California Court Filing Fees by County

How California court filing fees are actually set

California's eviction filing fee is set by the Legislature, not by the county, and in 55 of the 58 counties the number on the clerk's fee page is exactly what the statute says: $240.00 to file an unlawful detainer where the amount demanded is $10,000 or less, $385.00 where it is more than $10,000 up to $35,000, and $435.00 above that (which puts the case in unlimited civil). We checked eleven counties spanning the largest and smallest — Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Sacramento, San Francisco, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, Fresno, Santa Barbara and Alameda — and every one of them either matches those numbers exactly or explains, in writing, why it charges more. The three that charge more do so for a specific, statutorily-capped reason: Riverside, San Bernardino and San Francisco are each authorized under Government Code §§ 70622, 70624 and 70625 to add a local courthouse-construction surcharge to every limited civil filing, currently $50.00, $35.00 and $10.00. So the real range for a standard eviction where less than $10,000 is at stake runs from $240.00 in most of the state up to $290.00 in Riverside. This is a much narrower kind of variation than Georgia's, where 159 different counties each set their own number by local rule — here, one statute sets the base and three named counties are allowed to add a fixed, published surtax on top of it.

The statutory caps

This is a genuine statewide fee table published by the Judicial Council, not a county-by-county patchwork the way Georgia's magistrate fees are. Every Superior Court's own fee schedule we checked reprints these same numbers, aside from the three counties' published construction surcharges noted above.

Source: Cal. Gov't Code § 70613; Code Civ. Proc. § 1161.2(d), Uniform fee for filing the first paper in a limited civil case, and the unlawful detainer surcharge. Gov't Code § 70613, as most recently amended, together with the courthouse-construction surcharge statutes Gov't Code §§ 70622 (Riverside), 70624 (San Bernardino) and 70625 (San Francisco). § 70613(a) sets the base limited-civil filing fee at $330.00, reduced under § 70613(b) to $205.00 where the amount demanded is $10,000 or less. Code Civ. Proc. § 1161.2(d) adds $15.00 to an unlawful detainer plaintiff's first paper on top of that, and Gov't Code § 70602.5 adds a further $20.00. For the lower tier that reconciles exactly: $205 + $15 + $20 = $240, matching every county schedule we checked. For the upper tier it does not: $330 + $15 + $20 = $365, but every current schedule we checked prints $385.00, a $20.00 gap we could not trace to a specific line item. We are publishing $240 / $385 / $435 regardless, because every current county fee schedule we checked and the Judicial Council's own statewide schedule state them directly as the total due — a filer does not need to add the components up themselves — but we flag the $20.00 discrepancy in the upper tier as something we could not fully document. Checked July 31, 2026.

California has exactly one trial court per county — the Superior Court — and it is the same court, with the same clerk's office, that hears both unlawful detainer (eviction) cases and small claims cases. This has been true statewide since trial court unification eliminated separate municipal courts around 2000, and it is written directly into the state constitution: "In each county there is a superior court." There is no Ohio-style patchwork of dozens of municipal courts to sort out here.

The eviction filing fee is set by the Legislature, not by the county, and the great majority of California counties charge exactly what the statute says: $240.00 for a claim of $10,000 or less, $385.00 up to $35,000, $435.00 above that. Three counties — Riverside, San Bernardino and San Francisco — are allowed by separate statutes to add a fixed local courthouse-construction surcharge on top, currently $50.00, $35.00 and $10.00. That is real variation, but a narrow and fully documented kind, nothing like the free-for-all in Georgia's 159 counties.

Unlike Georgia and Florida, the sheriff's fees for serving eviction papers and carrying out the lockout are also set by the state, not the county: $50.00 to serve the summons and complaint, and $180.00 total to execute the writ of possession, both effective January 1, 2024. We found those exact numbers on Sheriff pages in four different counties. Where a county's own page shows something lower, that page is very likely just stale rather than describing a real discount.

Almost every county uses the Sheriff's civil division for service and the lockout, but Shasta and Trinity Counties are the exception: both still have a separate, court-employed Marshal's Office that handles civil process instead, a holdover from before a 1990s law folded most other counties' marshals into the sheriff. The fee is the same statutory amount either way, but the office you call, and the number on the check, is different.

California cannot be used to sue for eviction in small claims court no matter how little money is at stake, because small claims has no power to order anyone out of a property — only Superior Court's unlawful detainer procedure can do that. That is worth knowing because the small claims dollar limits ($12,500 for an individual, $6,250 for a business) sometimes lead people to assume the low-cost, no-lawyer small claims process is an eviction shortcut. It is not.

California's fee waiver is graduated rather than all-or-nothing, which sets it apart from both Georgia's single poverty affidavit and Florida's yes-or-no indigency test. Below about 200% of the federal poverty line, or if you already receive certain public benefits, the waiver is automatic and full. Above that line, a judge still has discretion to grant a partial waiver or a payment plan if paying the full fee would eat into money you need for basic necessities.

Common questions