In the title chalcone-thio-phene derivative, C13 H6 Cl3 FOS, the aromatic rings are inclined to one another by 12.9 (2)°, and the thio-phene ring is affected by π-conjugation. In the crystal, mol-ecules are linked by C - H ... F hydrogen bonds, forming an R2 2 (8) ring motif. A Hirshfeld surface analysis was conducted to verify the contribution of the different inter-molecular inter-actions. The shape-index surface clearly shows that the two sides of the mol-ecules are involved in the same contacts with neighbouring mol-ecules and the curvedness plots show flat surface patches characteristic of planar stacking. © 2018 Sanjeeva Murthy et al.