’s interest when they disagree. Child support does not stop automatically at 18, and the official simulator gives an estimate only. Put any plan to move a child to the United States to the lawyer before you sign.

The family home. For a rented home, the spouse who leaves stays liable for the rent until the divorce is recorded.

A US Marriage or a US Divorce: How Each Is Recorded in France

A marriage celebrated in the United States can be dissolved in France, and a divorce pronounced in the United States can be recognized there. Each goes through an office in Nantes to reach French civil-status records.

A Marriage Celebrated in the United States, Dissolved in France

The official pages provide for it at the last step of every divorce: the mention of the divorce in the margin of the marriage record and of each spouse’s birth record, which is mandatory because it makes the divorce binding on third parties. For a marriage celebrated in France, the request goes to the mairie where you married. When the marriage record was drawn up abroad, it goes to the Service central d’état civil, by mail only (11, rue de la Maison Blanche, 44941 Nantes Cedex 09).

A French record of a US wedding exists only if the marriage was transcribed onto the French registers, a step open when one spouse is French: two Americans married in the United States have no French record to annotate (what French recognition of a US marriage covers). What a US state asks before it recognizes a French divorce is a question for a lawyer there.

A Divorce Pronounced in the United States, Recognized in France

A divorce pronounced outside the EU must pass a check by the public prosecutor (procureur de la République), called vérification d’opposabilité, before it is noted on French records (page verified on October 6, 2026). The prosecutor checks mainly that the decision is not contrary to public policy and that the rights of the defense were respected.

• Where to send it. If you married in France, to the prosecutor of the tribunal judiciaire of the place of marriage. If you married abroad, to the prosecutor in Nantes, at the address the French consulates in the United States give (page updated on February 12, 2026): Tribunal judiciaire de Nantes, Service civil du Parquet, Quai François Mitterrand, 44921 Nantes Cedex 9.
• Before you send it. A marriage celebrated abroad since March 1, 2007 must already be transcribed onto the French registers.
• What to send. A request on plain paper, a full copy of the decision (the original or a certified copy), proof that it is final, proof of both spouses’ domicile and nationality when the case was filed, full copies of the French records to annotate, and a French translation by a sworn translator.
• The outcome. If the decision is accepted, the prosecutor instructs the civil registrars to note the divorce. If not, you can go to the tribunal judiciaire, where a lawyer is mandatory.

Neither page states a fee or a processing time. Where an apostille is needed, it comes from the US state whose court issued the decree (apostilles and certified translations for US documents), and you can order the certified copy and its apostille without flying back.

Your Residence Permit and Your Nationality File After a Separation

If your right to stay rests on your marriage to a French citizen, it rests on a shared life that has not ended. When the end of the marriage or of shared life is noted while the card is valid, the card can be withdrawn, and its renewal requires that both continue: that is article L423-3 of the code on the entry and residence of foreigners (CESEDA). The card is exposed from the end of shared life (communauté de vie, living together materially and emotionally), without waiting for a divorce judgment.

The same section lists the exceptions:

• Death of the French spouse. The end of the marriage cannot be held against you (L423-4).
• Family or conjugal violence. The end of shared life cannot be held against you when it is due to such violence (L423-5). For the renewal file, service-public names the proof (page verified on May 1, 2026): a complaint, a judgment of divorce for fault, or the spouse’s conviction for violence.
• The 10-year carte de résident. The card obtained after three years of marriage can be withdrawn for the end of shared life only within four years of the wedding, and not after a death, after violence, or when a child was born of the marriage and you have contributed to that child’s upkeep and education since birth (L423-6, and service-public’s page on withdrawals).

If no exception applies, the question becomes which permit you qualify for in your own right. See an immigration lawyer early, and read how the spouse card works, how a change of status is made from inside France, what a renewal file contains and how the 10-year carte de résident is obtained.

A declaration of French nationality by marriage is exposed in the same way. The marriage must not be dissolved and your shared life must not have stopped on the day you sign, and a separation in the twelve months after registration is presumed to be fraud: French citizenship by marriage for Americans sets out those rules.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Filing, or letting your spouse file, before a lawyer has told you which country’s courts can take the case and which law applies.
• Signing a mutual-consent agreement without checking that the US state where you will need it recognizes a divorce not pronounced by a judge.
• Waiting until the divorce is final to ask for a prestation compensatoire.
• Assuming a US decree updates French civil-status records by itself.
• Believing a spouse’s residence card is safe until the judgment: the test is shared life.

Practical Checklist

• Write down the dates and places: the wedding, any marriage contract, where each of you has lived for the past year, the day you stopped living together.
• Gather the marriage certificate (and its French transcription, if any), the children’s birth certificates, residence permits, tax notices, deeds and loan statements.
• Put three questions to a family lawyer first: which country’s courts, which law for the divorce, which law for the property.
• After the divorce: have it noted on the civil-status records, tell the tax office, settle the lease and reread your will.

When to Get Help

French law requires a lawyer for each spouse, so you will have one. Before the first appointment, a consulting call puts your dates, your documents and your permit situation in order. The legal advice itself comes from an avocat in family law, and from an immigration lawyer if your card rests on the marriage: how to find English-speaking lawyers and notaires in France explains how to search the national directory by specialty and language.

FAQ

Can you get divorced in France if you were married in the United States?

Yes. No ground for filing in a French court depends on the place of the wedding, and the official pages provide for a marriage record drawn up abroad. Have a lawyer confirm that a French court can take your case.

Is divorce common in France?

The Ministry of Justice counted 106,200 divorces in 2021, pronounced by a judge or registered by a notaire: 4.9 divorces per 1,000 married people, so fewer than 1% of married people divorced that year. The number has fallen by nearly a third since 2005. In 2024, according to the Références statistiques Justice, family judges pronounced 59,600 divorces, 47% of them for definitive breakdown, four in ten accepted and 9% for fault. Neither source states what share of marriages end in divorce.

Do both spouses have to agree to a divorce in France?

No. Mutual consent and accepted divorce need both of you. After one year of living apart, one spouse can obtain a divorce for definitive breakdown without the other’s agreement, and a divorce for fault is asked for by one spouse, who must prove the fault.

Is there legal separation in France?

Yes: the séparation de corps lets spouses live apart without ending the marriage. The duties of fidelity and support remain, neither of you can remarry, and your property is separated. One spouse can ask to convert it into a divorce after two years.

What happens to our French tax return after a divorce?

Joint taxation ends on January 1 of the year of the divorce: each of you declares your own income for that whole year (filing a French income tax return as an American). You also keep filing in the United States, as US taxes when you live in France explains: ask your US preparer how the divorce changes that return.

Conclusion

A couple who live in France can divorce there, wherever they married, by one of four routes: mutual consent with two lawyers and a notaire, or accepted divorce, definitive breakdown and fault before the family judge. The law fixes a few periods and a few costs, not the total time or the lawyers’ fees. For an American, three questions come first, and all three go to a lawyer: which courts and which law, whether the divorce will be recognized in the United States, and what the end of shared life does to a residence card that rests on the marriage.