Alimony Calculator
Modeled spousal support amount and duration estimates, set against how your state decides support.
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How spousal support works
Alimony, also called spousal support or maintenance, is money one spouse pays the other after a divorce to help with the income gap a marriage often creates. It is not automatic and it is not a punishment. The idea is simpler than it sounds: when one spouse earns much more, or one stepped back from a career to raise children or support the household, a court can order payments so both people can move forward on steadier footing. Our own working figure for a typical award is around $1,160 a month, behind marriages of roughly 11 years. Take both as ours rather than as measurements: they came into our data at the original build and no survey stands behind them. The real number swings widely with income and the length of the marriage.
What your state does with alimony depends on which of three approaches it follows. Some states use a statutory formula that starts the math with a set percentage of the income difference. Others use a hybrid approach, where a formula gives the starting point but the judge can move off it based on the facts. Many states are purely discretionary, meaning a judge weighs a list of statutory factors with no fixed formula at all. Which group your state is in comes out of our own record, and it has been checked against the statute in one state, Illinois, where it holds. Your state page says which case it is rather than presenting the classification as settled.
Use this estimate to understand the likely shape of support in your situation, not to predict an exact court order. One thing to be clear about before you use it: outside the Illinois duration, the calculation is a national approximation applied the same way in all fifty states and it is not any state's own formula, including in the states that publish one. Illinois is the exception and only halfway: we have read 750 ILCS 5/504, so the term we give for an Illinois marriage is the statute's arithmetic, while the dollar figure beside it is still ours. Pick your state to see which approach it takes, what factors carry weight, and a realistic range for amount and duration. Then take those numbers to a family law attorney who can apply them to the details of your case.
Tell us the basics
Use your gross (before-tax) annual income.
Use their gross (before-tax) annual income.
This estimate is for planning purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Consult a licensed family law attorney in your state for guidance specific to your situation.
Alimony Calculator by State
Divorce laws, fees, and formulas change at every state line, so the same situation can cost very different amounts depending on where you file. Choose your state for an estimate built on its own rules.
Alimony - Frequently Asked Questions
How is alimony calculated?
It depends on your state. Formula states start with a set percentage of the difference between the spouses' incomes and adjust for the length of the marriage. Hybrid states use a formula as a starting point but let the judge deviate. Discretionary states use no formula at all, so a judge weighs factors like income, need, marriage length, health, and each spouse's earning capacity. Pick your state to see which approach applies.
Who qualifies for alimony?
Either spouse can request support, regardless of gender. What matters is the financial picture: a meaningful gap in income or earning capacity, and a demonstrated need by one spouse alongside an ability to pay by the other. Longer marriages and situations where one spouse gave up career growth to care for children or the household make an award more likely.
How long does alimony last?
Duration usually scales with the length of the marriage. Short marriages often produce limited, rehabilitative support meant to cover a transition back to work. Medium-length marriages commonly produce support lasting a portion of the marriage length. Long marriages can lead to long-term or, in some states, indefinite support, especially when one spouse cannot realistically become self-supporting.
Is alimony tax deductible?
No, not for divorces finalized after December 31, 2018. Under the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the paying spouse can no longer deduct alimony and the receiving spouse no longer reports it as taxable income. This applies in every state. Orders entered before 2019 generally keep the older tax treatment unless they are later modified.
Can alimony be changed later?
Usually, yes. Either spouse can ask the court to modify support after a substantial change in circumstances, such as a large change in income, a job loss, retirement, a serious illness, or the recipient remarrying or moving in with a new partner. Courts generally expect the change to be material and not something that was already expected when the original order was set.
Does cheating or fault affect alimony?
It depends on the state. Some states let courts consider marital fault, such as adultery or abandonment, as one factor that can raise, lower, or in some cases bar an award. Many other states are no-fault for this purpose and focus only on finances and need. Your state page shows whether fault is a factor where you live.
This estimate is for planning purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Consult a licensed family law attorney in your state for guidance specific to your situation.
How we calculate this estimate
Alimony is the least formula-driven number in a divorce, and outside one state this estimate is a national approximation rather than any state's own rule. It works from the gap between the two incomes, scaled by how long the marriage lasted, with the share of that gap set by how your state is recorded as deciding support and by the standard of living during the marriage. The other inputs, employment status on both sides, caregiving history, age and health, and marital fault where your state weighs it, move the factors and the likelihood rather than the arithmetic. The output is a monthly range with a duration range, a likelihood rating, and the specific factors pushing your case up or down.
What the estimate assumes
- One state's own calculation is implemented, in half. Six states write a spousal support calculation into their own statute. We have read one of them, 750 ILCS 5/504, and the duration our Illinois calculator returns is that statute's arithmetic rather than our model's: the length of the marriage multiplied by a factor the statute fixes for each year of it, wherever the guideline route reaches the case. The Illinois AMOUNT is still ours, because the statute works it out from net annual income and this calculator collects gross. Everywhere else, both figures are the same national approximation. Every alimony figure we return says which of the two it is, beside it.
- The share of the income gap our estimate applies depends on which of three groups our record puts your state in, and the marriage-length factor then multiplies it in every case. A formula state takes 30 percent of the gap, which the factor moves to between 12 and 48 percent of it. A discretionary state takes between 22 and 38 percent depending on the standard of living during the marriage, moving to between 8.8 and 60.8 percent. A hybrid state averages the two, landing between 10.4 and 54.4 percent. Those are the figures before any ceiling a state sets, every one of them is ours, and no state publishes any of them.
- Duration is modeled at about a third of the length of the marriage, with a band around it and a cap at the length of the marriage, in forty-nine states. How wide that band runs depends on the same grouping: a formula or hybrid state gets 20 to 50 percent of the length of the marriage, a discretionary state 13.3 to 66.7 percent. Several of them set duration as a share of the marriage by statute and none of those shares is a third. Illinois is the exception: its ladder runs from .20 below five years to .80 at nineteen and opens up at twenty, we have read it, and our Illinois duration is that calculation rather than the model.
- State limits are applied in five states and shown without being applied in six more. Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana and Texas each set a ceiling on the amount or the term, we have read that ceiling out of the state's own instrument, and where our arithmetic ran past it the ceiling is what produced the figure. Florida, Louisiana and Texas are the ones whose ceilings are worked on a base the instrument does not use: their rules measure an income this page does not collect, so what we apply is a generous version of the state's own limit, which is why we are willing to bring a figure down to it and never up to it. Each of those pages says so beside the figure. Massachusetts and Maine's limits are rebuttable presumptions rather than ceilings, so they are shown beside the figure rather than applied to it. Massachusetts carries a second reason on top of that one, set out on its own page beside the figure, and it is the harder of the two: what the rule measures is not what this page collects. Indiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Utah have limits our own pages state and nobody here has opened the document behind, so those are worked out on your entries and set beside our estimate without changing it. We do not clamp a number to a figure we could not read. The other 39 states have no limit in our records, which is a statement about our records rather than about their law: where your state limits an amount or a term and we hold nothing for it, the limit still controls and this estimate can exceed it.
- Which of the three approaches a state takes came into our data at the original build. It has since been checked against the state's own rendered instrument in 4 states, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas, and each of those pages names the instrument that settled it. In the other 46 it is still our record's classification with no statute behind it.
- Fault is only factored in for states where our record says fault can affect a support award.
- The one cost-table figure this page uses is your state's waiting period, and it is our own record rather than a reading of the statute. Nobody here has opened a dissolution statute to check the number, and the same field carries two different things across the fifty states, a wait that runs from filing and a separation requirement that runs from the day you separated. Confirm it with the clerk of court where you will file.
- The estimate is pre-tax. It does not model how support affects either spouse's tax return.
Where the estimate stops
Outside the Illinois duration, this is our model rather than your state's. In a state that publishes its own calculation the number to plan around is that calculation, and a family law attorney licensed there can run it on your figures. Even where a guideline applies, a judge can depart from it and most support terms are negotiated rather than tried, so treat the range as a planning band rather than a prediction of your order.
Read the full methodology for how every calculator on the site is built.
Sources
Where to read more
Background reading, not where the figures above came from. No number on this page is taken from any of these.
About this page
Written by Barron Hansen
I am an app developer who is dedicated to building the highest-value, most accurate web apps possible, that people want to use every day.