View Pierce County Divorce Records for Free (Washington)

Access free Pierce County divorce records seamlessly and efficiently.

These records are kept quite organized in the local superior court; there is a free public portal available for searching for these files and a few different methods to go about obtaining copies. When it comes to archived records, though, there is some gray area and a few different locations to try.

This resource outlines all information that might assist individuals in their searches for certificates of divorce in Pierce County, Washington, and in securing copies of the various types of court documents involved.

How To Find Pierce County Divorce Records Free of Charge

The Pierce County Clerk of the Superior Court keeps all records of court proceedings, including any documents related to divorces.¹ To search for a record for free, the county has a search portal called the Legal Information Network eXchange (LINX), where citizens are welcome to look up any court case, past or present.²

Another way of accessing the portal would be through the Pierce County official website, where citizens can select the “Divorce Decrees” option from the top menu – this will also lead to the same LINX search portal.

Once on the portal, there is an option to make an account with LINX, but this isn’t necessary for viewing or obtaining documents. Instead, users should make sure they are on the “search” tab near the top of the page. Some information will need to be known on the case in order to begin.

Searchers will be asked for either the cause number, or the first and last name of one party involved, along with the approximate date of the divorce and the type of record being pursued (in this case, select the third option for “Domestic/Family Law Matters.”

Once the interested party has located the correct record, a request for a copy can be made through LINX, by mail, or in-person. If an individual would like to utilize LINX to purchase copies, he or she can click one of the “Purchase Copies” tabs on the located record.

From here, citizens can select any and all documents that they would like copies of, such as the case information cover sheet, the petition for dissolution, or the decree of dissolution.

There are some court cases where certain documents will be confidential or sealed, such as those containing financial or health records of one of the two individuals.

Purchasers will be given the choice of certified or standard (non-certified) copies of documents. Certified copies are $5.00 for the first document page, and $1.00 for every page after (if ordering multiple documents on a divorce, $5.00 will be charged for the first page of each document). Non-certified copies will be 0.25 cents per page if the order is placed through LINX.

If requested by mail or in-person, non-certified copies will be 0.50 cents per page.

To order a copy by mail, individuals will need to include the following:

• A letter with his or her name and contact information, the case number, and the name of the specific document to be copied.
• A cashier’s check or money order made out for the exact amount for the copies.
• A self-addressed and stamped envelope for receiving the documents.

Once all these pieces are ready to be mailed, send them to the Pierce County Clerk at the following address:

Pierce County Clerk
Attn: Records & Copies
930 Tacoma Avenue South, Room 110
Tacoma, Washington 98402-2177

Hours: 8:30am to 4:30pm Monday – Friday

To reach the clerk of the superior court’s office with any questions about this process, such as finding out the exact fee for documents for the check or money order, call 253-798-7455. To place an order for a copy of divorce papers in-person, head to the same address listed above. Along with a cashier’s check or money order, cash and debit cards are also accepted for in-person requests.

For cases between 1991 and 2001, there’s a chance the document has not been imaged yet, and in this case interested parties will need to first fill out the clerk’s “Scan Document Request Form.”³ Once the document has been scanned, it will be available through the LINX portal. The inquirer will receive an email letting him or her know that the requested record is now imaged and available for purchase.

There’s a chance that some divorce records from before 1991 might not be uploaded into the portal. If any citizen is unable to locate his or her sought-after record using LINX, it might be necessary to call the clerk’s office at the number listed above.

Public divorce records that occurred in any city, town, or municipality within Pierce County are all kept at the clerk of the superior court’s office, and local town halls or other sorts of local government agencies will not be able to help individuals locate these documents.

It’s also worth mentioning that any common law marriage from the state of Washington (which were legal up until 1989) that dissolved would have been filed as a normal, legal divorce, as common law divorce does not exist. These records would have been kept and filed with all other marriage dissolutions.

How To Run a Washington Divorce Record Lookup via the State Department of Health

If an individual has exhausted all avenues within the Pierce County Clerk of the Superior Court and has yet to locate the correct divorce record, then perhaps a search at the state level should be considered.

In the chance that the action actually took place in a neighboring jurisdiction, then Pierce County local resources will not be helpful. Luckily though, the Washington State Department of Health began keeping these records in 1968.⁴

Orders for copies of certificates of dissolution offered through the department can be placed by mail, over the phone, or online. If sending the request by mail, begin by filling out the Marriage or Divorce Order Form.⁵ Along with the form, include a check or money order (fees start at $25.00 per copy) and a photocopy of an ID if requesting a certified copy.

Send all contents to the Washington Department of Health at the following address:

Department of Health
Center for Health Statistics
PO Box 9709
Olympia, WA 98507

Once the department has received the request, it should take 1-3 weeks to ship the copy to the person inquiring.

For orders placed either over the phone or online, the department partners with VitalChek – a third-party vendor – for processing requests. Call VitalChek at 1-866-687-1464, or click on the above link to get started online. For either of these options, the company accepts debit or credit cards.

Fees begin at $40.50 ($25.00 for the copy, $8.50 for a VitalChek fee, and $7.00 for a department of health processing fee).

As for archived records, the Washington State Library has a divorce index from 1968 to 2004, and can be utilized when the exact location or date of the event is unknown.⁶

Another agency to try is the Washington State Digital Archives (WSDA), which currently has two different collections of indexes of divorce spanning from 1968 to 2017.⁷ The WSDA is continuously working to salvage more records every day to establish new collections and add to the existing ones, and in the future might house more divorce documents. The WSDA can be found at the following address:

Washing State Archives, Digital Archives
960 Washington Street
Cheney, WA 99004

The phone number for the digital archives department is 509-235-7500 ext.200, and the official email is [email protected]. The building is open from 8:00am to 4:30pm from Monday to Friday.

However, to view and obtain copies of any divorce record prior to 1968 (for the time being), the exact location will need to be known, and that county’s clerk of the superior court will be the only custodian.

Can Anyone in Pierce County Search Public Divorce Records?

Due to the state’s Public Records Act (Chapter 42.56), local governments in Washington are obligated to publish and maintain all public records for anyone to access, and divorce files fall under that category.⁸

Something individuals should consider when searching either local or state level agencies for divorce records is what type of document they would like to receive. If requesting copies through the Washington Department of Health, a divorce certificate will be issued, which is a single-page document stating that the two parties did in fact have their marriage dissolved on a specified date.⁹

If citizens instead utilize the Pierce County Clerk of the Superior Court, a divorce judgement will be copied. A decree is the multi-page document that goes through all the specific terms and conditions of the divorce.

There are possibly third-parties online who may also have some information on present or historic divorce records for Pierce County, if someone was curious to see what else is available. It should be noted that these would not be any kind of official document, and would not serve in place of a certificate or decree issued by the state or county.

There are several different aspects to consider when going about securing copies of divorce documents: the type of document needed, whether or not the event took place in Pierce County, and if it’s a higher priority to obtain the document quickly or economically.

In any case, a search for Pierce County divorce records should begin at the Clerk of the Superior Court’s Office, but could possibly end at the state Department of Health, the Washington State Library, or the state’s Digital Archives.