Alimony by State: How Spousal Support Works (2026)

Alimony, also called spousal support or maintenance, is court-ordered money that one spouse pays the other after a separation or divorce. There is no federal alimony law. Each state sets its own rules, and while a handful use a formula, most leave the amount and length of support to the judge.

Information last verified on June 1, 2026.

Estimate your situation: Try our free alimony calculator to estimate spousal support in your state and see the factors a court weighs.

Jurisdiction scope: This guide explains alimony and spousal support across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, plus the federal tax treatment that applies nationwide. It does not cover child support calculations or property division, except where they overlap with alimony. Use the comparison table at the end and follow the link to your state for the details.

What is alimony (spousal support)?

Alimony is a payment from one former spouse to the other that is meant to address an imbalance in income or earning ability created by the marriage and divorce. The goal is usually to help a lower-earning spouse maintain a reasonable standard of living or become self-supporting.

States use different words for it. Most call it alimony. California, Washington, Oregon, and Wisconsin call it spousal support. Illinois, New York, and several others call it maintenance, and Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, and Colorado call it spousal maintenance. The labels differ, but the concept is the same.

Alimony is separate from two other parts of a divorce. Child support is money for raising children and follows its own guidelines. Property division splits the marital assets and debts. Alimony is only about support between the spouses.

The types of alimony

Most states recognize several kinds of support, and a court can order more than one.

Temporary (pendente lite) support is paid while the divorce is pending and ends when the final judgment is entered. Rehabilitative support helps a spouse get the education, training, or work experience needed to become self-supporting, and runs for a set period.

Durational or limited-term support is paid for a fixed length of time, often tied to how long the marriage lasted. Permanent or indefinite support continues until a terminating event such as remarriage or death; it is becoming rare and now usually applies only to long marriages.

Reimbursement support repays a spouse who supported the other through school or training. Lump-sum (in gross) support is a single fixed payment instead of ongoing payments.

How alimony is calculated: formula states vs. judicial discretion

There are two basic approaches. A minority of states use a formula or guideline to set the amount, the duration, or both. Most states leave it to the judge's discretion, guided by a list of factors written into the statute.

About nine states apply a formula or guideline. Illinois (750 ILCS 5/504) and New York (Domestic Relations Law section 236) have statutory formulas. Texas (Family Code chapter 8) caps maintenance at the lesser of $5,000 a month or 20 percent of the payer's average gross monthly income. Massachusetts and Florida cap the amount near a percentage of the income difference, and Colorado and Arizona use guideline ranges. New Hampshire (RSA 458:19-a) uses a statutory formula: term alimony is 23 percent of the difference between the parties' gross incomes, capped at the payee's reasonable need.

In the rest of the country, the judge weighs statutory factors and decides. The factors are similar from state to state: the length of the marriage, each spouse's income and earning capacity, the standard of living during the marriage, the age and health of each spouse, contributions to the marriage (including homemaking and child care), and, in some states, marital fault.

Watch out: Online "alimony calculators" only reflect real law in the formula states. In a discretionary state, no calculator can predict what a judge will order; the factors, not a formula, control.

How long alimony lasts and when it ends

Duration is usually linked to the length of the marriage. Many states cap support for shorter marriages at a fraction of the marriage length and reserve longer or indefinite support for marriages of roughly 20 years or more.

Alimony almost always ends automatically when the recipient remarries or when either spouse dies. Many states also suspend or end support if the recipient cohabits with a romantic partner, and a number of states allow support to end when the paying spouse reaches full retirement age. Either spouse can usually ask the court to modify support when there is a substantial change in circumstances, unless the award was made non-modifiable by agreement.

Who qualifies for alimony, and what disqualifies you

No one is automatically entitled to alimony. A court generally looks at two things: whether one spouse has a genuine need for support and whether the other spouse has the ability to pay.

The length of the marriage matters. Short marriages rarely produce long-term support, and a few states set a minimum marriage length to even be eligible (Texas generally requires about ten years absent family violence). Marital fault can also matter. In states such as Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana, adultery or other misconduct can reduce or bar alimony for the spouse at fault. Indiana is an outlier that allows spousal maintenance only in a few narrow situations, so most Indiana divorces involve no alimony at all.

Is alimony taxable? Federal and state tax treatment

The federal tax rules changed with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. For any divorce or separation agreement executed after December 31, 2018, alimony is not deductible by the spouse who pays it and is not counted as taxable income by the spouse who receives it.

For agreements signed on or before December 31, 2018, the older rules still apply: the payer deducts the alimony and the recipient reports it as income, unless the agreement was later modified to adopt the new treatment. Child support is different and has never been deductible or taxable. Most states follow the federal treatment, and California aligned its state income tax with the federal rule for agreements executed on or after January 1, 2026.

The end of permanent alimony: recent state reforms

For decades, courts in many states could order "permanent" alimony that lasted for life. That is changing fast. Florida abolished permanent alimony in 2023 and replaced it with capped durational support. Minnesota overhauled its maintenance law in 2024, adding presumptions based on marriage length and renaming its support types.

Several states made the change earlier. New Jersey replaced permanent alimony with "open durational" alimony in 2014, and Massachusetts limited indefinite alimony to long marriages in its 2011 reform.

North Dakota joined the 2023 wave rather than leading it. House Bill 1037 rewrote N.D.C.C. section 14-05-24.1 to provide that the court "may not award permanent spousal support," and the legislature set the change to take effect on August 1, 2023, applying to divorce and legal separation actions filed on or after that date. The version of the statute in force before that rewrite contained no such prohibition.

The same 2023 rewrite also capped duration as a share of the length of the marriage, absent written court findings justifying a deviation: up to 50 percent of the number of months married for marriages under 5 years, up to 60 percent for 5 to 10 years, up to 70 percent for 10 to 15 years, up to 80 percent for 15 to 20 years, and for marriages of 20 years or more a duration agreed by the parties or a limited time set by the court. It sorted awards into rehabilitative, general term, and lump sum support, and added a rebuttable presumption that support ends when the paying spouse reaches full retirement age for Social Security purposes.

Utah and Arizona have also tightened their rules in recent years. South Carolina is one of the few states that still permits unlimited permanent alimony, though reform bills have been introduced.

Alimony laws by state

The table below shows the term each state uses, whether it applies a formula or guideline, the main statute, and whether long-term or indefinite support is still available. Select a state for its full guide.

This article provides general legal information about alimony and spousal support and is not legal advice. Alimony law varies significantly by state and changes frequently, and a court applies it to the specific facts of each case. The federal tax treatment of alimony also depends on when your divorce or separation agreement was executed. Consult a licensed family-law attorney in your state before relying on any figure or rule here.

Sources

The statutes and federal tax guidance used in this guide are listed below.

Last updated: June 1, 2026.