Decree Absolute: Meaning, Final Order & How to Get a Copy

By Iblal IqbalPublished 22 August 2019Last reviewed 24 September 202621 mins read14 sections

A decree absolute is the court order that legally ended a marriage in England and Wales. Since 6 April 2022 it has a new name: divorces started on or after that date end with a final order, while divorces started before it still end with a decree absolute. Both do the same job. Once yours is made you are divorced and, as GOV.UK confirms, free to marry again. The rename came from the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, which was brought fully into force on 6 April 2022.

This guide explains both names, how long each stage takes, why most people should settle their finances before the last step, and how to get a copy if yours has gone missing. It covers England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own divorce systems.

Key takeaways

Two names, one order. The old name covers divorces started before 6 April 2022; “final order” covers those started on or after it. Either way, the marriage is over.
There are two minimum waits. You must wait 20 weeks from the start of proceedings before applying for the conditional order, then 6 weeks and 1 day before applying for the final order (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s.1). That makes about 26 weeks at the very least.
It is not automatic. Someone has to apply, ideally within 12 months of the conditional order. If the applicant does nothing, the other spouse can apply three months later (s.9).
Settle finances first. GOV.UK says to apply for a financial order before the final order, because applying afterwards can cause problems, especially with pensions.
Lost yours? A copy costs £14 if you know the case number, £61 per 10 years searched if you know the court but not the number, and £89 per 10 years if you cannot name the court and have to use form D440 (GOV.UK).

Final order divorce: what changed on 6 April 2022

The 2020 Act rewrote section 1 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, introduced no-fault divorce and renamed every stage. So what is a final order in divorce? It is the new name for the decree absolute: the order that ends the marriage. The table sets the old terms against the new ones.

Divorce terms in England and Wales, before and after 6 April 2022
Stage	Divorce started before 6 April 2022	Divorce started on or after 6 April 2022
Starting the divorce	A divorce petition, presented by one spouse (the petitioner)	A divorce application, made by one spouse (the applicant) or by both of you jointly
The reason given	Irretrievable breakdown, proved by one of five facts: adultery, behaviour, two years’ desertion, two years’ separation with consent, or five years’ separation	A statement that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, which the court must accept as conclusive
Middle stage	Decree nisi	Conditional order
Minimum waits	6 weeks and 1 day from decree nisi before applying to end the marriage	20 weeks from the start of proceedings before applying for the conditional order, then 6 weeks and 1 day before applying for the final order
The order that ends the marriage	Decree absolute	Final order

Sources: section 1 as originally enacted (petition and the five facts); section 1 as it stands now (application, statement of breakdown, conditional order, 20 weeks and 6 weeks); GOV.UK (43 days). A divorce whose application the court issued before 6 April 2022 carries on under the old rules and keeps the old names. The two documents carry the same legal weight.

Decree nisi and decree absolute: what is the difference?

A decree nisi (now a conditional order) is the court saying you are entitled to a divorce. At that point you are still married. The decree absolute (now the final order) is the step that actually ends the marriage: it is the final decree in divorce proceedings. “Nisi” is Latin for “unless”. The decree would become absolute unless a reason emerged why it should not.

The middle stage matters for money. Once the conditional order or decree nisi has been made, the court can approve a financial order. That order does not take effect until the divorce is made final: section 23(5) says so for maintenance and lump sums.

How long does a final order take? The timeline, including the conditional order

How long does it take to get a decree absolute or final order? At least 26 weeks from the day the court issues the application, because two waiting periods are written into the law. Beyond that minimum, it depends mostly on how quickly each of you applies at each step.

Day 1: the application is issued. The court issues the divorce application, which can be sole or joint. The clock starts here.
Week 20: apply for the conditional order. Nobody can confirm they want to continue until 20 weeks after proceedings start (s.1 MCA 1973). The gap is a period for reflection.
The conditional order is made. If the court is satisfied, it makes the conditional order. Before 2022 this was the decree nisi.
43 days later: apply for the final order. How long between the conditional order and the final order? At least 6 weeks and 1 day (GOV.UK). In a particular case the court can shorten the 6 weeks (s.1).
The final order is granted, usually within a day. On the online service the court processes the application within 24 hours unless there is an issue or a judge needs to review it (HMCTS guidance).
Deadline: 12 months. Apply within 12 months of the conditional order or decree nisi. After that you must explain the delay to the court.

How long does a final order take once applied for? On the online service it is usually the same day or the next, as step 5 shows. You are divorced from the moment the order is made.

How to apply for a decree absolute or final order

Nothing happens automatically: the court will not end the marriage until someone applies. How to get a decree absolute or final order now depends on when your divorce started.

Started on or after 6 April 2022. Log in to your online divorce account to apply for the final order. Divorce applications made jointly need both of you: after one of you applies, the other has 14 days to complete their part (HMCTS).
Started before 6 April 2022. You apply for the decree absolute, online or by post (GOV.UK). A paper application goes to the court handling your case, on the decree absolute form.
More than 12 months after the middle stage. An application for a decree absolute or final order made more than 12 months after the decree nisi or conditional order must explain the delay. A common reason is that the finances were still being sorted out.
If the person who started it will not apply. The other spouse can apply once three months have passed since the earliest date the applicant could have applied (s.9 MCA 1973). That application goes before the court, which can make the order final, rescind it, ask for more information or deal with it as it sees fit. If you are the one who received the divorce papers, see what to do when you receive divorce papers.

Many people handle these steps themselves; our guide to doing your own divorce covers the online service. What you should not skip is the question of money.

Why a financial order should come before the final order

The final order ends the marriage. On its own it does not end financial claims between you, and it does not divide anything. GOV.UK is clear about the order of events: if you want a legally binding arrangement for dividing money and property, apply to the court before you apply for the final order. Applying afterwards can have financial consequences, particularly for pensions.

Pensions. Some pension benefits are paid only to a surviving husband, wife or civil partner. After the final order you are no longer a spouse, so if your ex dies before a pension order is in place, those benefits can be lost. See pension sharing orders.
Wills and inheritance. Once the marriage is dissolved, a gift to a former spouse in a will passes as if they had died on that date, and the same applies if they were named as executor (Wills Act 1837, s.18A). More in inheritance and divorce.
Remarriage closes the door. If you remarry or form a civil partnership after the divorce, you cannot then apply for a financial provision order or a property adjustment order against your former spouse (s.28(3) MCA 1973).
Agreed settlements. A financial consent order can be approved after the conditional order, and it takes effect when the final order is made (s.23(5)).

Can you still get a financial order after a decree absolute? Yes, provided you apply before you remarry. But it is the harder route. Getting your divorce final order before a financial settlement is lawful, and sometimes there is a real reason to, such as a planned remarriage. Take advice on the timing first.

What does a decree absolute look like?

It is a short, formal court document. It typically carries the court’s name and the case number, both of your names, the date of the marriage and the date the marriage was dissolved. People also call it the final decree or the divorce certificate, and for newer divorces it is the final order. It is the document you need if you remarry or have to prove your marital status (GOV.UK).

Final orders made through the online service arrive digitally. The court emails you when the order is granted, and you download the PDF from your account. If yours was an older decree absolute divorce, you will have been sent a paper copy by post. Either way, keep the decree absolute certificate or the final order (the divorce certificate in everyday speech) safe, alongside your marriage certificate.

How to get a copy of a decree absolute or final order

Lost your divorce decree absolute? You can get an official copy from the court service. The route depends on whether you know your case number (GOV.UK).

You know the case number. Apply for a copy of the decree absolute or final order by post or in person. It costs £14. If the case number has 16 digits, apply to the Divorce Service Centre; otherwise, apply to the court that handled the divorce. The copy arrives within a week of your payment being received (GOV.UK).
You know the court but not the case number. Write or email that court with your name, address and the date you believe the final order was made. It will search five years either side of that date, or the ten most recent years if you cannot give one, and a search of that court’s own index costs £61 for every ten years (Family Proceedings Fees Order 2008, Sch.1 fee 7.3). You do not need form D440 for this route.
You don’t know the court. If you cannot find your decree absolute and do not know which court dealt with it, ask the Bury St Edmunds Divorce Unit to search its records. The decree absolute search costs £89 for each 10-year period searched. You can apply online or by post on form D440, and the certificate of search, with the copy, usually arrives within 45 days of payment (GOV.UK).
You divorced online. Log back in to your account and download the final order again.
A firm handled your divorce. The court sends the order to whoever acted for you, so ask that firm first. It is often the quickest route.

You do not need a paid third-party service to get a copy. GOV.UK is the official route, and it lists the fees above.

Form D440: when you need it, and when you do not

Form D440 asks the court to search for a decree absolute or final order (GOV.UK). You need the D440 form for one route only: the national search the Bury St Edmunds Divorce Unit runs when you cannot name the court that dealt with the divorce. Name the court and you write or email it direct, with no form involved at all. Check which fee that direct route attracts before you pay: a search of a court’s own index is £61 for every ten years (fee 7.3), but GOV.UK sends divorces applied for online after January 2019, or by post after April 2022, to the Divorce Service Centre, and quotes the £89 figure for those (GOV.UK).

Work from the current edition. The form now in use carries the stamp 07.26, and GOV.UK published it on 6 August 2026, so a PDF saved in an earlier year will not match.

What the D440 form asks you for

Both names exactly as the divorce papers spelled them, anyone else those papers named, the date of the marriage, the date of separation, the year someone filed the application and the court it went to, the case number if you have it, and the years the conditional order and the final order followed. You then set the start and end years of the search yourself. The form asks for as many of those as you can give rather than all of them. Every blank widens the search, and one wrong detail points it at the wrong record.

What the D440 search costs, and what comes back

£89 for each ten-year period searched (Family Proceedings Fees Order 2008, Sch.1 fee 7.1). The Divorce Unit then posts a certificate of the search together with a copy of the order, usually within 45 days of the court receiving your payment. The clock starts at payment, not at posting. Where the index holds nothing, what arrives instead is a “no trace” certificate, and the fee has gone either way.

Are divorce records public in the UK?

Partly, and the split is the whole answer. The fact that a marriage ended is a public record: a central index of decrees absolute and final orders is kept by the principal registry, and anyone may search it. The divorce file is not public: no document lodged in the court office is open to inspection by any person without the permission of the court, and only a party, their legal representative, a children’s guardian or a litigation friend may search that file as of right (Family Procedure Rules 2010, rule 29.12).

So a search of divorce records can confirm that a divorce happened, the date the marriage was dissolved and the court that dealt with it, and it can produce the order itself. It cannot produce the application, the statements, the financial disclosure or anything either of you said to the court. Anyone offering to obtain “the divorce records” in the sense of the file cannot do it, and neither can we.

That distinction is worth settling before you pay anything. A search fee buys confirmation and a copy of an order. It never buys the contents of a file, and it is not returned when the answer is not the one you were hoping for.

You do not have to be the one who asks

The central index is open to anyone. Any person may require a search of it and receive a certificate of the result, and any person who requests it must be issued with a copy of the decree absolute or final order (Family Procedure Rules 2010, rule 7.35). A lender or a registrar waiting on proof can therefore go to the index without you. A firm can also make the request for you, and the form leaves a space for its name and reference.

How to find out if someone is divorced

You ask the index, not the person. Any applicant can use the national search the Bury St Edmunds Divorce Unit runs on form D440, and the answer comes back as a certificate of the search, with a copy of the order where the index holds one. It costs £89 for each ten-year period searched and usually arrives within 45 days of the court receiving payment, as the section above sets out. You need both names as the divorce papers spelled them at the time, and a year to search around; the fee does not come back if a spelling or a date sends the search past the record.

A “no trace” certificate is the other possible answer, and it is a narrower answer than it looks. It says the index holds no matching order for the names and the years you gave. It does not say the couple are still married, and it does not say nothing is under way: a conditional order is not the end of a marriage, so a divorce sitting at the middle stage leaves nothing in this index at all. If the divorce in question is your own and you are not certain it ever completed, checking your divorce application status is the cheaper first move.

The hard part is usually not the search. It is what the answer has to satisfy. A lender, a registrar or a probate file normally wants one specific document, and a certificate of search is not always the document being asked for. Paying for the wrong one costs another £89 and another six weeks against a deadline that will not move.

Three things that send people back to the start

A name entered the way it is spelled today rather than the way the papers spelled it then. The form warns that this alone can make the search fail, and the fee does not come back.
A search window too narrow to reach the year the marriage actually ended. Give no date at all and the unit looks only at the ten most recent years, which will never reach a divorce from the 1990s.
An application with a gap in it. The unit sends those straight back with the reason, which costs the post both ways.

Each one restarts the 45 days. That is the part that hurts when a mortgage offer, a wedding date or a probate deadline already sits in the diary.

Before you send form D440: are you on track?

Which describes you? Someone else has asked me to prove the divorce I need the document for myself

Tick what is already true

Nothing you tick is saved or sent anywhere.

Both names match the way the divorce papers spelled them, not the way anyone spells them now. You can give a year to search around, rather than leaving the court to look at the ten most recent years. It is settled whether you can still name the court that dealt with it, because that decides which fee you pay. A search that finds nothing would still cost the fee, and a “no trace” certificate would not surprise you. Whoever is waiting has told you whether a certificate of the search will satisfy them. Their deadline sits comfortably against the 45 days the national search usually takes from payment. You have asked the firm that acted at the time whether it still holds a copy.

There is no score. Anything you cannot tick yet is worth settling before you pay a search fee.

The calls a checklist can’t make for you

Whether the document the person waiting on you has asked for is the one this search can actually produce.
Which route to pay for first when you are only half sure of the court, and what a wrong guess costs in weeks rather than pounds.
What to do when a “no trace” certificate arrives and the deadline has not moved.
Whether anything else in the divorce needs settling before the paperwork is any use to you.

Those turn on the facts of your case, and they are far easier to sort out before a fee is paid than after a search comes back empty.

Book a free initial consultation

One of our specialists will give you initial advice on your situation.

What to update once you are divorced

Your will. Make a new one. Gifts to your ex will fail (s.18A above), and your wishes have probably changed anyway.
Pension and life-insurance nominations. Check who each scheme or policy would pay out to.
Joint accounts and credit. Close or separate joint bank accounts and cards. Some banks will ask to see the final order.
Mortgage and property. Tell your lender who is now responsible, and put any transfer agreed in the financial order into effect.
HMRC and benefits. Report the change in your circumstances.
Your name. If you are changing your name after divorce, update your passport, driving licence and insurance policies.

Frequently asked questions

What is a decree absolute in simple terms?

It is the court order that ended your marriage, if your divorce started before 6 April 2022. For divorces started since then, the same order is called a final order.

Decree absolute meaning: why “absolute”?

“Absolute” is the old legal word for final: it is the point at which the court makes the divorce absolute. It follows the decree nisi, where “nisi” means the divorce would go ahead unless there was a reason not to.

Is a final order the same as a decree absolute?

Yes, in effect. Both are the order that ends the marriage; which name you get depends only on whether the divorce application was issued before or after 6 April 2022.

What is a conditional order in divorce?

It is the middle stage of a divorce started on or after 6 April 2022, and it replaced the decree nisi. It means the court is satisfied you are entitled to a divorce, but you stay married until the final order, which you can apply for 43 days (6 weeks and 1 day) after the conditional order is made (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s.1).

Can I remarry without a decree absolute?

No. You are still married until the divorce is made final, and you will need it to show you are free to marry (GOV.UK).

How much is a copy of my decree absolute?

£14 if you know the case number. If you know the court but not the case number, a search of that court’s own records costs £61 for every 10 years searched. If you cannot name the court at all, the national search costs £89 for each 10-year period, and a copy is included when it is found.

Where can I get a copy of my decree absolute?

From the Divorce Service Centre or the court that handled your divorce, or through the Bury St Edmunds Divorce Unit if you do not know the court. The routes are set out in the section above.

How long does a decree absolute take once applied for?

Final orders applied for online are usually processed within 24 hours unless a judge needs to look at the case. Paper applications on older cases depend on the court’s workload.

How long after a final order are you divorced?

Immediately. Once the order is made, you are divorced and free to marry again.

There is no fixed gap. A consent order can be approved once the conditional order or decree nisi is made, and it takes effect when the divorce is made final, so many people apply for the final order once the consent order is approved.

Can a divorce be undone if we get back together?

No. Reconciling does not undo the order: you are divorced. If you want to be married to each other again, you will need to marry again.

If you are close to the final step and your finances are not settled, our divorce specialists can help you time it. Call 0330 094 5880 or ask the family law specialists team to call you back.

Cannot find your final order and a date is already fixed? Talk it through this week

A search that goes to the wrong index, or carries a name the index cannot match, costs another fee and another six weeks, and the person waiting on you rarely moves their deadline. Book a free initial consultation and one of our specialists will give you initial advice on which route fits your situation.