California Learn
Dissolution in California: six-and-three residency, no-fault grounds
A California dissolution requires one spouse resident in the state six months AND in the filing county three months before filing, and pleads a no-fault ground generally — irreconcilable differences that have caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage (or permanent legal incapacity). Legal separation has no residency wait and is the common bridge while residency accrues.
The honesty note
Same-sex marriages entered in California have a special venue path when neither spouse's home jurisdiction will dissolve the marriage — the statute names the county where the marriage was entered.
Authority locked — retrieved from the hash-pinned corpus
Do it with the tools
Legal information, not legal advice. Statements about county practice defer to your superior court's local rules (CRC rule 5.4 territory) and the official self-help center — where this platform has no verified county data, it says so instead of guessing.