By Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce · Updated
Interrogatories are the discovery tool that turns a divorce into homework. A numbered list of written questions arrives from your spouse's lawyer, and you have a fixed number of days to answer every one of them in writing, under oath. This guide is about what the rules actually require of an answer, where the deadline comes from, and how the four largest states differ from the federal model and from each other. This guide is for the United States. Divorce cases run under state rules, not the federal ones, but nearly every state's interrogatory rule is modelled on Federal Rule 33, so the federal rule is the clearest statement of the mechanism. California, Texas, Florida and Illinois are covered specifically below. In Canada the closest equivalents are questioning (Alberta), examination for discovery (Ontario, BC) and the request to admit; they are covered in separate guides.
| What they are | Written questions served by one party on another, answered in writing and under oath. |
|---|---|
| The federal model | Rule 33(b)(2): answers and objections must be served "within 30 days after being served with the interrogatories." |
| Under oath | Rule 33(b)(3): each interrogatory "must, to the extent it is not objected to, be answered separately and fully in writing under oath." |
| Objections | Rule 33(b)(4): grounds "must be stated with specificity," and "any ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure." |
| California | 30 days after service (CCP 2030.260(a)); shortened or extended only by court order on motion. |
| Texas | 30 days after service, but a Family Code defendant served before the answer is due has 50 days (Rule 197.2(a)). |
| Florida | 30 days after service, but a respondent may answer within 45 days after service of process and the initial pleading (Rule 12.340(c)). |
| Illinois | 28 days after service, a sworn answer or objection to each interrogatory (Rule 213(d)). |
Keeping track of dates like these across a stack of letters is exactly what SortMyDivorce does — start a free trial, no card needed.
Discovery exists so that neither side goes to trial guessing. Interrogatories are the written half of it: one party asks, in numbered questions, for the facts and figures the other side will rely on, and the answers come back signed and sworn.
In a divorce the questions are predictable. Your income from every source. Every account you hold or held during the marriage. Property you owned at the date of marriage. Transfers to family members. Your position on custody and why. Witnesses you intend to call. The point of the exercise, from the asking side, is to pin your answers down early, so that anything different at trial can be held against you.
That is why the oath matters more than the deadline. An interrogatory answer is evidence. A wrong number given carelessly in month two is the number you will be cross-examined on in month nine.
Family cases are not in federal court, but Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33 is the template most state rules copy, and it states the obligations in the fewest words.
The deadline. Rule 33(b)(2): "The responding party must serve its answers and any objections within 30 days after being served with the interrogatories. A shorter or longer time may be stipulated to under Rule 29 or be ordered by the court."
The oath. Rule 33(b)(3): "Each interrogatory must, to the extent it is not objected to, be answered separately and fully in writing under oath."
Objections. Rule 33(b)(4): "The grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity. Any ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure."
Signatures. Rule 33(b)(5): "The person who makes the answers must sign them, and the attorney who objects must sign any objections."
Four sentences, and each one is a trap for someone who treats the document as correspondence. The deadline runs from service. Every question gets its own answer. An objection you do not make on time is gone. And you, not your lawyer, sign the answers.
The mechanism is the same everywhere. The number of days, and who gets extra time at the start of a case, is where the states diverge.
California. Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.260(a): "Within 30 days after service of interrogatories, the party to whom the interrogatories are propounded shall serve the original of the response to them on the propounding party, unless on motion of the propounding party the court has shortened the time for response, or unless on motion of the responding party the court has extended the time for response." Note the structure: the period moves only on a motion, one way or the other. An informal extension between lawyers is common in practice, but the statute does not mention one, so get any extension in writing.
Texas. Rule 197.2(a): "The responding party must serve a written response on the requesting party within 30 days after service of the interrogatories, except that a defendant in a suit governed by the Family Code served with a request before the defendant's answer is due need not respond until 50 days after service of the request." That exception is written for exactly the person reading this guide: someone served with interrogatories in the same envelope as the divorce petition.
Florida. Family Law Rule 12.340(c): "Each interrogatory must be answered separately and fully in writing under oath unless it is objected to, in which event the grounds for objection must be stated and signed. The party to whom the interrogatories are directed must serve the answers and any objections within 30 days after the service of the interrogatories, except that a respondent may serve answers or objections within 45 days after service of the process and initial pleading on that respondent. The court may allow a shorter or longer time."
Illinois. Supreme Court Rule 213(d), as the Court's own amending order quotes it: "[w]ithin 28 days after service of the interrogatories upon the party to whom they are directed, the party shall serve a sworn answer or an objection to each interrogatory, with proof of service upon all other parties entitled to notice." The order adds that "[t]he answering party shall set forth in full each interrogatory being answered immediately preceding the answer."
If your state is not one of these four, assume the 30-day federal model and confirm the number, and any early-case exception, in your state's rule before you count.
Answer the question that was asked. Interrogatories are drafted to be answered in the terms they use. If the question asks for every account held "during the marriage," an answer that lists current accounts only is incomplete, and incompleteness under oath is not a small thing.
Separately and fully. Rule 33 uses both words. One paragraph that addresses several questions at once is not an answer to any of them. Number your answers to match.
Say when you do not know, and say why. An honest "I do not have this information; the statements are held by the bank and I have requested them" is a proper answer. A guess presented as a fact is not.
Objections are specific or they are nothing. "Objection, overbroad" is the kind of response the federal rule's "with specificity" language is aimed at. If a question is genuinely improper, the objection has to say what is wrong with it and, usually, answer the part that is not.
Do not volunteer. Answer what is asked, accurately and completely. A narrative that goes beyond the question hands the other side material it did not have to work for.
Read the whole set before answering any of it. Interrogatories are drafted so that later questions test earlier answers. Answering question 4 before you have read question 19 is how inconsistencies get sworn to.
Record the date and method of service. Every period above runs from it.
Count the days for your state and put the date somewhere visible. Thirty in most places; 28 in Illinois; 50 in Texas or 45 in Florida if you are a newly served respondent and the exception applies to you.
Read every question and mark it: can answer now, need documents, need a lawyer's view. Most of the "need documents" items are bank and tax records that take time to obtain. Start those requests the same day.
Send your lawyer the marked-up set within the first week. Drafting the answers is the lawyer's work. Gathering the facts is yours, and it is the slow part.
Leave time for the oath. The answers have to be signed by you, under oath, which usually means a notary or a signed verification. That is a day's logistics, not an afternoon's.
Verification note. New York's rule (CPLR 3133) could not be read from an official source in this pass and is deliberately not summarised. The Illinois quotation is taken from the Supreme Court's amending order rather than from a consolidated copy of Rule 213; the passage quoted is the one the order itself says the amended rule retains. Limits on the number of interrogatories, and each state's mechanism for a motion to compel, are not covered here and vary by jurisdiction.
Yes. The federal rule and each of the four state rules quoted above require sworn answers. That is what separates interrogatories from a letter from the other lawyer asking questions. Treat every answer as testimony.
Your lawyer drafts and signs any objections. The answers themselves are yours: Rule 33(b)(5) says "the person who makes the answers must sign them." The facts come from you, and so does the oath.
Under the federal model, objections not made in time are waived unless the court excuses the failure for good cause. In practice a late or missing response invites a motion to compel, with the risk of costs and, if it continues, sanctions. If you are going to be late, the time to say so, in writing, with a proposed date, is before the deadline rather than after it.
In Texas, a Family Code defendant served before the answer is due has 50 days (Rule 197.2(a)). In Florida, a respondent may answer within 45 days after service of process and the initial pleading (Rule 12.340(c)). California's statute and Illinois's rule contain no equivalent in the passages quoted above; check with a lawyer before assuming extra time anywhere else.
Many jurisdictions cap the number, and the caps and their exceptions vary. That is a question for your lawyer under your state's rule. What does not vary is that every question that is properly asked has to be answered or specifically objected to.
No. Interrogatories ask for answers; a request for production asks for documents. They usually arrive together and run on similar clocks. The request for production has its own guide.
Last reviewed September 2026. Researched and written by Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice — laws, fees and forms change, so please confirm current details with the official sources above or a local family lawyer.
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