Electronic Filing in Ontario Family Court: JSO, Public Portal, and What to Redact

Ontario's Two E-Filing Portals

Ontario family court documents are filed electronically through one of two portals, depending on where your case is located:

Family Submissions Online (JSO) — for all Ontario court locations outside of Toronto. This is the more widely used portal and covers the vast majority of Ontario courthouse locations. JSO is accessed through Ontario's File family court documents online service, where you upload PDF documents, pay filing fees, and receive confirmation of issued documents electronically.

Ontario Courts Public Portal — mandatory for the Toronto Region, including the 47 Sheppard Avenue East and 311 Jarvis Street locations. Toronto uses its own portal to handle the higher volume of filings. The workflow is similar to JSO — upload documents, pay fees, receive issued copies — but the portal interface and login system are different.

You must use the correct portal for your courthouse location. Filing through the wrong portal will result in your documents being rejected. If you are filing in Toronto, you use the Public Portal. Everywhere else in Ontario, you use JSO.

Both portals accept documents in PDF format. You scan or save your completed forms as PDFs, upload them through the portal, and pay any applicable fees by credit card. Once the court registrar reviews and accepts your documents, they issue them electronically — which means stamping them with the court seal, assigning a court file number (for initial filings), and sending the issued copies back to you through the portal.

Setting Up Your Account

For JSO: Create an account at the portal using your email address. You will need to verify your identity and link your account to a specific court location. One account can file at multiple court locations, but you select the correct location for each filing.

For the Toronto Public Portal: Registration works similarly. You need to create an account, verify your email, and then you can begin uploading documents.

Neither portal requires you to be a lawyer. Self-represented litigants have full access to the same filing functionality as legal professionals. The portals do not distinguish between lawyer-filed and self-filed documents.

What You Can File Electronically

Most family court documents can be filed through the portals:

• Form 8A (Application for Divorce)
• Marriage certificates and certified translations
• Form 6B (Affidavit of Service)
• Form 36 (Affidavit for Divorce)
• Form 25A (Divorce Order)
• Form 36B (Certificate of Divorce request)
• Form 35.1 (Affidavit in Support of Claim for Custody or Access)
• Financial statements (Form 13, Form 13.1)
• Continuing Record documents with proper table of contents

Sworn documents (affidavits) still need to be commissioned before uploading. You sign the affidavit in front of a commissioner for taking affidavits — available for free at the courthouse counter, or for approximately $21 at a private notary — and then scan the signed, commissioned original for upload.

Mandatory Redaction Under Rule 13

Before uploading any document containing financial information, you must redact sensitive personal identifiers. Rule 13 of the Family Law Rules requires you to black out:

• Social Insurance Numbers (SINs) — never include a full SIN in any filed document
• Bank account numbers — black out the full number
• Credit card numbers — black out the full number
• Mortgage account numbers — redact the full number
• Investment account numbers — redact the full number

Filing unredacted documents violates Ontario's privacy rules and will cause the court registry to reject the filing. The registrar conducts a compliance check, and visible personal identifiers are one of the first things they look for.

How to redact properly:

• If filing from a printed form: Use a black marker to completely obscure the numbers, then scan the redacted document. Make sure the numbers are not legible through the redaction — hold the page up to light to verify.
• If filing from a digital form: Use PDF editing software to place opaque black rectangles over the sensitive information. Do not simply change the text colour to black on a black background — this can be reversed by selecting and copying the text.
• Keep an unredacted copy for your own records. The court sees only the redacted version, but you may need the full numbers for reference.

The redaction requirement applies to financial statements (Form 13.1, Form 13B), bank statements attached as supporting documents, tax returns filed with the court, and any other document that contains account identifiers. It does not apply to the basic identifying information (names, addresses, dates of birth) required on the forms themselves.

Common E-Filing Mistakes

Uploading documents to the wrong court location. If your case is at the Brampton courthouse and you accidentally select Newmarket, your filing will be rejected. Always verify the court location before submitting.

Incorrect document formatting. The portals require legible, properly oriented PDFs. Scanned documents should keep text legible, with pages right-side up and in the correct order. Blurry scans or sideways pages will be returned.

Missing the Continuing Record table of contents. Every document filed after the initial application must be accompanied by an updated Cumulative Table of Contents for the Continuing Record (Rule 9). Uploading a Form 6B without updating the table of contents triggers a rejection.

Not paying the fee at filing time. The portal requires payment as part of the submission process. If your credit card is declined or you skip the payment step, the filing is not complete. If you need a fee waiver, submit the request before or at the same time as the filing so you know whether the fees are covered.

Filing forms that need commissioning without the commissioner's stamp. Uploading an unsigned or uncommissioned affidavit (Form 36, Form 6B) is a guaranteed rejection. The scan must show the original signatures and the commissioner's stamp or seal.

Processing Times After E-Filing

After you upload your documents, the court registrar reviews them before accepting the filing. This review period varies:

These are registrar review stages — the period between when you upload and when the filing is accepted or returned. They do not include the judge's chambers review time for the Stage Two package, which also varies by courthouse.

If the registrar identifies an issue, the portal sends you a notification with the reason for rejection. You fix the problem and re-upload according to the portal or registry's instructions about any applicable fee.

The Ontario Divorce Filing Process Guide walks through the complete filing sequence for both portals, including which forms go at each stage and how to organize your Continuing Record for electronic filing.

Tips for Smooth E-Filing

Prepare all documents before starting. The portal does not save partial submissions well. Have all your PDFs ready, redacted, and properly named before you begin the upload process.

Name your files descriptively. "Form-8A-Application.pdf" is better than "scan001.pdf." Court staff process hundreds of filings daily, and clear file names reduce the chance of confusion.

Save confirmation receipts. The portal generates a confirmation receipt for each successful submission. Save these — they are your proof of filing date if any dispute arises about when a document was filed.

Check the portal regularly after filing. The court's response (acceptance, rejection, or issued document) comes through the portal. The signed Divorce Order is mailed using the envelopes submitted with the Stage Two package, so monitor both the portal and your mail where applicable.

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