# How long a divorce takes in El Paso > A Texas court generally cannot grant a divorce before the sixtieth day after the petition is filed. That is the floor, not an estimate. An agreed case with no children and little property can close near it. Add disagreement, children, a house or a business, and the timeline stretches well past it. Published 2026-08-06 · Statutes checked 2026-09-14 · Practice: [Family Law Attorney](/practice/family) Everybody asks this first, and the honest answer has two parts. There is a floor set by statute that nothing gets you under. Above that floor, the length of your divorce is decided almost entirely by how much the two of you disagree, and about what. That second part is the one worth paying attention to, because it is the part you have some control over. ## How long a divorce takes in El Paso > **The statute.** A petitioner generally must have been domiciled in Texas for six months and a resident of the filing county for ninety days before filing, under Texas Family Code section 6.301. A court generally may not grant the divorce before the sixtieth day after the petition is filed, under section 6.702. The waiting period can be waived where the statute's family violence conditions are met, and military service provisions can treat qualifying service time as residence. > > [Texas Family Code chapter 6](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.6.htm) No amount of agreement between two cooperative people gets a case under those sixty days. The narrow exception is a case meeting the family violence conditions the statute sets out, where the waiting period can be waived. Those sixty days are a floor, not an estimate. An uncontested divorce where both people already agree on everything, with no children and little property to divide, can finish at or near it. A case with children, a house, a retirement account or a spouse who will not respond takes considerably longer, and the honest range is months rather than weeks. Anybody who quotes you a finish date at the first meeting is guessing. What a lawyer can tell you at that meeting is which category your case is in, which is most of what you actually want to know. ## Before the clock starts: who can file in El Paso Texas requires a period of residency in the state and in the county before a divorce can be filed there. Both periods are set by statute. If you moved to El Paso recently, or your spouse just moved away, the first question is not how long the divorce takes. It is what date you are eligible to file at all, and in which county. Two nearby situations come up constantly here. Hudspeth County is a separate county with its own courts and its own filing offices, so a case that belongs there is filed there. And if the household is on the New Mexico side, in Anthony, Sunland Park, Santa Teresa or Las Cruces, it is a New Mexico matter in Doña Ana County, which sits in New Mexico's Third Judicial District, under New Mexico law and New Mexico deadlines. Getting this wrong costs real time. A petition filed in the wrong place does not start your clock, it restarts it. ## What an agreed divorce looks like An agreed divorce is the fastest version because there is nothing for a judge to decide. The two of you settle the terms, one side's lawyer drafts the final decree, both sign it, and it is presented to the court. One point people get wrong: a single lawyer does not represent both spouses. One spouse's lawyer prepares the paperwork and the other spouse signs it or has it reviewed. That is normal and it is not the same as shared representation. Agreed does not mean unexamined, either. A decree that divides retirement, a house or a business incorrectly is a problem that surfaces years later, when it is much harder to fix. The speed comes from agreement, not from skipping the drafting. ## What makes a divorce take longer Most of the delay in a family case comes from a short list of causes, and you can usually see yours on it. - Disagreement about the children, which is the single biggest driver of length. - Property that has to be characterized or valued, such as a house, a business, a pension or a retirement account. - A spouse who will not respond, cannot be located, or has to be served in another state or country. - Formal discovery, where each side has to produce records and answer questions under oath. - Hearings on temporary orders, which take court time before the case itself is anywhere near finished. - A protective order, a criminal matter or a Department of Family and Protective Services case running alongside the divorce. - The court's docket. Contested hearings are set when the court has room, not when you are ready. ## How children change the timeline Texas courts start from a presumption that both parents are named joint managing conservators, and they decide from the child's best interest. Those two ideas shape everything else in the case. Joint managing conservatorship is about decision making authority. It is not automatically an equal split of the calendar, and people conflate those constantly. The possession schedule, the question of which parent determines where the child lives, and child support are all separate questions decided on their own terms. When parents genuinely agree on the schedule, a case with children can still move efficiently. When they do not, expect the longer road. A contested conservatorship case can involve mediation, evaluations, and testimony, and each of those is scheduled around a court's calendar rather than yours. ## What happens while the divorce is pending You do not spend those months with nothing decided. Temporary orders address how life runs while the case is open: who stays in the house, who pays which bills, what the schedule with the children looks like, and what neither spouse may do with money or property in the meantime. Temporary orders usually come early, and they matter more than their name suggests. A schedule that has been working for months is the schedule the court is looking at later. That is a reason to treat the temporary stage seriously rather than as a placeholder to fix at the end. There is also a standing order in many family courts that takes effect when the case is filed, restricting what either spouse can do with money, property and the children while it is pending. Read it the day you get it. People violate it without meaning to, by closing an account or taking a child out of state, and then spend a hearing explaining themselves. ## Where an El Paso divorce is filed and heard Family cases in El Paso County are filed with the district clerk and heard in the district courts, which include the 34th, 120th, 168th, 171st, 210th, 243rd, 346th and 384th. County Court at Law No. 7 handles civil and criminal matters. Court assignments change over time, so the current court directory governs rather than any list you read once. Which court you draw affects scheduling more than most people expect, because each court sets its own docket. That is one of several reasons two similar divorces filed the same week can finish months apart. ## How to keep your divorce from taking longer than it has to Gather your documents before the first meeting rather than after the third request. Tax returns, pay records, account statements, the mortgage, retirement statements and the title to anything titled. Cases stall on missing paperwork more often than on real disputes. Then separate what you actually care about from what you are angry about. Contesting everything is the most reliable way to make a case long and expensive, and it rarely changes the outcome on the things that mattered to you. Decide what is worth fighting over before the fighting starts. Wyatt, Underwood and Grasheim is a trial firm in El Paso at 705 Texas Ave #100, and the telephone number is (915) 485-9100. Spanish is spoken at the firm, and the firm is licensed in Texas and in New Mexico. This article is general information about how divorce cases move through Texas courts. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney client relationship. Timelines depend on the facts, the county and the court, so talk to a lawyer about your own case before you plan around anything here. ## Questions people ask about this ### What is the fastest a divorce can be finalized in Texas? No faster than the sixtieth day after the petition is filed, apart from narrow exceptions. Even in a fully agreed case with no children and almost nothing to divide, that period has to pass before a court can grant the divorce. Agreement gets you to the floor. Nothing ordinary gets you under it. ### Does it take longer if my spouse will not sign anything? Usually yes, though a divorce does not require both signatures. A case can proceed when one spouse refuses to participate, using the rules for service and for a spouse who does not answer. It simply takes more steps and more court time than an agreed case, which is why a refusal to cooperate mostly costs both people time and money. ### How long does a divorce with children take in El Paso? Longer than one without, and the gap depends entirely on whether the parents agree on the schedule. Texas courts start from a presumption that both parents are joint managing conservators and decide from the child's best interest. When parents agree, the case can still move steadily. When conservatorship is genuinely contested, plan on the longer road. ### Can we use the same lawyer to save time? No. One lawyer does not represent both spouses in a divorce. What happens in an agreed case is that one spouse's lawyer drafts the decree and the other spouse signs it or has it independently reviewed. That is common and appropriate. It is not shared representation, and treating it as though it were creates problems later. ### What if I just moved to El Paso? Check your filing date before anything else. Texas requires a period of residency in the state and in the county before a divorce can be filed there, and both periods are set by statute. If you recently arrived, the first question is which county you are eligible to file in and when. Filing in the wrong place restarts the process rather than starting it. ### Is this legal advice about my divorce? No. This is general information about how divorce cases move through Texas courts, meant to show you what drives a timeline before you make plans around one. It is not advice about your matter and it does not create an attorney client relationship. Your own case depends on facts this page cannot see, so speak with a lawyer about it. ## Talk to a partner The case review is free, the call comes from a partner, and you get a straight answer either way. Even if the answer is that you do not need us. Call [(915) 485-9100](tel:+19154859100) or use the chat at the bottom right of any page. Hablamos español. 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