What the Franklin County Municipal Court Clerk of Courts charges to file an eviction or a small claims case, what the bailiff charges to serve it, and how to ask the court to waive the fees. Cases are heard in the Franklin County Municipal Court.
Filing fee plus bailiff service plus enforcing the order, using only figures we have verified for this county. 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 Franklin County. A dash means the county does not publish that figure — we would rather show you a gap than a guess.
| Fee | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Eviction filing — possession + rent claim | $145 | Franklin County Municipal Court's own civil cost schedule prices a forcible entry and detainer filing that also claims rent owed at $145.00, printed as 'Initial Filing Fee' plus fixed add-on components -- the court's Local Rule 13, Schedule 9.00 shows the identical $145.00 broken into the same components. Service on the tenant is priced separately (see below) rather than folded into this figure. Checked against two separate court documents, with matching totals both times. |
| Eviction filing — possession only | $108 | The same schedule prices a restitution-only forcible entry and detainer filing (no money claim) at $108.00, again matching Local Rule 13, Schedule 9.00's separate, undated copy of the same figure. Filing plus the court's own $25.00 service charge on one defendant totals $133.00, which is exactly the combined figure the schedule also prints as 'EVICTION (CERT MAIL, PROCESS SERVER, OR BAILIFF)' -- so budget for $133.00 out the door to file and serve a single, restitution-only eviction. |
| Appearance fee — eviction defendant | — | Not found on either document checked; Franklin County Municipal Court does not appear to publish a separate fee for a defendant's appearance or answer in an eviction case. |
| Appearance fee — small claims defendant | — | |
| Jury demand — 12 jurors | — | Ohio courts do not charge a flat jury fee. Each sets a jury cost deposit by its own rule, against its own estimate of what a jury will actually cost — $10 in Franklin County, $350 in Akron, $800 in Dayton. Because these are deposits rather than fees, and unused portions may be refundable, they cannot be compared court to court. Ask your court. |
| Jury demand — 6 jurors | — | Ohio does not publish a separate six-juror figure. |
| Jury demand — small claims | — | Small claims cases in Ohio are heard by a magistrate without a jury; a party who wants one must have the case transferred to the regular civil docket, where that court's jury deposit applies. |
| Mediation fee | — | |
| E-filing surcharge | — | No separate e-filing surcharge is printed on the schedule checked. |
| If your claim is | You pay | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| $0 – $6,000 | $86 | 'SMALL CLAIMS $86.00 PLUS SERVICE FEES PER DEFENDANT' -- identical on both documents checked. Service is billed on top of the $86.00, the same way it is for eviction filings. |
Claims above $6,000 are not small claims in Ohio — they are filed as Law cases and cost more.
The filing fee is not the whole bill. Somebody has to serve the defendant, and in Ohio the bailiff sets that price county by county — it is the most variable number on this page. Across the Ohio courts we have checked, service runs from $10 to $100 — and it is charged by the court's bailiff in a municipal court and by the sheriff in a county court, which are different offices with different rates.
The cost of serving one defendant in a forcible entry and detainer case is a flat $25.00 regardless of method -- certified mail, a process server, or the court's own bailiff all cost the same $25.00 within Franklin County. (A sheriff can only serve papers outside Franklin County, at $41.00, which includes a $35.00 deposit toward the sheriff's own fees.) Each additional defendant costs $13.00 by certified mail or $28.00 by bailiff/process server.
A supervised set-out -- physically removing a tenant's belongings under a bailiff's supervision after judgment -- costs $45.00. A separate, earlier step, the praecipe for the writ of restitution itself (sometimes called red-tagging), costs $35.00. Both figures appear identically on the court's civil cost schedule and its Local Rule 13, Schedule 9.00.
Source: Franklin County Bailiff civil process fees, dated December 1, 2025. Checked July 31, 2026.
Ohio courts will waive court fees, costs, and charges for people below certain income levels, under R.C. 2323.311 and R.C. 1901.26(B) (municipal courts); R.C. 1907.24 (county courts). Ohio has no single statewide form: the Clerk of Court hands you the court's own affidavit when you ask.
| The court waives | If your available income is |
|---|---|
| Full | R.C. 2323.311 sets the standard at gross income at or below 187.5% of the federal poverty guidelines, together with a test of monthly expenses against liquid assets, and lets a judge approve someone above the threshold. Municipal and county courts are separately empowered to waive advance payment of filing fees for an indigent litigant. |
On the face of the statute this is all-or-nothing, closer to Georgia than to Illinois's four graduated bands. In practice individual courts do their own thing: Cleveland's housing division drops an eviction filing to $10 rather than to nothing, while zeroing small claims entirely. We could not confirm whether municipal and county courts formally apply the R.C. 2323.311 test or their own local standard, so treat the threshold as a guide and ask the clerk.
Fee waiver information verified July 31, 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.
Franklin County Municipal Court
Ohio has no statewide e-filing system for evictions. Some municipal courts run their own portal, most do not, and a self-represented filer generally files over the counter. 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.
Ohio varies more than any other state here, and it varies for a different reason. In Illinois and Georgia the county sets the fee; in Ohio the individual court does, by its own local rule, with no statutory cap over it at all (R.C. 1901.26 for municipal courts, R.C. 1907.24 for county courts). Across the courts we have checked, filing an eviction runs from $108 to $193 and small claims from $37 to $133 — every court a different number, with none of the shared schedules that make half of Illinois's counties identical to each other.
There is no statewide Ohio fee schedule and no county-level one either. Each municipal or county court publishes its own cost schedule, usually as a PDF on the clerk's site.
Statutory backbone: R.C. 1901.26; R.C. 1907.24 — Municipal court costs and fees; county court costs and fees. Fee-setting delegated to each court by local rule. Neither section sets an amount or a ceiling on the base filing fee. A court may set what it likes, subject only to two limits: a special-project or service fee may not exceed what the service actually costs to provide, and a miscellaneous fee may not exceed what the common pleas court charges for the same thing. Statute text checked July 31, 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.