Michigan Court Filing Fees by County

How Michigan court filing fees are actually set

Michigan is a genuine two-part answer: the court fragments below the county line, but the fee does not. Evictions are filed as summary proceedings in one of the state's 105 district courts, and district boundaries do not track county lines in either direction. A cluster of rural, low-population districts each combine two to four counties under a single bench — the 86th District Court alone covers Antrim, Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties, and the 77th, 78th, 79th, 80th, 81st, 82nd, 84th, 85th, 89th, 90th, 92nd and 97th District Courts are built the same way. Running the other direction, the state's largest counties are carved into many separate district courts instead of one: the State Court Administrative Office's own trial-court map shows Wayne County with more than a dozen district courts (Detroit's 36th plus a ring of city and township courts), Oakland County with roughly thirteen, and Genesee and Macomb Counties each with several more, all inside one county line. Two renters in the same county can end up filing, and being served, at entirely different courthouses. What does not move with any of that fragmentation is the dollar amount. We checked nine district courts spanning Detroit's 36th (Wayne), two separate courts in Macomb County, one in Oakland County, Genesee's 67th, rural Cass and Cheboygan Counties, Kalamazoo and Ottawa Counties, and every one charges exactly the same figures: $55.00 to file for possession only, a tiered $90.00 to $215.00 to add a money judgment for unpaid rent depending on how much is claimed, and $30.00 to $70.00 for small claims depending on the claim amount. None of that total is the bare number printed in the filing-fee statute. MCL 600.5756 and MCL 600.8371 set a $45.00 base fee for a claim of possession and a tiered supplemental fee for a joined money judgment ($25.00 / $45.00 / $65.00 / $150.00 by claim size), and a separate statute, MCL 600.1986, layers a mandatory Electronic Filing System Fee on top — $10.00 on a possession-only filing or $20.00 when a money claim is joined to it, and $5.00 on a small claims filing — regardless of whether the case is actually filed on paper or online. $45 + $10 = $55. $45 + $25 + $20 = $90, up to $45 + $150 + $20 = $215 for the largest money-judgment tier. So the fee is safe to publish at the county level even though naming 'the' eviction court for that county is not; the county tells you the price, not the building.

The statutory caps

This is one statutory statewide table, not a county-by-county schedule. The State Court Administrative Office republishes it every year as the 'District Court Fee and Assessments Table,' and every district court we checked, from Detroit to rural Cheboygan County, reprints these same totals on its own fee page rather than setting its own numbers.

Source: MCL 600.5756; MCL 600.8371; MCL 600.1986, Summary proceedings filing fees; district court civil filing fees; electronic filing system fee. MCL 600.5756 and 600.8371, as amended; MCL 600.1986 (electronic filing system fee) added by 2013 PA 261 and since amended; the $7,000 small-claims ceiling in MCL 600.8401 reached its current level on January 1, 2024 under a step schedule enacted by 2012 PA 132.. The total a Michigan clerk actually collects is the sum of two separate statutes, not one. MCL 600.5756/600.8371 set the base $45.00 possession fee and the tiered $25.00/$45.00/$65.00/$150.00 supplemental fee for a joined money judgment; MCL 600.1986 adds the Electronic Filing System Fee on top ($10.00 for possession only, $20.00 when a money claim is joined, $5.00 for small claims). The same $5.00 add-on is why small claims prints as $30.00/$50.00/$70.00 on a county's own fee page rather than the bare $25.00/$45.00/$65.00 named in the small-claims fee statute, MCL 600.8420. Checked August 1, 2026.

The single most important thing to know about Michigan is that the county is not the court. Evictions are heard in one of the state's 105 district courts, and district lines cut across county lines in both directions at once. A dozen or so rural, low-population districts each combine two to four whole counties under a single bench — the 86th District Court covers Antrim, Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties together, for instance — while the state's biggest counties are cut the opposite way, into many separate courts apiece: Wayne County has more than a dozen district courts, Oakland County has roughly thirteen, and Genesee and Macomb Counties each have several. Two renters in the same county can end up filing at completely different courthouses, in front of different clerks, with different court-officer contacts for service. A county name alone does not tell you which building to go to.

What does not move with any of that fragmentation is the fee. We checked nine district courts spanning Detroit, two courts in Macomb County, one in Oakland County, Genesee County, rural Cass and Cheboygan Counties, and Kalamazoo and Ottawa Counties, and every single one charges $55.00 to file for possession only and the same tiered $90.00-$215.00 to add a money judgment for unpaid rent. None of that is the bare number printed in the filing-fee statute — the $45.00 base fee and the tiered supplemental fee come from one statute, and a separate statute, MCL 600.1986, adds a mandatory $10.00 or $20.00 Electronic Filing System Fee on top of every filing, on paper or online, which is where the advertised totals actually come from.

Service is billed separately from the filing fee everywhere we checked; Michigan does not fold it into the advertised filing price the way roughly a third of Georgia's counties do. Most courts use a bonded court officer rather than the county Sheriff, and state law sets a floor — $26.00 for service, $40.00 plus mileage to execute an order of eviction — but lets a court officer charge more by written agreement. We found one court charging $34.00 for service, eight dollars over the statutory floor, so budget above the minimum rather than assuming it.

Michigan's small claims ceiling rose in steps rather than all at once: $5,500 through 2017, $6,000 from 2018, $6,500 from 2021, and $7,000 since January 1, 2024. Filing there is a real trade, not just a cheaper docket: both sides waive the right to a jury trial, the right to bring an attorney, and the right to appeal the moment they choose small claims over the general civil docket, under MCL 600.8412.

Michigan's fee waiver, under MCR 2.002, gives you three different ways to qualify — automatic approval if you already receive public assistance or legal-aid representation, an as-of-right waiver if your household income is at or below 125% of the federal poverty guidelines, and a discretionary waiver above that line if paying would still be a hardship — but every path ends in the same place: the fee is waived in full, never partially reduced. Every district court in the state uses the same form, MC 20.

Common questions