California Alimony Calculator

How California awards spousal support

Our California record classifies it as a statutory formula state, which means the legislature has written an arithmetic starting point into the statute, so two cases with similar incomes and a similar marriage length should land in a similar place. Here is what that looks like in practice.

A formula state gives the court a calculation to run rather than a list of considerations to weigh. The arithmetic works off the gap between the two incomes, not off either income on its own, which is why a raise for the lower-earning spouse cuts the award as surely as a pay cut for the higher earner does. Close the gap and the figure falls, even when neither household is worse off in total.

The formula is a starting point rather than a ceiling or a floor. A judge can depart from it, and departing generally means putting a reason on the record. That is what makes support in a formula state worth planning around in a way it is not elsewhere. What it does not mean is that every figure on this page is that formula. We have read one state's maintenance statute, Illinois', and there the duration is the statute's own arithmetic while the amount is still ours. Everywhere else both figures are a national approximation applied the same way in all fifty states. The panel above the calculator says which of the two you are looking at, beside every number it returns.

Length of marriage enters twice. It scales the amount, and separately it sets how long payments run. That second effect is the one people underestimate: the difference between a nine-year marriage and an eleven-year marriage is often larger in total dollars than a sizable difference in income would be.

One caveat matters more here than anywhere else on this page. Several states run a formula for temporary support while the case is open and then hand post-judgment support back to the court to decide on the statutory factors. Where that is how the state works, the arithmetic is a good guide to what gets paid during the case and a weaker guide to what gets ordered at the end of it. Check which of the two you are looking at before you plan around the number.

What Californiacourts weigh, in our data's order

These are the 5 factors our California record carries, listed in the order it records them. They are the ground a support argument is actually fought on, so the side that documents them is the side arguing where the statute points.

1. 1Length of the marriageThe strongest single predictor of both how much support is awarded and how long it runs. Short marriages point toward limited, time-boxed support aimed at getting the lower earner back on their feet. Long marriages point toward larger awards over longer terms, and are where indefinite support is still argued for.
2. 2Standard of living during the marriageThe benchmark the court measures need against. It is why the same income gap supports a larger award for a couple who lived expensively than for a couple who saved. Documenting how the household actually spent, through statements rather than recollection, is what makes this factor usable in a hearing.
3. 3Earning capacity of each spouseCapacity, not current pay. A court can attribute income to a spouse it decides could be earning more, and can equally accept that a spouse who left the workforce for a decade cannot step back in at the old salary. Evidence about the local job market, licensing, and retraining timelines is what moves this one.
4. 4Age and health of both spousesThe factor that most often converts time-limited support into open-ended support. A recipient near retirement age, or with a documented condition that limits work, has a weaker path to self-sufficiency, and courts respond to that with longer terms. Health on the paying side cuts the other way, since it bears on ability to keep paying.
5. 5Documented domestic violenceNamed separately from general fault because of what it does to earning capacity. Abuse that interrupted a career, forced a move, or left lasting medical costs bears directly on need and on the realistic path to self-support, and courts treat documentation of it as material.

Does conduct matter in California?

No. Marital fault does not appear in the California factor list, so the analysis runs on need, ability to pay, and the other factors above rather than on who was to blame for the marriage ending. That is worth knowing before you spend money on it: evidence of an affair or of who left first has little purchase on the support question here, and the same money spent documenting the marital standard of living or a career interrupted for the household does far more work. Our record separately flags California as a state whose courts can weigh documented domestic violence when dividing marital property, which is held apart from general conduct in our data. That is our own record rather than California's own property division law. Only three of our 50 rows carry that flag, so read its absence elsewhere as a gap in our data rather than as a finding about the other states.

Grounds are a separate question from support, and the two do not always line up. Our record has California offering no-fault grounds only, our own record rather than California's own law on divorce grounds, so on our record there is no fault ground to plead in the petition. Conduct is also absent from the support factor list, so for practical purposes who did what is not the argument that decides this case.

Support and the property split are one conversation

Our record has California as a community property state, so marital property would start from an even division rather than from a judge's assessment of what is fair. That is our own record rather than California's own property division law. Where it holds, it matters for support because it fixes one half of the settlement before the support conversation begins. A spouse leaving with an even share of income-producing assets needs less monthly support to reach the same standard of living, and the arithmetic of that trade is easier to run here than in a state where the property share is itself uncertain. Real outcomes in a formula state are less spread out than under open discretion, so a planning band means more here than it does elsewhere. That is a fact about the state rather than about this figure. Unless the panel above says otherwise, the estimate is the same national approximation every state on this site gets. A judge can depart from the statutory result anyway, and most support terms are settled by agreement rather than decided at a hearing.

One practical cost sits underneath that trade. Where the asset being swapped for support is a retirement account, dividing it takes a qualified domestic relations order, which runs $750 to $3,000 in California on top of whatever else the case costs. Worth pricing in before you agree to take retirement money instead of monthly support, along with the fact that the two are taxed very differently when you eventually draw on them.

California spousal support examples

These three examples run through the same California calculator on this page, so the figures match what the tool returns for the same entries. Each is a different shape of case rather than a small variation on the one before, because the two things that move support most, the income gap and the length of the marriage, tend to move together in real households.

Read the range, not the middle figure. We draw the band comparatively narrow here, because a formula leaves less room between the high and low outcomes than open discretion does. The width is our judgement about that spread rather than anything the state publishes. In the second example below, the top of the band is about 1.3 times the typical figure.

Set the first and third examples side by side and the scale of what marriage length does becomes clear. The estimate moves from around $764 a month running 0.8 to 2 years to around $5,425 a month running 4.8 to 12 years. Part of that is the wider income gap. Most of it is the twenty extra years.

How long spousal support lasts in California

Duration is the question people ask second and worry about first, and it is decided differently from amount. Amount answers what the lower earner needs and what the higher earner can pay. Duration answers a narrower question: how long it should reasonably take the lower earner to get where they can stand on their own, and whether that is realistically possible at all.

The table below runs one couple through the California estimate at seven marriage lengths. Incomes are held at $110,000 and $40,000 a year with no children and no health limits, so the only thing changing between rows is how long the marriage lasted.

Two things are worth reading off that table. The first is that a five-year marriage and a twenty-year marriage are not the same case with a different number attached: at five years the estimate runs 1 to 2.5 years and support is only possible, while at twenty years it runs 4 to 10 years and is very likely. The second is that the ranges stay wide at every length, because duration is where courts exercise the most judgment and where settlements do the most trading.

Support also ends on events, not only on dates. Across states the usual terminating events are the death of either spouse, the recipient remarrying, and in many places the recipient living with a new partner in a marriage-like arrangement. Retirement in good faith at a normal age is the other common ground for cutting support off or reducing it. Whether California treats each of those the same way is a question for a licensed attorney there, and it is worth asking before you sign an agreement rather than after.

Support while the California case is still running

California carries a statutory waiting period of 6 months before a divorce can be finalized, and a contested case here runs about 1.5 years on average against 7 months when both spouses agree. States start that clock in different places, some at filing, some at service, and some at the date the two of you separated, so check where yours begins. You also need 6 months of residency in California before you can file at all. That stretch of time is the reason temporary support exists. A court can order support early in the case, well before anything final is decided, so the lower-earning spouse is not left covering a separate household on one income for about 1.5 years while the rest gets sorted out. If money is tight now, asking for a temporary order is almost always faster than waiting for the judgment, and the months spent waiting are rarely made up afterwards.

Recent California alimony legislation

Where that legislation sets a durational limit, the limit controls and our estimate does not model it. Read the duration column above as our general model, then check it against the rule in the source linked here.

The kinds of spousal support a court can order

Support is not one thing. States use different names for the categories below and not every state recognizes all of them, but the underlying purposes are consistent, and knowing which one is being discussed tells you what the argument is really about.

Temporary support, while the case is open

Ordered after filing and before judgment, purely to keep two households running while the case is decided. In California that window matters more than people expect: a contested case averages about 1.5 years, so this is often the largest block of support anyone actually receives. It ends when the final judgment lands, and it does not commit the court to continuing at the same figure.

Rehabilitative support

Time-limited support tied to a plan: finishing a degree, renewing a license, completing a training program, or re-entering a field after years away. It is the most common outcome for short and mid-length marriages. Because it is tied to a plan, the strongest version of this request comes with the actual program, its length, and its cost rather than a general statement about needing time.

Durational or term support

A set number of years, usually pegged to the length of the marriage, without needing to be tied to a specific rehabilitation plan. This is the category most reform legislation over the past decade has been about, generally replacing open-ended awards with a term the statute caps.

Indefinite or permanent support

Support with no end date written into it, reserved for long marriages where the age, health, or work history of the lower earner means self-sufficiency is not a realistic outcome. Indefinite does not mean unchangeable: it stays modifiable on a substantial change in circumstances, and it generally ends on the usual terminating events.

Data pending verification. Our California record does not list which of these categories California recognizes by name or what it calls them, so the descriptions above are the general framework rather than a California list. We would rather say that than name four California categories we have not checked.

How spousal support is taxed

This changed in a way that still catches people out. Under the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, for any divorce or separation agreement executed after December 31, 2018, alimony is not deductible by the spouse paying it and is not taxable income to the spouse receiving it. The federal rule is the same in California as everywhere else, because it is federal.

Two consequences follow, and both are worth understanding before you negotiate. Support is now paid out of after-tax dollars, so a given monthly figure costs the payer considerably more than the same figure did before 2019. And the older advice that a large award could be made cheaper by the deduction no longer applies at all. Agreements executed on or before December 31, 2018 generally keep the old treatment, though modifying one can bring it under the current rule if the modification says so.

State income tax is a separate question from the federal one, and it is not something this page models. Check the federal treatment against the IRS guidance below, and check the California treatment with a CPA or a licensed family law attorney in the state.

• IRS Topic No. 452, alimony and separate maintenance, the federal rule on deductibility and taxability.

What it costs to argue about support in California

Support is the issue most likely to turn a divorce contested, and it is also the one where the arithmetic of fighting is easiest to get wrong. Below are the California figures set against what is actually in dispute.

Attorney rate

$300 to $650/hr

Mediation session

$350

Uncontested case

$2,500 to $7,000

Contested case

$17,000 to $75,000

Put those next to the second worked example above, where the estimate came to $1,875 a month, or $22,500 a year. A contested case in California runs $17,000 to $75,000, which is the equivalent of roughly 9 to 40 months of that support. Ten billable hours on each side, which a single contested motion can consume, costs $3,000 to $6,500 per side at California rates. Two mediation sessions cost $700 shared between you.

The sharper way to read those figures is as a difference rather than a total. An uncontested California divorce runs $2,500 to $7,000 and takes 7 months. Contesting it adds $14,500 to $68,000, or roughly 8 to 36 months of the support in that example, and stretches the case to about 1.5 years. That difference is the actual price of the argument, and it is the number to hold against whatever separates your position from your spouse's.

None of that means give up a position worth holding. Where the gap between the two sides is large, where one spouse's income is hard to pin down, or where the marriage was long enough that duration is the real question, representation earns its cost several times over. But where the two positions sit a few hundred dollars a month apart, the arithmetic usually says settle: the fight can cost more than the difference it is about. Our record has California requiring mediation before a contested hearing in any case, so on that record you will be in the room regardless. Going in with your figures already worked out is what makes that session useful rather than a formality. That is our own record rather than California's own court rules. Our record carries collaborative divorce as available in all fifty states, so it says nothing specific about California; whether trained collaborative attorneys practise near you is a local question. Where it is on offer, both sides commit in writing to settle without litigation and share one financial expert instead of hiring two.

California spousal support authority

Data pending verification. We have not yet verified the specific statute that carries California's spousal support rules, so we are not naming one here. Citing a section number we have not checked would be worse than citing none. The starting points below are California's own courts and the institutional sources, and a licensed family law attorney in the state can give you the controlling section.

One thing to be straight about, because it is not visible from the page. This page states California's temporary support guideline as our copy states it, 40 percent of the higher earner's net disposable income less 50 percent of the lower earner's, and the fourteen statutory factors it names for post-judgment support. None of that has been read out of California's own law: it came into our copy at the original build and no California document has been opened behind it since. It may well be right, and we are not going to present it to you as California law while nobody here has read a California document saying so. If the exact figure matters to your situation, what would settle it is Cal. Fam. Code § 4320 for the post-judgment factors, and the local guideline rule the temporary calculation is published under, and a California family law attorney can read it against your facts.

Where to check this yourself

• California courts, the state judiciary site from our California source record.
• American Bar Association, Section of Family Law, which publishes state-by-state family law comparisons.
• IRS Topic No. 452, alimony and separate maintenance, for the federal tax treatment described above.

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 for California

• 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

California courts and statutes

• courts.ca.gov
• Cal. Fam. Code § 4055
• Cal. Fam. Code § 4057
• Cal. Fam. Code § 4058
• Cal. Fam. Code § 4059
• Cal. Lab. Code § 1182.12
• SB 343, Stats. 2023, Ch. 213
• leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
• leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
• dir.ca.gov

Where to read more

Background reading, not where the figures above came from. No number on this page is taken from any of these.

• American Bar Association, Section of Family Law
• IRS Topic No. 452, alimony and separate maintenance
• U.S. Census Bureau, marriage and divorce statistics

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.