What the Special Civil Part Clerk (Superior Court Clerk's Office) charges to file an eviction or a small claims case, what the special civil part officer 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 Morris 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 | — | New Jersey's fee statute prices a one-defendant tenancy (eviction) complaint at $25.00, the same whether you are also claiming unpaid rent or not. The statute still prints $25.00. We are not printing that figure as fact. Two other lines in the same statutory table — the small claims filing fee and the writ of execution fee — turned out to be two to seven times below what the Judiciary actually charges today, so the whole table has to be treated as out of date until each line is confirmed. Ask the Special Civil Part clerk in your county for the current amount. |
| Eviction filing — possession only | — | New Jersey does not charge a different fee for a possession-only case. The statute's $25.00 tenancy-complaint fee applies regardless of whether back rent is also claimed. Same low-confidence caveat as the rent-claim version above — we could not confirm this against a current court fee page. The statute still prints $25.00. We are not printing that figure as fact. Two other lines in the same statutory table — the small claims filing fee and the writ of execution fee — turned out to be two to seven times below what the Judiciary actually charges today, so the whole table has to be treated as out of date until each line is confirmed. Ask the Special Civil Part clerk in your county for the current amount. |
| Appearance fee — eviction defendant | — | The fee statute charges $15.00 to file an appearance or answer in a Special Civil Part matter other than small claims, which covers a tenancy (eviction) case. We could not confirm this figure is still current against a live court page, and we found a neighboring figure in the same statute that was significantly out of date, so treat this as unconfirmed. The statute still prints $15.00. We are not printing that figure as fact. Two other lines in the same statutory table — the small claims filing fee and the writ of execution fee — turned out to be two to seven times below what the Judiciary actually charges today, so the whole table has to be treated as out of date until each line is confirmed. Ask the Special Civil Part clerk in your county for the current amount. |
| Appearance fee — small claims defendant | — | New Jersey does not charge a separate appearance or answer fee in a Small Claims Section case. The statute charges $15.00 for an appearance or answer everywhere else in the Special Civil Part but expressly excludes small claims. |
| Jury demand — 12 jurors | — | There is no twelve-person jury option in the Special Civil Part at any price. The court only offers a six-person jury; a full twelve-person civil jury belongs to the regular Law Division Civil Part instead. |
| Jury demand — 6 jurors | — | The fee statute prices a six-person jury demand in the Special Civil Part at $50.00. The statute still prints $50.00. We are not printing that figure as fact. Two other lines in the same statutory table — the small claims filing fee and the writ of execution fee — turned out to be two to seven times below what the Judiciary actually charges today, so the whole table has to be treated as out of date until each line is confirmed. Ask the Special Civil Part clerk in your county for the current amount. |
| Jury demand — small claims | — | |
| Mediation fee | — | |
| E-filing surcharge | — |
The filing fee is not the whole bill. Somebody has to serve the defendant, and in New Jersey the special civil part officer sets that price county by county — it is the most variable number on this page. We only have one confirmed, current service figure: $7.00 flat for certified-and-regular-mail service in a Small Claims Section case, charged by the Special Civil Part Officer's office and set the same way in every county. We do not have a trustworthy current figure for personal service of an eviction complaint or for executing a warrant of removal; the fee statute's own numbers for those (as little as $3.00 to $10.00) look old enough that we are not willing to repeat them as what you will actually pay.
New Jersey courts will waive court fees, costs, and charges for people below certain income levels, under N.J.S.A. 22A:1-7 and N.J.S.A. 22A:1-7. There is one statewide form — you do not need a Morris County version of it.
| The court waives | If your available income is |
|---|---|
| Full | Household income at or below 150% of the current federal poverty level for your household size, and no more than $2,500 in liquid assets such as cash or bank accounts. Meet both and the court does not charge a filing fee. |
New Jersey is all-or-nothing, the same as Georgia and Florida: meet the income-and-asset test and the filing fee is not charged at all; fall short on either part and you pay the full fee. There is no partial or sliding-scale reduction described anywhere we could confirm.
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.
Morris County Circuit Court
Special Civil Part Clerk (Superior Court Clerk's Office)
No clerk website found. Contact the county courthouse directly.
JEDS (Judiciary Electronic Document Submission System)
The Judiciary's own homepage lists JEDS as the way to submit court documents online, alongside a separate public records request tool, but we could not reach a page confirming whether e-filing is required for a self-represented landlord or tenant filing a Special Civil Part case. Elsewhere e-filing tends to be mandatory for attorneys and optional for self-represented filers, and we are treating New Jersey the same way until we can confirm it directly. 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.
New Jersey does not set eviction or small claims filing fees county by county the way Georgia does. Every Special Civil Part office sits inside that county's Superior Court courthouse — there is one in each of the state's 21 counties — but all of them run on the same statewide fee statute, so there is no local court rule for a county to set its own rate with, and we found no evidence anywhere that one does. That puts New Jersey's shape closer to Florida's than to Georgia's: the number is the same wherever you file. What we could confirm directly from the Judiciary's own site: filing a Small Claims Section case (up to $5,000) costs $35.00 for one defendant, plus $5.00 for each additional defendant, and the Special Civil Part's general track runs up to $20,000. What we could not confirm is the current fee to file an eviction (tenancy) complaint. The 2021-amended fee statute prints $25.00 for that, but the same statute prints $15.00 for the small claims filing we just confirmed now costs $35.00 on the court's own page — more than double the printed number — so we do not trust the $25.00 figure enough to publish it as current. See the open question below for the full reasoning.
This is one statewide statutory table, the same in every county, not a county-by-county schedule the way Georgia's is. We split it into two groups above on purpose: the top group is what the Judiciary's own small claims page currently charges, word for word; the bottom group is only what the fee statute itself prints, which we could not check against a live court page and now have specific reason to distrust.
Statutory backbone: N.J.S.A. 22A:2-37.1; N.J.S.A. 22A:2-37.2 — Special Civil Part of Superior Court, Law Division fees; fees to officers designated by the Assignment Judge to serve process. N.J.S.A. 22A:2-37.1, last amended by P.L.2021, c.188, s.8; N.J.S.A. 22A:2-37.2, last amended by P.L.2021, c.188, s.9. As printed, 22A:2-37.1 charges $15.00 to file a one-defendant small claim, $25.00 to file a one-defendant tenancy (eviction) complaint, $32.00 for a one-defendant civil complaint at or under the small claims limit, $50.00 for one over it, $15.00 to file an appearance or answer in anything except small claims, $50.00 to demand a six-person jury, $15.00 to have a warrant for possession issued, and $5.00 to have a writ of execution issued, with $2.00 more per additional defendant in most of those categories. 22A:2-37.2 sets what the court pays the serving officer: as little as $3.00 to serve one defendant, $2.00 for each additional one, and $10.00 to serve a warrant for possession in a tenancy case. 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.