Tools · Small Claims
Pennsylvania Small Claims Checker (2026)
Enter your claim amount to see whether it fits under the Pennsylvania small claims limit ($12,000), with the filing fee and whether a lawyer is allowed at the hearing.
Pennsylvania small claims checker
The dollar amount you would ask the court for: the deposit, the unpaid bill, the repair cost. Interest and court costs usually sit on top of the limit, not inside it.
Enter your claim amount above to see it compared against the Pennsylvania figures.
Where and how to file is procedure this page does not walk through; the official self-help resource is Pennsylvania Courts (self-represented). If your claim is a security deposit a landlord kept, the security deposit calculator shows the cap and the return deadline that apply to it.
- Your claim amount
- Not entered
- Pennsylvania small claims limit
- $12,000
- Filing fee
- ~$67.75–$116.75+
- Lawyers at the hearing
- Allowed
Plain-language summary, not legal advice.
Informational only, not legal advice, and not a prediction that any claim would succeed. Limits change and some states carve out claim types this summary cannot weigh. See the full rule and the citations on the Pennsylvania small claims reference, cited to 42 Pa.C.S. §1515(a)(3).
How the Pennsylvania small claims limit works
Pennsylvania sets a $12,000 small-claims limit under 42 Pa.C.S. §1515(a)(3): "does not exceed $12,000, exclusive of interest and costs." Most of the state hears these cases in the Magisterial District Courts (the MDJ courts). Philadelphia is the exception in form but not in number: it has no MDJ courts and routes small civil cases through the Philadelphia Municipal Court, which uses the same $12,000 ceiling, so the limit is genuinely uniform statewide. We were able to parse Philadelphia's official fee schedule verbatim, which is why the fee here carries more confidence than in most states; still, expect it to vary with the claim tier, the number of defendants, and constable service. Lawyers are allowed.
This checker compares your number to the Pennsylvania ceiling; it is informational only and not legal advice, and it says nothing about whether a claim would succeed. For where to file and what the hearing looks like, use the official self-help resource linked in the result. The full rule and the citations are on the Pennsylvania small claims reference.
Small claims checkers for other states
Same tool, each with its own ceiling and fee.