What the Clerk of Court — or, in a justice of the peace court, the justice of the peace personally charges to file an eviction or a small claims case, what the constable, marshal, or sheriff, depending on which court has the case charges to serve it, and how to ask the court to waive the fees.
Everything the clerk charges on an eviction or small claims case in Tangipahoa Parish. The figures set by state statute are verified and apply here. A dash means we have not yet read this parish’s own schedule — not that the fee is zero.
| Fee | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Eviction filing — possession + rent claim | — | |
| Eviction filing — possession only | — | |
| Appearance fee — eviction defendant | — | |
| Appearance fee — small claims defendant | — | |
| Jury demand — 12 jurors | — | There is no twelve-person jury, or any jury, available in a Louisiana eviction case in any court. Code of Civil Procedure Article 1732 excludes summary proceedings, which is what an eviction rule legally is, from the right to a jury trial, and it separately excludes parish or city court suits from jury trial as well. |
| Jury demand — 6 jurors | — | Same as the twelve-person figure — there is no jury of any size available in a Louisiana eviction case, so there is no six-person jury fee to charge. |
| Jury demand — small claims | — | Louisiana's small-claims-equivalent court is the justice of the peace court, and a justice of the peace never seats a jury — there is no jury mechanism in that court at any price. |
| Mediation fee | — | We found no state-mandated mediation or ADR fee attached to a Louisiana eviction or small claims case in the Code of Civil Procedure or in the cost statutes for city, parish, justice of the peace, or district courts. An individual court could still offer a voluntary local program, but that would not be a statewide figure. |
| E-filing surcharge | — |
The filing fee is not the whole bill. Somebody has to serve the defendant, and in Louisiana the constable, marshal, or sheriff, depending on which court has the case sets that price county by county — it is the most variable number on this page. We have one clean, live figure: the City Court of East St. Tammany's own site prices the marshal's service of one eviction rule at $50.00, on top of its $71.00 filing cost. We do not have enough other courts confirmed to say whether $50.00 is typical of a city marshal, a parish constable, a justice of the peace's constable, or a district court sheriff elsewhere in the state — Article 4733 lets all four serve an eviction, and each sets its own rate.
Louisiana courts will waive court fees, costs, and charges for people below certain income levels, under La. C.C.P. arts. 5181–5188 and La. C.C.P. art. 5183. Louisiana has no single statewide form: the Clerk of Court — or, in a justice of the peace court, the justice of the peace personally hands you the court's own affidavit when you ask.
| The court waives | If your available income is |
|---|---|
| Full | A sworn statement that you cannot pay court costs in advance, as they accrue, or post security for them, because of poverty, backed by a second affidavit from someone who knows your financial situation. Household income at or below 125% of the federal poverty guidelines, or receipt of public assistance, creates a rebuttable presumption that you qualify. |
Louisiana is all-or-nothing, like Georgia, Florida, New Jersey and Wisconsin — there is no partial or percentage waiver. What is unusual here is the built-in presumption: hit the 125%-of-poverty-line income test or show you are on public assistance, and the burden shifts to whoever wants to argue you do not qualify. The privilege also covers more than the filing fee — Article 5185 waives a sheriff's, clerk's, and other officers' service and issuance fees for the life of the case — though it does not cover a suspensive appeal bond.
Fee waiver information verified August 1, 2026 against the Illinois General Assembly statute text and the Illinois Courts approved-forms library. We report what the statute and the form say. We cannot tell you whether you qualify — that is the court's decision.
Tangipahoa Parish Circuit Court
Clerk of Court — or, in a justice of the peace court, the justice of the peace personally
No clerk website found. Contact the county courthouse directly.
No single statewide system — each court chooses its own, several through Tyler Technologies' eFileLA/Odyssey platform
Louisiana has no single statewide e-filing requirement or portal the way Texas or Florida does. Individual courts choose their own systems — Baton Rouge City Court, for instance, e-files through Tyler Technologies' eFileLA/Odyssey platform — and every court whose page we could read still accepts paper filing at the clerk's counter. Because eviction here is heard in city courts, parish courts, justice of the peace courts, and district courts that do not share one administrative office, do not expect a single login to work everywhere in the state. eFileIL →
We publish the court's and clerk's own contact information and link to their pages. We do not take your information, route you to anyone, or file anything on your behalf. For questions about court procedure — as opposed to what it costs — use the Illinois Courts self-help center.
Louisiana does not have one court per parish for evictions, so "the parish's eviction filing fee" is already a simplification before you get to a dollar amount. Code of Civil Procedure Article 4832 recognizes three kinds of trial courts of limited jurisdiction — parish courts, city courts, and justice of the peace courts — sitting alongside the district court, and which one hears a given eviction turns on where in the parish the rental sits and how much rent is at stake, not simply which of the 64 parishes you are in. Some parishes, like East Baton Rouge (three city courts) or Jefferson (two parish courts, eight justice-of-the-peace wards), have several courts that could hear the same case. Others, like Cameron or Tensas, have no city or parish court at all, only justice-of-the-peace wards and the district court. Layered on top of that, every court we could check prices its own eviction (called a rule for possession) differently: $71.00 in court costs at the City Court of East St. Tammany in Slidell, plus a separate $50.00 marshal's fee; $150.00 at Alexandria City Court; $164.00 at Baton Rouge City Court; $250.00 to $350.00 at Lake Charles City Court depending on whether a rent claim is added; and $375.00 plus a court-set bond at Jefferson Parish's 1st and 2nd Parish Courts. Louisiana Revised Statutes 13:2590 prints one statewide $100.00 figure for justice-of-the-peace courts, but we could not check it against a live JP court page, so we are not calling it confirmed. District court costs are itemized rather than a single fee at all (R.S. 13:841), and simply adding the pieces together understates what clerks actually charge — the same trap that caught New Jersey's and Wisconsin's printed statutes. In short: the filing fee varies, and it varies for two independent reasons at once — which court has the case, and what that particular court charges.
This is not one schedule. It is every eviction fee we could personally read on a court's own current page, from six independently priced courts spread across five parishes, none of which shares a number with any other. There is no statewide table and no per-parish table — each city court, parish court, and justice of the peace court sets or is assigned its own figure.
Statutory backbone: La. C.C.P. arts. 4701–4735 (eviction); arts. 4831–4844, 4911–4913 (court jurisdiction); La. R.S. 13:841, 13:2590 (costs) — Eviction of Tenants and Occupants; Trial Courts of Limited Jurisdiction; clerk and justice-of-the-peace cost statutes. Book VIII (Trial Courts of Limited Jurisdiction) was recodified by Acts 1979, No. 46, effective January 1, 1980; the dollar ceilings in Articles 4842–4844 and 4911–4912 and the cost schedule in R.S. 13:2590 have each been amended repeatedly since, most recently in the 2020s.. Article 4844 sets the rent ceiling that lets a parish or city court hear an eviction — $150 a day, $500 a week, $3,000 a month, or $36,000 a year in most courts — but more than a dozen individual city courts carry their own, separately legislated ceiling written into Article 4843 (several small courts and Bossier City at $15,000; Lafayette at $20,000; nine courts including some in New Orleans at $25,000; ten more at $30,000; nine more at $35,000; seven more at $50,000). Justice of the peace courts are the exception that swallows the rule: Article 4912 gives them unlimited jurisdiction over a residential eviction no matter the rent, so a landlord in a parish with no city or parish court, or whose rent exceeds the local ceiling, still has a court of limited jurisdiction available rather than being forced into district court. Statute text checked August 1, 2026.
Compiled and verified by David Scott. We re-check every source document monthly and re-read any county whose schedule has changed. If the clerk quotes you something different from what is on this page, tell us and we will fix it. Read the full methodology.