Louisiana Alimony Calculator
Estimate spousal support in Louisiana, where judicial discretion decides the award. Includes likelihood, a modeled amount range, duration, and the statutory factors that decide what a court awards.
Last updated: Louisiana cost figures are our own estimates, not independently verified
Louisiana divorces typically cost 44% less than the national average of $12,900.
Alimony in Louisiana
- How Louisiana decides it
- Judicial discretion
- What our estimate is
- Modeled national approximation
- Fault considered
- Yes
- Domestic violence factor, in our record
- No
- Equal parenting presumption, in our record
- No
- Waiting period before final
- 180 days (about 6 months)
Modeled estimate, held inside the state's own limits. The arithmetic that produced this figure is ours rather than Louisiana's. It is a national approximation that runs the same way in every state: between 22 and 38 percent of the difference between the two incomes depending on the standard of living during the marriage, scaled by a factor for the length of the marriage. No Louisiana rule is inside that calculation. What Louisiana's own law does here is bound the result. We have read La. Civ. Code art. 112(D), and where a limit in it reaches a case like yours it is applied to the figures above, so those figures are held inside the state's own ceiling rather than only inside our model.
Alimony Calculator in Louisiana: What You Should Know
Louisiana decides final periodic support at the court's discretion, inside two rules that La. Civ. Code art. 112 states in its own words and that have now been read from the Legislature's own host. The first is a condition: final periodic support is available to a spouse who has not been at fault prior to the filing of a petition for divorce and is in need of support. Read the timing slowly, because it is not the test most summaries give: the article asks about fault before the petition was filed rather than about fault that caused the marriage to break down. Our reading of that is a bar rather than a penalty on the amount, since art. 112 is the article the award comes from and a spouse who fails its condition is outside the paragraph that authorises one. What the article does not settle on its face, and we are not going to settle it for you, is how its own presumption of entitlement in domestic abuse cases sits against that condition. The second is a ceiling, at one-third of the paying spouse's net income, and it is the first alimony ceiling this site holds a figure down to. Two things about how we apply it. This page collects gross income and the article measures net, so the ceiling worked out below is a generous version of Louisiana's rather than Louisiana's, which is exactly why we are willing to bring an estimate down to it and never up to it. And art. 112 lifts the ceiling in cases this page cannot ask about, including where a court determines that a party or a child was the victim of domestic abuse committed by the other party during the marriage, so the limit panel states that escape beside the number. What none of this reaches is support ordered while the case is still running, which the Civil Code puts in a different article that nobody here has opened, and no reading has been recorded since this was first written on 2026-08-04 for it. For a spouse who meets the fault condition, the court weighs need against the other spouse's ability to pay, along with the length of the marriage, the standard of living, earning capacity, and each spouse's financial resources.
Key point: Louisiana caps final periodic support at one-third of the paying spouse's net income under art. 112(D), and this is the one state where the estimate on this page is held down to a ceiling rather than only measured against one. The ceiling is worked on the gross income you enter, which makes it generous, and the article lifts it entirely in cases this page has no way to ask about.
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Locked to Louisiana on this page.
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.
How Louisiana awards spousal support
Our Louisiana record classifies it as a discretionary state, which means there is no arithmetic in the statute, so the court weighs a list of factors and sets an amount it considers fair on the facts in front of it. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Modeled estimate, held inside the state's own limits
The arithmetic that produced this figure is ours rather than Louisiana's. It is a national approximation that runs the same way in every state: between 22 and 38 percent of the difference between the two incomes depending on the standard of living during the marriage, scaled by a factor for the length of the marriage. No Louisiana rule is inside that calculation. What Louisiana's own law does here is bound the result. We have read La. Civ. Code art. 112(D), and where a limit in it reaches a case like yours it is applied to the figures above, so those figures are held inside the state's own ceiling rather than only inside our model.
A discretionary state does not tell the judge what to calculate. It tells the judge what to consider. The statute lists factors, the court weighs them against the evidence each side puts up, and the number that comes out is the number that fits those facts in that courtroom. Nothing in the process converts the factors into an equation.
That has a consequence worth being honest about: two families with identical finances can walk out with materially different orders, and neither result is wrong. The variation is not a flaw in the system, it is the system. Judges are given latitude precisely because the legislature decided that support is too fact-dependent to reduce to arithmetic.
What that means practically is that evidence matters more here than a calculator does. The spouse who can document the marital standard of living, a career interrupted for the household, or a genuine limit on future earning capacity is arguing on the ground the statute actually points the judge toward. Support is also settled by agreement far more often than it is decided at a hearing, so the realistic question is usually what the other side will accept rather than what a judge would impose.
What Louisianacourts weigh, in our data's order
These are the 5 factors our Louisiana 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.
- Length 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.
- Standard 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.
- Earning 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.
- Marital faultConduct during the marriage is part of the analysis in this state, so who did what can move the amount or the term. How far it goes varies enormously: in most states weighing it is all a court does, and in a few our own pages say it can rule out an award altogether, which is set out separately on this page for the states where that is what our copy says. Fault also raises the cost of the case, because proving conduct means discovery and testimony a no-fault case never has to pay for. None of it is inside our estimate.
- Financial resources and assets of each spouseSupport and property division are decided together, not in separate silos. A spouse who leaves with income-producing assets needs less monthly support to reach the same place, which is why trading a larger share of the estate against a smaller support award is one of the most common settlement structures there is.
Does conduct matter in Louisiana?
Yes. Marital fault appears in the Louisiana factor list, so what each spouse did during the marriage is part of what the court is entitled to weigh. That cuts both ways: misconduct by the higher earner can push an award up, and misconduct by the spouse asking for support can push it down or remove it. It also changes the economics of the case, because proving conduct means discovery, witnesses, and hearing time that a case argued purely on the numbers never has to pay for. Weigh what the allegation is realistically worth against what it costs to prove.
Grounds are a separate question from support, and the two do not always line up. Our record has Louisiana letting you file on fault grounds as well as no-fault grounds, our own record rather than Louisiana's own law on divorce grounds, so conduct could enter the case through the petition itself. Here it can reach the support question too, which is the combination where an allegation is most likely to be worth making.
Support and the property split are one conversation
Our record has Louisiana 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 Louisiana'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. Treat this as a planning band, not a prediction. Because the statute supplies no formula, no calculator can tell you what a particular judge will order. What the estimate is good for is telling you roughly what range the conversation starts in, and which facts move it.
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 $500 to $1,500 in Louisiana 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.
Louisiana spousal support examples
These three examples run through the same Louisiana 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 deliberately wide here. Open discretion produces a wider spread of real outcomes than a formula does, and a narrow band would misrepresent how much room the court actually has. 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 1.7 times the typical figure.
Example 1: Four-year marriage, modest standard of living
A short marriage with a real but moderate income gap and no caregiving history. This is the case where support is most often brief or refused outright.
- Higher earner
- $85,000/yr
- Lower earner
- $38,000/yr
- Marriage length
- 4 years
- Likelihood
- Possible
Estimated range: $280 to $980 a month, typically around $560 ($6,720 a year), running 0.5 to 2.7 years.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Short marriage (under 5 years) | Pushes down |
Short marriages in Louisiana may result in limited rehabilitative alimony. Our record shows no statutory formula for Louisiana, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Louisiana publishes.
- Louisiana judges have broad discretion in setting alimony. This estimate reflects typical outcomes, but individual results vary significantly based on the specific judge and circumstances.
- The two employment statuses you entered have not changed the estimate above. You had to answer to get here, and whichever answer you picked the figure is the same: we calculate on the income figures you entered and impute nothing to either parent. Courts can impute. Where a judge finds a parent voluntarily unemployed or under-employed, a court may set support on what that parent could earn rather than on what they currently bring in, and an imputed figure is set at or above actual earnings rather than below them. Which way that would move your case depends on whose income gets imputed, and that is the part we cannot answer for you: if it is the paying party's, the figure above tends to sit below what a court would order, and if it is the receiving party's it can move in either direction depending on the state and on the two incomes, so we do not put a direction on it. We have read the imputation provision in Illinois and in no other state, Louisiana included, so nothing on this page is adjusted for one.
- Whether the paying spouse has business income has not changed the estimate above. We ask because it shapes the case rather than the arithmetic: business income is the single most argued-about number in a support case, because what a business pays its owner and what a court treats as that owner's income are frequently different figures, and establishing the second usually takes disclosure or a forensic accountant. Nothing in the figures on this page is adjusted for your answer, so do not read the estimate as having priced it in.
Example 2: Twelve-year marriage, one spouse the primary caregiver
The most common shape of a contested support case: long enough that a career was reshaped around the household, not long enough to reach the territory where indefinite support gets argued.
- Higher earner
- $120,000/yr
- Lower earner
- $45,000/yr
- Marriage length
- 12 years
- Likelihood
- Likely
Estimated range: $844 to $2,953 a month, typically around $1,688 ($20,256 a year), running 1.6 to 8 years.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Primary caregiver for children | Pushes up |
Medium-length marriages with a significant income gap frequently result in temporary alimony in Louisiana. Our record shows no statutory formula for Louisiana, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Louisiana publishes.
- Louisiana judges have broad discretion in setting alimony. This estimate reflects typical outcomes, but individual results vary significantly based on the specific judge and circumstances.
- The two employment statuses you entered have not changed the estimate above. You had to answer to get here, and whichever answer you picked the figure is the same: we calculate on the income figures you entered and impute nothing to either parent. Courts can impute. Where a judge finds a parent voluntarily unemployed or under-employed, a court may set support on what that parent could earn rather than on what they currently bring in, and an imputed figure is set at or above actual earnings rather than below them. Which way that would move your case depends on whose income gets imputed, and that is the part we cannot answer for you: if it is the paying party's, the figure above tends to sit below what a court would order, and if it is the receiving party's it can move in either direction depending on the state and on the two incomes, so we do not put a direction on it. We have read the imputation provision in Illinois and in no other state, Louisiana included, so nothing on this page is adjusted for one.
- Whether the paying spouse has business income has not changed the estimate above. We ask because it shapes the case rather than the arithmetic: business income is the single most argued-about number in a support case, because what a business pays its owner and what a court treats as that owner's income are frequently different figures, and establishing the second usually takes disclosure or a forensic accountant. Nothing in the figures on this page is adjusted for your answer, so do not read the estimate as having priced it in.
Example 3: Twenty-four-year marriage, high standard of living, health limits
A long marriage, a wide income gap, and a documented health issue limiting the recipient's return to work. This is the combination that produces the largest and longest awards.
- Higher earner
- $185,000/yr
- Lower earner
- $30,000/yr
- Marriage length
- 24 years
- Likelihood
- Very likely
Estimated range: $2,893 to $5,139 a month, typically around $5,139 ($61,668 a year), running 3.2 to 16 years.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Age or health limitations | Pushes up |
Long marriages with an income gap often result in extended or permanent alimony in Louisiana. Our record shows no statutory formula for Louisiana, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Louisiana publishes.
- Louisiana judges have broad discretion in setting alimony. This estimate reflects typical outcomes, but individual results vary significantly based on the specific judge and circumstances.
- Long marriages (20+ years) often result in indefinite alimony in Louisiana.
- The two employment statuses you entered have not changed the estimate above. You had to answer to get here, and whichever answer you picked the figure is the same: we calculate on the income figures you entered and impute nothing to either parent. Courts can impute. Where a judge finds a parent voluntarily unemployed or under-employed, a court may set support on what that parent could earn rather than on what they currently bring in, and an imputed figure is set at or above actual earnings rather than below them. Which way that would move your case depends on whose income gets imputed, and that is the part we cannot answer for you: if it is the paying party's, the figure above tends to sit below what a court would order, and if it is the receiving party's it can move in either direction depending on the state and on the two incomes, so we do not put a direction on it. We have read the imputation provision in Illinois and in no other state, Louisiana included, so nothing on this page is adjusted for one.
- Whether the paying spouse has business income has not changed the estimate above. We ask because it shapes the case rather than the arithmetic: business income is the single most argued-about number in a support case, because what a business pays its owner and what a court treats as that owner's income are frequently different figures, and establishing the second usually takes disclosure or a forensic accountant. Nothing in the figures on this page is adjusted for your answer, so do not read the estimate as having priced it in.
Set the first and third examples side by side and the scale of what marriage length does becomes clear. The estimate moves from around $560 a month running 0.5 to 2.7 years to around $5,139 a month running 3.2 to 16 years. Part of that is the wider income gap. Most of it is the twenty extra years.
The three examples above all assume no fault is alleged, so none of them raises the rule below. It is here because Louisiana is one of the few states where marital fault can end a support claim rather than only move the amount, and because the calculator at the top of this page will apply it to your own answer.
What can rule out support in Louisiana
Louisiana is one of the few states where marital fault can end a support claim rather than only move the amount, so it is worth knowing the rule is there even though nothing you entered raises it. We looked at your answer that no fault is alleged. The rule itself, and how far our records go behind it, is set out below.
Before any amount: freedom from fault before the petition is filed is a condition of final periodic support
What we could measure: your answer that no fault is alleged.
Not raised by anything you entered
Stated as a bar
Louisiana is the state where the two axes meet, and art. 112 carries both: paragraph (D) caps final periodic support at a third of the paying spouse's net income, which is in the limits panel above, and paragraph (A) makes freedom from fault a condition of the award. The article has now been read from the Legislature's own host rather than taken from our summary, and it is narrower than our summary was in two ways worth knowing. The condition is about fault BEFORE THE PETITION IS FILED rather than about fault that caused the marriage to break down, which is not the same test. And it is a condition on final periodic support specifically, so it does not by its terms reach support ordered while the case is running, which Louisiana puts in a different article nobody here has opened. One thing the article leaves open, and we are not going to resolve it for you: paragraph (C) presumes entitlement to final periodic support in a set of cases, including where a court determines that a party or a child was the victim of domestic abuse committed by the other party during the marriage, and whether that presumption answers the fault condition is a question for a Louisiana court rather than for this page. None of this has been turned into arithmetic. You told us fault is alleged, an allegation is not the finding this article runs on, and the figure above is what our calculation produces if the condition is met. What has moved is the rating, because a rule that can end the claim outright cannot sit under the words very likely.
Read from La. Civ. Code art. 112(A). Served as plain HTML by legis.la.gov on 2026-08-04and quoted below in the statute’s own words. Effective date: the article's own history line ends at Acts 2018, No. 265, § 1, which by itself names only the last amendment this publisher has incorporated. Two separate things date it, and they are recorded as two things. The Legislature's own currency statement, read on 2026-08-04, said the Constitution, Revised Statutes Titles 1 to 29, 31 to 56 and the Codes were "current through the 2025 Regular Session", with the Civil Code last updated on December 3, 2025; the same page read again on 2026-09-01 said laws have been updated through the 2025 First Extraordinary Session and offered a separate list updated through the 2026 Regular Legislative Session, so what the codification is current through sits in the range between those two readings rather than at one point. And the Legislature also publishes a Citator Index to Acts, session by session, naming the Civil Code articles each session changed, and that is an index over the ACTS rather than a line the article page prints about itself. 22 sittings of it were read on 2026-09-01, from the 2019 Regular Session through the 2026 Regular Session, which adjourned on June 1, 2026, and neither article 111 nor article 112 appears in any of them. Because that index covers what each session enacted rather than what the publisher has incorporated, it reaches the 2026 Regular Session even if the edition read here is a session behind, which is our inference from two sources rather than a statement either one makes. Three limits sit on it and none of them is a formality. The conclusion that no act touched the article is ours, drawn from those lists, and not something the Legislature states. The index lists what a completed session enacted, so it could lag a very recent chaptering and a session still sitting would not appear in it at all, which means nothing here reaches anything after the 2026 Regular Session adjourned on June 1, 2026. And the sittings read are the ones that research session named rather than an inventory checked against the Legislature's own, so a sitting nobody listed is a sitting nobody looked at.
“When a spouse has not been at fault prior to the filing of a petition for divorce and is in need of support, based on the needs of that party and the ability of the other party to pay, that spouse may be awarded final periodic support in accordance with Paragraph B of this Article.”
The ceilings below are worked out on the second example above: a twelve-year marriage, $120,000 and $45,000 a year. Enter your own figures in the calculator at the top of this page and it runs the same limits against them.
What Louisiana law limits
Louisiana's law limits what a court can order here, and our estimate already sits inside that limit. We show it anyway, because an estimate that happens to land under a ceiling is not the same as one that was built to respect it.
Amount: one third of the paying spouse's net income
$3,333 a month
Worked out as a third of $10,000 a month, which is the GROSS income you entered rather than the net income the article measures against.
Our estimate sits inside this
Louisiana caps final periodic support at a third of the paying spouse's net income, and art. 112(D) has now been read from the Legislature's own host rather than taken from our summary of it. The figures above are held to it. Three things about that are worth knowing before you plan around the number. The ceiling here is worked on the GROSS income you entered, because that is what this page collects, and a third of gross is more than a third of net, so it is a generous version of Louisiana's limit rather than the limit itself. The article carries an express escape, set out below, in cases this page has no way to ask about. And the cap is on final periodic support, which is the award after the divorce: what a court may order while the case is running is a different article of the Civil Code that nobody here has opened, so nothing on this page speaks to it. Article 112 also contains a presumption of entitlement in certain cases, and that is a rule about whether support is awarded rather than about how much, so it changes no figure here.
One caveat on the figure above: the article measures a third of the paying spouse's NET income and this calculator collects gross, so the ceiling worked out here is higher than the one a Louisiana court would apply. It is an upper bound on the limit rather than the limit, which is why we are willing to hold the figure down to it: bringing your estimate to a generous ceiling can only move it toward what Louisiana allows. Your own ceiling will be lower once taxes and deductions come out.
Where the limit does not apply: art. 112(D) does not stop there. Where support is awarded after a judgment of divorce rendered pursuant to Article 103(4) or (5), or where the court determines that a party or a child of one of the spouses was the victim of domestic abuse committed by the other party during the marriage, the article says the sum awarded may exceed one-third of the obligor's net income and may be awarded as a lump sum. This page asks nothing that establishes either, so the ceiling below is the general rule and is not your case if one of those applies.
Read from the statute. La. Civ. Code art. 112(D), served by legis.la.gov and retrieved 2026-08-04. the article's own history line ends at Acts 2018, No. 265, § 1, which by itself names only the last amendment this publisher has incorporated. Two separate things date it, and they are recorded as two things. The Legislature's own currency statement, read on 2026-08-04, said the Constitution, Revised Statutes Titles 1 to 29, 31 to 56 and the Codes were "current through the 2025 Regular Session", with the Civil Code last updated on December 3, 2025; the same page read again on 2026-09-01 said laws have been updated through the 2025 First Extraordinary Session and offered a separate list updated through the 2026 Regular Legislative Session, so what the codification is current through sits in the range between those two readings rather than at one point. And the Legislature also publishes a Citator Index to Acts, session by session, naming the Civil Code articles each session changed, and that is an index over the ACTS rather than a line the article page prints about itself. 22 sittings of it were read on 2026-09-01, from the 2019 Regular Session through the 2026 Regular Session, which adjourned on June 1, 2026, and neither article 111 nor article 112 appears in any of them. Because that index covers what each session enacted rather than what the publisher has incorporated, it reaches the 2026 Regular Session even if the edition read here is a session behind, which is our inference from two sources rather than a statement either one makes. Three limits sit on it and none of them is a formality. The conclusion that no act touched the article is ours, drawn from those lists, and not something the Legislature states. The index lists what a completed session enacted, so it could lag a very recent chaptering and a session still sitting would not appear in it at all, which means nothing here reaches anything after the 2026 Regular Session adjourned on June 1, 2026. And the sittings read are the ones that research session named rather than an inventory checked against the Legislature's own, so a sitting nobody listed is a sitting nobody looked at.
“The sum awarded under this Article shall not exceed one-third of the obligor's net income. Nevertheless, when support is awarded after a judgment of divorce is rendered pursuant to Article 103(4) or (5), or when the court determines that a party or a child of one of the spouses was the victim of domestic abuse committed by the other party during the marriage, the sum awarded may exceed one-third of the obligor's net income and may be awarded as a lump sum.”
How long spousal support lasts in Louisiana
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 Louisiana 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.
| Marriage length | Band | Typical monthly | Estimated duration | Likelihood |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 years | Very short marriage | $630 | 0.3 to 1.3 years | Unlikely |
| 5 years | Short marriage | $1,024 | 0.7 to 3.3 years | Possible |
| 10 years | Mid-length marriage | $1,339 | 1.3 to 6.7 years | Likely |
| 15 years | Long marriage | $1,575 | 2 to 10 years | Very likely |
| 20 years | Long marriage, common statutory threshold | $1,890 | 2.7 to 13.3 years | Very likely |
| 25 years | Very long marriage | $2,205 | 3.3 to 16.7 years | Very likely |
| 30 years | Very long marriage, retirement in view | $2,520 | 4 to 20 years | Very likely |
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 0.7 to 3.3 years and support is only possible, while at twenty years it runs 2.7 to 13.3 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 Louisiana 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 Louisiana case is still running
Louisiana carries a statutory waiting period of 6 months before a divorce can be finalized, and a contested case here runs about 1.2 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. Louisiana sets no minimum residency before filing. 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 1.2 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.
Data pending verification. Some states cap support duration by statute at a set share of the length of the marriage. We have not verified whether Louisiana does, so the duration column above is our general model rather than a Louisiana rule, and we are not stating a durational formula we have not checked. Confirm it against the Louisiana sources below or with a licensed family law attorney in the state.
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 Louisiana that window matters more than people expect: a contested case averages about 1.2 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 Louisiana record does not list which of these categories Louisiana recognizes by name or what it calls them, so the descriptions above are the general framework rather than a Louisiana list. We would rather say that than name four Louisiana 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 Louisiana 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 Louisiana 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 Louisiana
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 Louisiana figures set against what is actually in dispute.
- Attorney rate
- $200 to $400/hr
- Mediation session
- $225
- Uncontested case
- $1,500 to $4,500
- Contested case
- $10,000 to $35,000
Put those next to the second worked example above, where the estimate came to $1,688 a month, or $20,256 a year. A contested case in Louisiana runs $10,000 to $35,000, which is the equivalent of roughly 6 to 21 months of that support. Ten billable hours on each side, which a single contested motion can consume, costs $2,000 to $4,000 per side at Louisiana rates. Two mediation sessions cost $450 shared between you.
The sharper way to read those figures is as a difference rather than a total. An uncontested Louisiana divorce runs $1,500 to $4,500 and takes 7 months. Contesting it adds $8,500 to $30,500, or roughly 5 to 18 months of the support in that example, and stretches the case to about 1.2 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 does not have Louisiana requiring mediation before a contested hearing, but at $225 a session against a contested case starting at $10,000, it is usually the cheapest serious attempt at a resolution available. That is our own record rather than Louisiana's own court rules. Our record carries collaborative divorce as available in all fifty states, so it says nothing specific about Louisiana; 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.
Louisiana spousal support authority
Data pending verification. We have not yet verified the specific statute that carries Louisiana'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 Louisiana's own courts and the institutional sources, and a licensed family law attorney in the state can give you the controlling section.
Where to check this yourself
- Louisiana courts, the state judiciary site from our Louisiana 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.
Alimony in Louisiana - Frequently Asked Questions
Does Louisiana have an alimony formula?
Not in our records. Louisiana is one of the forty-two states our data classifies as leaving the amount to the judge rather than putting a calculation in the statute, and that classification came into our data at the original build. What has been opened since is La. Civ. Code art. 112(D), and that provision bounds the amount rather than setting out a calculation, so reading it did not confirm the classification either way. On our record, judges are given a list of factors to weigh and set the amount they consider fair on the facts of the case, which is how the large majority of states are understood to handle spousal support. Two couples with similar finances can end up with meaningfully different orders in Louisiana, so treat any calculator result, including ours, as a planning band rather than a prediction.
How is spousal support calculated in Louisiana?
On our record there is no formula to apply. The part of Louisiana's own law that has been opened is La. Civ. Code art. 112(D), and that provision bounds the amount rather than setting out a calculation, so the absence of a formula is still our record's claim rather than something we read. What it says is that a Louisiana judge weighs the statutory factors, which in our Louisiana record are length of the marriage, standard of living during the marriage, earning capacity of each spouse, marital fault, and financial resources and assets of each spouse, and sets an amount that fits the case. Our estimate models the two factors courts weigh most heavily nearly everywhere, the income gap and the length of the marriage, then widens the range to reflect how much room the court actually has.
How long does alimony last in Louisiana?
Duration scales with the length of the marriage more than with anything else. Running the same couple through our Louisiana estimate at different marriage lengths, a 10-year marriage produces support of 1.3 to 6.7 years and a 20-year marriage produces 2.7 to 13.3 years. Short marriages under 5 years usually produce brief rehabilitative support or none at all. Long marriages are where indefinite support is still argued for, particularly when age, health, or years out of the workforce mean the lower earner cannot realistically become self-supporting. Support also ends on events rather than only on dates: the death of either spouse, the recipient remarrying, and in many states the recipient cohabiting with a new partner.
How much alimony is typical in Louisiana?
There is no single figure, because the answer depends on the gap between the two incomes and how long the marriage lasted. As a worked example, a 12-year Louisiana marriage where one spouse earns $120,000 a year, the other earns $45,000, and the lower earner was the primary caregiver produces an estimate of $844 to $2,953 a month, typically around $1,688, running 1.6 to 8 years. Our record shows no statutory formula for Louisiana, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Louisiana publishes. Run your own figures in the calculator on this page.
Can alimony be modified in Louisiana?
Yes. Either spouse can ask the court to modify alimony based on a substantial change in circumstances, such as a significant change in income, retirement, the recipient's remarriage or cohabitation, or a serious health change. Louisiana courts typically require the change to be material and not anticipated at the time of the original order.
Does fault affect alimony in Louisiana?
Yes. Louisiana considers marital fault as a factor in alimony decisions. Misconduct such as adultery, abandonment, or abuse may increase, reduce, or in some cases bar an alimony award.
Is alimony tax deductible in Louisiana?
For divorces finalized after December 31, 2018, alimony is no longer deductible by the payer or taxable to the recipient under the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This federal rule applies in Louisiana as it does in every state. Older orders entered before 2019 generally retain the prior tax treatment unless modified.
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 for Louisiana
- 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
Louisiana courts and statutes
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.