What the District Court Clerk charges to file an eviction or a small claims case, what the court officer charges to serve it, and how to ask the court to waive the fees.
This is a floor, not a total. It adds up only the components this county actually publishes — the missing pieces below will push it higher. Attorney fees, if you use one, are on top of this and are not included.
Everything the clerk charges on an eviction or small claims case in St. Clair County. The figures set by state statute are verified and apply here. A dash means we have not yet read this county’s own schedule — not that the fee is zero.
| Fee | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Eviction filing — possession + rent claim | $90 | Michigan tiers this fee by how much unpaid rent you are claiming alongside possession, and it does not vary by county. The floor is $90.00 for a money judgment of $600 or less; it rises to $110.00 for $600.01-$1,750, $130.00 for $1,750.01-$10,000, and $215.00 for $10,000.01-$25,000. Each tier is the $45.00 base possession fee, plus a supplemental fee that scales with the money claimed, plus a $20.00 Electronic Filing System Fee. $90.00 is the amount for the smallest claims, not a flat statewide price for every case, so check the tier that matches the rent actually owed. |
| Eviction filing — possession only | $55 | Michigan sets this by statute, not by county: a $45.00 base filing fee for a claim of possession under MCL 600.5756/600.8371, plus a $10.00 Electronic Filing System Fee under MCL 600.1986 that applies whether you file on paper or online. Every one of the nine district courts we checked charges exactly $55.00, from Detroit to rural Cheboygan County. |
| Appearance fee — eviction defendant | — | |
| Appearance fee — small claims defendant | — | |
| Jury demand — 12 jurors | — | Michigan district court does not charge a separate fee tied to jury size. There is a single $50.00 jury demand fee (see jury_demand_6) that applies no matter how many jurors end up on the panel, so there is no distinct twelve-person figure to report. |
| Jury demand — 6 jurors | $50 | $50.00 to demand a jury trial in Michigan district court, set by MCL 600.8371(9) and identical everywhere in the state. It is on top of the filing fee, and it is waivable on the same terms as the filing fee. |
| Jury demand — small claims | — | There is no jury trial available in Michigan small claims at all, so there is no fee to look up. MCL 600.8412 has both sides waive the right to a jury the moment they choose to proceed in small claims rather than the general civil docket. |
| Mediation fee | — | |
| E-filing surcharge | — |
The filing fee is not the whole bill. Somebody has to serve the defendant, and in Michigan the court officer sets that price county by county — it is the most variable number on this page. State law sets a floor of $26.00 per defendant to serve the eviction summons and complaint and $40.00 plus mileage to execute an order of eviction (MCL 600.2559), and most district courts we checked advertise exactly those numbers. A court officer can charge more by written agreement — we found $34.00 for service at one court — so treat the statutory figures as a minimum you might beat rather than a guaranteed price.
Michigan courts will waive court fees, costs, and charges for people below certain income levels, under MCR 2.002 and MCR 2.002(C), (D), (F). There is one statewide form — you do not need a St. Clair County version of it.
| The court waives | If your available income is |
|---|---|
| Automatic | You or your household currently receive means-tested public assistance such as Food Assistance, Medicaid, or SSI, or you are represented by a legal aid program or law school clinic. The clerk must waive the fees without a judge's review. |
| Full, as of right | Your household's gross income is at or below 125% of the federal poverty guidelines. The court must waive the fees. |
| Full, discretionary | Your household's gross income is above 125% of the federal poverty guidelines, but paying would still be a real financial hardship. The court must waive the fees if it finds that hardship exists. |
Michigan gives you three different doors to walk through, but they all lead to the same room. Unlike a graduated system with several partial-discount bands, every pathway under MCR 2.002 ends in the exact same result: the fee is waived in full, not reduced by a percentage. The only thing that differs is how you qualify — automatically through public benefits or legal-aid representation, as of right under a fixed 125%-of-poverty income line, or at the court's discretion above that line if paying would still be a hardship.
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.
St. Clair County Circuit Court
District Court Clerk
No clerk website found. Contact the county courthouse directly.
MiFILE
MiFILE, Michigan's statewide e-filing system, is mandatory for attorneys under MCR 1.109(G) in courts where it has been implemented, but a self-represented landlord or tenant is not required to e-file unless the State Court Administrative Office has specifically approved that court to mandate it for self-represented parties under Administrative Order 2019-2. Most courts still accept paper filing from the public. Note that the electronic filing system fee described below applies to every filing, on paper or online, so choosing to file on paper does not avoid it. 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.
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.
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.
Statutory backbone: 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. 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.