Restraining Orders in Tennessee (2026): Filing Guide

Sitting down to describe abuse or threats to a court is hard enough without also worrying whether anyone will believe you. That worry is exactly what documentation is for: a dated, consistent record does not get nervous on the stand or forget a date under pressure. This page walks through what an order of protection is in Tennessee, how the emergency version works, and what kind of evidence tends to help a petition hold together.

Types of orders of protection in Tennessee

Tennessee’s protective order for domestic situations is officially called an Order of Protection, governed by Tennessee Code Annotated (T.C.A.) § 36-3-601 and following. It is available to someone who has been the victim of domestic abuse, stalking, or sexual assault by a person they have a specific relationship with — a current or former spouse, someone they live with or lived with, a person they date or dated, a relative, or the other parent of their child. A petition can be filed in General Sessions, Circuit, or Chancery Court — these three court types have concurrent jurisdiction over orders of protection, so which one you use often comes down to which is most accessible in your county. Tennessee also created a separate Lifetime Order of Protection (T.C.A. § 36-3-627) for certain aggravated or repeat situations, and a distinct order of protection process for elderly and vulnerable adults under T.C.A. § 71-6-124.

The emergency order: Ex Parte Order of Protection

When there is immediate and present danger, a court can issue an Ex Parte Order of Protection the same day you petition, without notifying the other person first or holding a hearing. It is a temporary order meant to create safety right away. Under T.C.A. § 36-3-605, a full hearing must be held within 15 days after the respondent is served with the ex parte order, and the respondent must be given at least five days’ notice of that hearing date. If, at the hearing, the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the allegations are true, it can issue a standard order of protection for up to one year; the person can return each year to ask that it be extended, with a new hearing held for each extension (T.C.A. §§ 36-3-605, 36-3-608).

How to file in Tennessee

You file a petition for an order of protection at the General Sessions, Circuit, or Chancery Court clerk’s office in the county where you live or where the respondent lives — there is no filing fee. The Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts’ Self-Help Center publishes standardized, fillable forms, including the Petition for Order of Protection and the Ex-Parte Order of Protection, and court clerks can help you locate the right paperwork, though they cannot give legal advice about your case. Once you file, a judge reviews the petition and decides whether to issue an ex parte order right away. If one is granted, the respondent is served, and a hearing is scheduled within the 15-day window described above, where both sides can present their case before a final order is decided.

What evidence helps

A court weighing your petition is trying to reconstruct a timeline it did not witness, and the more concrete that timeline is, the easier that job becomes. A dated journal noting what happened and when — even brief entries logged consistently — is one of the most useful things a petitioner can bring. Call and text logs that show a pattern over weeks or months carry more weight than a single message pulled out of context, and keeping the original, timestamped file rather than a cropped screenshot preserves credibility. Witnesses who directly observed an incident, along with any police reports or medical records tied to specific dates, also help corroborate your account. This kind of steady, dated record generally holds up better under scrutiny than testimony reconstructed from memory during a stressful hearing.