Wyoming Alimony Calculator
Estimate spousal support in Wyoming, 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: Wyoming cost figures are our own estimates, not independently verified
Wyoming divorces typically cost 57% less than the national average of $12,900.
Alimony in Wyoming
- How Wyoming decides it
- Judicial discretion
- What our estimate is
- Modeled national approximation
- Fault considered
- No
- Domestic violence factor, in our record
- No
- Equal parenting presumption, in our record
- No
- Waiting period before final
- 20 days (about 1 month)
Modeled estimate, not a state calculation. This figure is ours rather than Wyoming's. The arithmetic behind 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 Wyoming document was opened to produce it and no Wyoming rule is applied inside it. Read it as a planning band rather than a figure a court has committed to, because a Wyoming judge applying Wyoming's own law can land somewhere else.
Alimony Calculator in Wyoming: What You Should Know
Wyoming decides alimony at the court's discretion and tends to award it sparingly. There is no formula; a court weighs the length of the marriage, the standard of living during the marriage, each spouse's earning capacity, and the financial resources of both. Our copy attributes a preference to Wyoming courts, for resolving the financial side of a divorce through property division and ordering ongoing alimony mainly where one spouse cannot reasonably support themselves. That is the softest thing our copy says about any state's alimony law and it is worth taking as exactly that: a description of what courts are said to tend to do, not a threshold Wyoming applies, and nothing here has been read from a Wyoming instrument. It is worth knowing anyway, because if it holds then in Wyoming an income gap may produce a larger share of the estate rather than a monthly payment, and our estimate has no term for property in it anywhere. When alimony is ordered, it is often for a limited, rehabilitative period.
Key point: The preference for property division our copy attributes to Wyoming courts is a description of practice rather than a rule read from anything, and our estimate has no term for property in it. An income gap here may show up in the estate split rather than in a monthly figure.
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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 Wyoming awards spousal support
Our Wyoming 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, not a state calculation
This figure is ours rather than Wyoming's. The arithmetic behind 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 Wyoming document was opened to produce it and no Wyoming rule is applied inside it. Read it as a planning band rather than a figure a court has committed to, because a Wyoming judge applying Wyoming's own law can land somewhere else.
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 Wyomingcourts weigh, in our data's order
These are the 4 factors our Wyoming 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.
- 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 Wyoming?
No. Marital fault does not appear in the Wyoming 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.
Grounds are a separate question from support, and the two do not always line up. Our record has Wyoming letting you file on fault grounds as well as no-fault grounds, our own record rather than Wyoming's own law on divorce grounds, so conduct could enter the case through the petition itself. It does not follow that it reaches support: conduct is not in the support factor list here, so a fault filing can change the shape of the case without changing the number.
Support and the property split are one conversation
Our record has Wyoming dividing marital property by equitable distribution, which means the split starts near even and moves with the same kinds of factors that drive support: length of marriage, each spouse's earning capacity, and what each contributed. That is our own record rather than Wyoming's own property division law. Because the two questions run on overlapping facts, they are usually negotiated together. Trading a larger share of the estate for a smaller or shorter support award is one of the most common settlement structures there is, and it is often the one that gets a case resolved. 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 $400 to $1,200 in Wyoming 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.
Wyoming spousal support examples
These three examples run through the same Wyoming 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.
Wyoming is recorded here as awarding alimony sparingly and leaning on property division instead, which is a description of what its courts tend to do rather than a rule they apply. Our page states the gate as a strong practical preference for settling the finances through property instead, and against that we could measure nothing you entered. Our page states this as what Wyoming courts tend to do rather than as a condition they apply, and either way it turns on whether a spouse can reasonably support themselves, which we do not ask. The $560 a month above is what our calculation produces if eligibility is established, and not a statement that it would be.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Short marriage (under 5 years) | Pushes down |
Short marriages in Wyoming may result in limited rehabilitative alimony. Our record shows no statutory formula for Wyoming, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Wyoming publishes.
- Wyoming 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, Wyoming 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.
Wyoming is recorded here as awarding alimony sparingly and leaning on property division instead, which is a description of what its courts tend to do rather than a rule they apply. Our page states the gate as a strong practical preference for settling the finances through property instead, and against that we could measure nothing you entered. Our page states this as what Wyoming courts tend to do rather than as a condition they apply, and either way it turns on whether a spouse can reasonably support themselves, which we do not ask. The $1,688 a month above is what our calculation produces if eligibility is established, and not a statement that it would be.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Primary caregiver for children | Pushes up |
Medium-length marriages with a significant income gap frequently result in temporary alimony in Wyoming. Our record shows no statutory formula for Wyoming, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Wyoming publishes.
- Wyoming 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, Wyoming 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 $10,127 a month, typically around $5,787 ($69,444 a year), running 3.2 to 16 years.
Wyoming is recorded here as awarding alimony sparingly and leaning on property division instead, which is a description of what its courts tend to do rather than a rule they apply. Our page states the gate as a strong practical preference for settling the finances through property instead, and against that we could measure nothing you entered. Our page states this as what Wyoming courts tend to do rather than as a condition they apply, and either way it turns on whether a spouse can reasonably support themselves, which we do not ask. The $5,787 a month above is what our calculation produces if eligibility is established, and not a statement that it would be.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Age or health limitations | Pushes up |
Long marriages with an income gap often result in extended or permanent alimony in Wyoming. Our record shows no statutory formula for Wyoming, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Wyoming publishes.
- Wyoming 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 Wyoming.
- 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, Wyoming 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 $5,787 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 threshold below is worked out on the first example above: a four-year marriage, $85,000 and $38,000 a year. It is a question the calculator at the top of this page runs on your own entries, and it is decided before the amount is.
Whether Wyoming would order support at all
Wyoming is recorded here as awarding alimony sparingly and leaning on property division instead, which is a description of what its courts tend to do rather than a rule they apply. Our page states the gate as a strong practical preference for settling the finances through property instead, and against that we could measure nothing you entered. Our page states this as what Wyoming courts tend to do rather than as a condition they apply, and either way it turns on whether a spouse can reasonably support themselves, which we do not ask. The $560 a month above is what our calculation produces if eligibility is established, and not a statement that it would be.
Before any amount: a strong practical preference for settling the finances through property instead
What we could measure: nothing you entered. Our page states this as what Wyoming courts tend to do rather than as a condition they apply, and either way it turns on whether a spouse can reasonably support themselves, which we do not ask.
Our estimate does not test this
Our Wyoming page does not state this as a hard threshold, and the softness is why it is recorded here rather than left out. It says Wyoming orders ongoing alimony mainly where one spouse cannot reasonably support themselves, which is a statement about when support happens rather than a rule about when it may. We are keeping it as the weakest member of this set rather than promoting it into a threshold our own page does not claim. What it means for a reader is still worth saying plainly: Wyoming leans on property division to settle the finances, so an income gap that would produce support elsewhere may produce a larger share of the estate here instead, and our estimate has no term for property at all. What follows for the figure above is simple enough. It is what our calculation produces on the incomes and the marriage length you gave us, and our calculation has no term in it for the threshold, because the threshold turns on what each spouse owns and what each spouse could realistically earn. A Wyoming court reaching the conclusion that the spouse asking for support can meet their reasonable needs already ends the question before any of our arithmetic becomes relevant. Treat the number as conditional on clearing that first, and take the first question to a family law attorney licensed in Wyoming.
Not read from the statute. This is what our own Wyoming alimony page, in the paragraph above the calculator says, quoted exactly. No document behind it has been opened, which is why it frames the figure above rather than changing it.
“Our copy attributes a preference to Wyoming courts, for resolving the financial side of a divorce through property division and ordering ongoing alimony mainly where one spouse cannot reasonably support themselves.”
How long spousal support lasts in Wyoming
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 Wyoming 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 Wyoming 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 Wyoming case is still running
Wyoming carries a statutory waiting period of 20 days before a divorce can be finalized, and a contested case here runs 9 months on average against 2 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 2 months of residency in Wyoming 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 9 months 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 Wyoming does, so the duration column above is our general model rather than a Wyoming rule, and we are not stating a durational formula we have not checked. Confirm it against the Wyoming 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 Wyoming that window matters more than people expect: a contested case averages 9 months, 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 Wyoming record does not list which of these categories Wyoming recognizes by name or what it calls them, so the descriptions above are the general framework rather than a Wyoming list. We would rather say that than name four Wyoming 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 Wyoming 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 Wyoming 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 Wyoming
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 Wyoming figures set against what is actually in dispute.
- Attorney rate
- $175 to $325/hr
- Mediation session
- $200
- Uncontested case
- $1,000 to $3,000
- Contested case
- $8,000 to $25,000
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 Wyoming runs $8,000 to $25,000, which is the equivalent of roughly 5 to 15 months of that support. Ten billable hours on each side, which a single contested motion can consume, costs $1,750 to $3,250 per side at Wyoming rates. Two mediation sessions cost $400 shared between you.
The sharper way to read those figures is as a difference rather than a total. An uncontested Wyoming divorce runs $1,000 to $3,000 and takes 2 months. Contesting it adds $7,000 to $22,000, or roughly 4 to 13 months of the support in that example, and stretches the case to 9 months. 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 Wyoming requiring mediation before a contested hearing, but at $200 a session against a contested case starting at $8,000, it is usually the cheapest serious attempt at a resolution available. That is our own record rather than Wyoming's own court rules. Our record carries collaborative divorce as available in all fifty states, so it says nothing specific about Wyoming; 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.
Wyoming spousal support authority
Data pending verification. We have not yet verified the specific statute that carries Wyoming'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 Wyoming'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 the preference our copy attributes to Wyoming courts for resolving the financial side of a divorce through property division, and for ordering ongoing alimony mainly where one spouse cannot reasonably support themselves. None of that has been read out of Wyoming's own law: it came into our copy at the original build and no Wyoming document has been opened behind it since. It may well be right, and we are not going to present it to you as Wyoming law while nobody here has read a Wyoming document saying so. If the exact figure matters to your situation, what would settle it is the Wyoming statute governing alimony, and the Wyoming case law on the relationship between property division and support, since a practice this soft is more likely to live in the decisions than in the code, and a Wyoming family law attorney can read it against your facts.
Where to check this yourself
- Wyoming courts, the state judiciary site from our Wyoming 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 Wyoming - Frequently Asked Questions
Does Wyoming have an alimony formula?
Not in our records. Wyoming 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. Nobody here has opened the Wyoming statute to confirm there is no formula in it. 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 Wyoming, so treat any calculator result, including ours, as a planning band rather than a prediction.
How is spousal support calculated in Wyoming?
On our record there is no formula to apply. The record is the claim: nobody here has opened the Wyoming statute to check. What it says is that a Wyoming judge weighs the statutory factors, which in our Wyoming record are length of the marriage, standard of living during the marriage, earning capacity of each spouse, 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 Wyoming?
Duration scales with the length of the marriage more than with anything else. Running the same couple through our Wyoming 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 Wyoming?
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 Wyoming 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 Wyoming, so outcomes vary significantly between judges and cases. The figure above is our own approximation rather than anything Wyoming publishes. Run your own figures in the calculator on this page.
Can alimony be modified in Wyoming?
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. Wyoming courts typically require the change to be material and not anticipated at the time of the original order.
Does fault affect alimony in Wyoming?
No. Wyoming does not weigh marital fault in setting alimony. Courts focus on financial need, ability to pay, and the other statutory factors rather than blame for the divorce.
Is alimony tax deductible in Wyoming?
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 Wyoming 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 Wyoming
- 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
Wyoming 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.