How Long Does a Divorce Take in Ontario? The One-Year Rule and 31-Day Wait

If you are thinking about divorce in Ontario, one of the first questions is how long it will take. The law sets a few fixed waiting periods, and those periods decide the shortest possible timeline.

This article walks through those periods in order, from separation to the day the divorce takes effect. It does not predict how long a court will take in any particular case, because that depends on the court and on your facts.

Breakdown of marriage and the one-year separation

The only ground for divorce under the federal Divorce Act is breakdown of the marriage. The usual way to show it is separation. You must have lived separate and apart for at least one year before the divorce is decided, and you must have been living separate and apart when the proceeding started.

There is an exception with no one-year wait. Breakdown is also shown if the spouse the proceeding is brought against has, since the marriage, committed adultery or treated the other spouse with physical or mental cruelty that makes continued cohabitation intolerable. In those cases the court must also be satisfied that the spouse bringing the proceeding has not condoned or connived at the adultery or cruelty.

How separation is counted

Spouses are treated as having lived separate and apart for any period during which they lived apart and either spouse intended to live separately. Some couples separate but keep living in the same house. Whether that counts depends on the facts, and a lawyer can explain what courts may consider.

Trying to get back together does not necessarily restart the clock. The one-year period is not treated as interrupted if you resumed living together for one or more periods totalling not more than 90 days, mainly to try to reconcile. Living together again for 90 days or less, mainly to reconcile, is also not condonation.

Residence and the steps after you file

An Ontario court can hear a divorce if either spouse has been habitually resident in Ontario for at least one year immediately before the proceeding starts. Only one spouse needs to meet this.

• Either spouse may start the case by application naming the other as respondent, or the spouses may file a joint application with no respondent.
• A respondent must serve and file an answer within 30 days after being served.
• If the respondent is served outside Canada and the United States, the time is 60 days.
• In most family cases, the parties must attend a Mandatory Information Program no later than 45 days after the case is started.

Contested or uncontested: what changes the timing

If the respondent does not answer by the deadline and has not asked for more time, the applicant can take steps toward an uncontested trial, decided on the applicant's evidence alone. The court may also deal with the case in the respondent's absence.

In a joint application, the divorce and any other order can be made only with the consent of both spouses. When an answer is filed, the case is contested and a judge must hold at least one conference. Contested cases can move through case conferences, settlement conferences and trial management conferences, and a trial may be needed if issues are unresolved.

The 31-day wait and your divorce certificate

A divorce takes effect on the 31st day after the day the judgment granting it is made. The court may order it to take effect sooner if special circumstances justify it and the spouses agree and undertake that no appeal will be taken, or any appeal has been abandoned.

Once it takes effect, the divorce dissolves the marriage and has legal effect throughout Canada. At either party's request, the clerk checks the record for appeals and, if satisfied, issues a divorce certificate in Form 36B.

What to do next

• Work out the date you separated and whether you lived apart with an intention to separate.
• Note any periods you lived together again to try to reconcile.
• Confirm that one of you has lived in Ontario for at least one year.
• Decide whether a joint application is realistic.
• Speak with a lawyer about same-house separation, adultery or cruelty grounds, or any timing question.

Frequently asked questions