To meet the Texas divorce residency requirements, one spouse must have lived in Texas for the six months immediately before the petition is filed and in the county where the case is filed for the preceding 90 days. Both periods must be satisfied by the same person, and both come from Section 6.301 of the Texas Family Code.1State of Texas. Texas Family Code 6.301 – General Residency Rule Without them, no Texas court has the authority to grant the divorce or divide property.
The Six-Month State Rule and the 90-Day County Rule
Section 6.301 sets two thresholds that work together. Either the petitioner (the spouse filing) or the respondent (the other spouse) must have been a Texas domiciliary for the six months immediately before filing, and a resident of the filing county for the 90 days before filing.1State of Texas. Texas Family Code 6.301 – General Residency Rule
Only one of you needs to meet them. If you’ve lived in Texas for a year and your spouse has never set foot here, you still qualify. If your spouse has lived in Dallas County for a year and you moved to Oklahoma last month, your spouse can file in Dallas.
The county piece is strict. Living in Travis County for the last 90 days but filing in Harris County because it’s more convenient puts the case in the wrong court. The suit belongs in a district court in the county where one of you has actually resided for those 90 days.2Texas State Law Library. Filing for Divorce – Section: Where Do I File?
What Counts as Living in Texas
“Domiciliary” means more than being physically present. It means living in Texas with the intent to make it your permanent home. Someone who moved here five months ago and plans to stay forever still falls short until the six-month mark passes. Someone who’s been in Texas for years on a temporary assignment with plans to return to another state may not be a domiciliary at all.
A short absence doesn’t automatically break the chain. If you leave Texas briefly for work or family reasons but keep your permanent home here, a court will likely find you remained a Texas domiciliary. Intent is what matters, and intent is shown through concrete ties: a Texas home, a Texas driver’s license, Texas voter registration. Someone who relocates out of state with no concrete plans to return will struggle to claim Texas residency even if they still own property here.
The Exception for Military and Public Service
Service members and other public servants stationed outside Texas don’t lose their residency clock while they’re gone. Section 6.303 treats all time a Texas domiciliary spends outside the state on military or public service as residence in Texas and in the county where they lived before leaving.3State of Texas. Texas Family Code 6.303 – Absence on Public Service A soldier stationed in Germany for three years still satisfies both the six-month and 90-day requirements, as long as Texas was their domicile before deployment.
The protection extends to a spouse who went along. If you moved with your service-member spouse to a base in another state, that time away counts as Texas residence for divorce purposes under the same statute.3State of Texas. Texas Family Code 6.303 – Absence on Public Service
Filing When Your Spouse Lives in Another State
You don’t need your spouse to live in Texas to file here. Under Section 6.302, if one spouse has been a Texas domiciliary for at least six months, the other spouse (even one in another state or country) can file in the Texas county where the domiciliary spouse resides. The Texas resident can file the same way. The court has the power to dissolve the marriage itself regardless of where the other spouse lives.
Dividing property and ordering support are a different matter. For those, the court needs personal jurisdiction over the out-of-state spouse, meaning that spouse must have enough connection to Texas, such as Texas being the couple’s last marital home or the spouse agreeing to the court’s authority. Without personal jurisdiction, a Texas court can grant the divorce but may not be able to split assets or order spousal support.
Child custody has its own rule. If your children have lived in Texas for the six months before filing, Texas is their “home state” under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, and the court can issue custody and visitation orders. If the children moved to another state with your spouse more than six months ago, Texas may no longer be the home state, and custody questions would need to be handled where the children now live.
What If You Can’t Find Your Spouse
Residency on your side doesn’t require you to know where your spouse is. If your spouse has disappeared, Texas allows service by publication, but only after you file an affidavit showing you conducted a diligent search: checking with family, searching public records, contacting mutual acquaintances. The court will scrutinize that effort before approving publication. Notice then runs in a newspaper once a week for four consecutive weeks or is posted on the state’s public information website for at least 28 days.
A divorce granted this way is more fragile. Because your spouse likely never saw the notice, they have two years to challenge the divorce and request a new trial, and a weak search can reopen the case regardless of how much time has passed. In cases involving children, the court will also require you to hire and pay for an attorney ad litem to independently search for the missing spouse.4Texas State Law Library. Serving Divorce Papers
After You Qualify: The 60-Day Waiting Period
Meeting residency gets you into court. It doesn’t get you out quickly. Even after you’ve filed, served your spouse, and agreed on every issue, the court cannot finalize the divorce until 60 days have passed since the petition was filed. This cooling-off period under Section 6.702 applies to virtually every Texas divorce. In an uncontested case, the 60th day is often the earliest a judge will sign the final decree. Contested cases almost always take longer.
There is one exception. The waiting period does not apply when the respondent has been convicted of or received deferred adjudication for family violence against the petitioner or a member of the petitioner’s household, or when the petitioner holds an active protective order against the respondent based on family violence during the marriage. In those situations, the court can grant the divorce as soon as the petition is filed.