How Is Alimony Calculated in 2026? Formulas, Guidelines and the Unofficial Benchmarks

Alimony — also called spousal support or maintenance — is where divorcing spouses most want a formula and least often find one. A handful of states calculate it by statute or guideline; most hand the decision to a judge weighing legal factors. This guide explains each approach with real numbers. Run your own figures in the free alimony calculator.

How is alimony calculated in the United States?

There is no national alimony formula. Most states give judges a list of factors — need, ability to pay, marriage length, earning capacity, the marital standard of living — and no percentage at all. Only a minority of states set amounts by formula or guideline, and eligibility is always decided before any amount.

That split is why online alimony estimates vary so wildly. A calculator that quietly applies one percentage everywhere is inventing law for most of the country. The honest approach — the one our calculator takes — is to run the real formula in the states that have one, show the official guideline steps in Arizona, and label everything else as the unofficial benchmark it is.

How is alimony calculated in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts uses a statutory range. Under the Alimony Reform Act, general term alimony generally may not exceed the recipient’s need or 30 to 35 percent of the difference between the two spouses’ gross incomes. A court compares the percentage range with actual need and can award less, or deviate with written findings.

Take a paying spouse earning $120,000 and a receiving spouse earning $45,000. The difference is $75,000, so the statutory range is $22,500 to $26,250 a year — $1,875.00 to $2,187.50 a month — before the court tests it against the recipient’s actual need. Income is defined broadly, following the child support guidelines, and income already used to set a child support order is excluded from the alimony calculation.

How long does alimony last in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts caps general term alimony at a share of the marriage: 50 percent of the months of marriage for marriages of five years or less, rising to 60, 70 and 80 percent for longer marriages. Only marriages over twenty years can receive indefinite alimony, and support generally ends at the payor’s full retirement age.

So a 12-year marriage (144 months) supports at most 70 percent of 144 — about 101 months, or eight years and five months — of general term alimony. Shorter types exist for shorter marriages: rehabilitative alimony (up to five years), transitional alimony (up to three years) and reimbursement alimony for marriages of five years or less. General term alimony also ends on the recipient’s remarriage or either spouse’s death, and can be suspended or reduced if the recipient cohabits with a partner for at least three months.

Is there a $250,000 cap on Massachusetts alimony?

No. No dollar cap appears anywhere in the Massachusetts alimony statute. The $250,000 figure was the child support guideline maximum before 2021 — it is $450,000 from December 2025 — and it touches alimony only because income already used to set child support is excluded from the alimony calculation. Websites applying it are repeating an outdated mix-up.

The two orders genuinely interact, though. Since the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Cavanagh v. Cavanagh (2022), a Massachusetts judge must run the calculation both ways — alimony first, then child support on post-alimony incomes, and child support first, then alimony on the income left over — compare the after-tax results, and choose the more equitable sequence. If you have minor children, expect the two orders to be set together, not independently.

How is alimony calculated in Illinois?

Illinois uses a true statutory formula when combined gross income is under $500,000: maintenance equals 33⅓ percent of the paying spouse’s net income minus 25 percent of the receiving spouse’s net income. A cap then limits the award so the recipient’s total income stays at or below 40 percent of the spouses’ combined net income.

The formula (750 ILCS 5/504(b-1)) runs on net income, which is why Illinois results hinge on tax figures. With estimated net incomes of $86,215 and $42,355, the raw formula gives $18,149.58 a year — but the recipient’s total would reach $60,504.58 against a 40 percent cap of $51,428, so the award is capped at $9,073.00 a year, or $756.08 a month. The cap binds often, because it starts to bite whenever the recipient’s net income exceeds roughly a fifth of the payor’s. Above $500,000 of combined gross income — or where a spouse has a support obligation from a prior relationship — the formula does not apply and the court uses factors instead.

How long does alimony last in Illinois?

Illinois multiplies the length of the marriage by a statutory factor. The factor is 0.20 for marriages under five years and rises by 0.04 per year, reaching 0.80 for marriages of nineteen to twenty years. At twenty years or more, maintenance runs for a period equal to the marriage itself, or indefinitely.

A nine-year marriage, for instance, uses a factor of 0.40, so guideline maintenance lasts about 43 months. A 15-year marriage uses 0.64 — about nine years and seven months. The scale is deliberately steep: Illinois expects shorter marriages to produce short, rehabilitative support, and reserves marriage-length or indefinite awards for marriages of two decades.

How is alimony calculated in Arizona?

Arizona is a guideline state, but its amount is not an income percentage. Since 2023, the Arizona Supreme Court’s Spousal Maintenance Guidelines use an official expenditure-based calculator built on federal Consumer Expenditure Survey data, producing an amount range the court picks from using statutory factors. The guidelines’ duration ranges, by contrast, are fixed and cannot be changed.

The official calculator takes the family size and each spouse’s Spousal Maintenance Income, builds combined household expenditures from the expenditure data (per-capita method), and subtracts the receiving spouse’s pro-rata share — what is left is the range. At very low combined incomes the range starts at $0 (it always does below $44,000 a year), and a high-income adjustment adds up to 70 percent at family incomes of $175,000 and above. Be wary of websites claiming Arizona uses 15–25 percent of the income difference: that shortcut is unverified and does not match the official guidelines, which is why our calculator walks through the guideline steps instead of faking an Arizona amount.

What is the Rule of 65 in Arizona alimony?

The Rule of 65 is Arizona’s exception to its fixed duration ranges. It applies only when all three are true at the time the petition is served: the receiving spouse is at least 42, the marriage lasted at least 16 years, and the recipient’s age plus the years of marriage total at least 65.

When the rule applies, duration is set case by case rather than by the range table. When it does not, the ranges are firm: 3 to 12 months for marriages under two years, up to 12 to 60 months for marriages of ten to sixteen years, and for marriages of sixteen years or more, 12 months to the greater of 144 months or half the length of the marriage.

How is alimony calculated in other states?

Most other states have no formula at all. Judges weigh statutory factors — the marriage’s length and standard of living, each spouse’s income, age, health and earning capacity, and contributions to the marriage — and set an amount case by case. Virginia’s percentage formula covers temporary support only; New Jersey caps duration for shorter marriages without fixing any amount.

Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan are all factors-only for amount. That does not make outcomes random — experienced local lawyers can usually predict a range from past cases — but it does mean no website can honestly give you “the” number for those states. What a website can do is show you the benchmark the industry actually uses, labelled for what it is.

What is the AAML alimony formula?

The AAML benchmark is an unofficial guideline from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers that calculator sites widely reproduce: 30 percent of the payor’s gross income minus 20 percent of the recipient’s gross income, capped so the recipient’s total income stays under 40 percent of combined gross income. No state has adopted it as law.

Used carefully, it is a reasonable yardstick: on $100,000 and $20,000 of gross income it produces $26,000 a year ($2,166.67 a month), which sits inside the 20-to-35-percent-of-the-difference range ($1,333.33 to $2,333.33 a month) that many estimators cross-check against. Used carelessly — presented as your state’s formula — it misleads. In a factors state a judge can land well above it, well below it, or award nothing, especially after a short marriage.

Who qualifies for alimony?

Eligibility comes before arithmetic in every state. The spouse asking for support must show a qualifying need — for example insufficient property or earning ability to meet reasonable needs — and the other spouse must have the ability to pay. Arizona lists its qualifying grounds in statute; elsewhere, the same need-versus-ability test sits inside the factor lists.

Arizona’s grounds (A.R.S. Section 25-319(A)) illustrate the pattern: lacking sufficient property for reasonable needs, lacking adequate earning ability to be self-sufficient, caring for a child whose age or condition makes outside work inappropriate, having contributed significantly to the other spouse’s education or career (or reduced one’s own for them), or a long marriage combined with an age that may preclude self-sufficient work. No calculator can decide eligibility — that is a factual and legal judgment.

How can you estimate your own alimony?

Gather both spouses’ gross annual incomes and the length of the marriage, then run the free alimony calculator. It applies the real Massachusetts or Illinois formula, walks through Arizona’s guideline steps and duration ranges, and shows the clearly labelled unofficial benchmark for other states, so you can see a realistic range before talking to a lawyer.

If children are involved, estimate child support too — it is usually calculated first and changes the alimony picture. See our Illinois child support calculator, Texas child support calculator and New York child support calculator.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is alimony taxable?

For divorce or separation agreements executed after December 31, 2018, no — under federal law it is not deductible by the spouse who pays it and not taxable income for the spouse who receives it. Earlier agreements generally keep the old treatment (deductible to the payor, taxable to the recipient) unless modified to adopt the new rule. State treatment can differ, and child support is never deductible or taxable.

Does alimony end if the recipient remarries?

Usually, yes. In Massachusetts, general term alimony terminates on the recipient’s remarriage by statute, and most states and most negotiated agreements treat remarriage the same way. Cohabitation can also suspend, reduce or terminate support in Massachusetts after three months. Always check the wording of the actual order, because agreements can vary these defaults.

Can alimony be changed later?

Generally yes, if there is a material change in circumstances — a job loss, a major income change, retirement, or a health change — and the order itself allows modification. Some agreements make maintenance non-modifiable. Arizona is stricter on duration: its guideline duration ranges may not be deviated from, although amounts can be adjusted with written findings.

Does child support affect alimony?

Yes. Child support is generally calculated first and takes priority, and in Massachusetts the income used for child support is excluded from the alimony calculation, with courts required to compare both calculation orders after tax. In practice the two are set in the same proceeding, so estimate both rather than treating either number as final.

Does the higher-earning spouse always pay alimony?

No. The higher earner is usually the only spouse who could pay, but payment is not automatic: the other spouse must show a qualifying need, and the court must find an ability to pay after the payor’s own reasonable needs. Plenty of divorces between unequal earners end with no alimony at all — after short marriages, where both spouses are self-sufficient, or where property division already balances the outcome.

Disclaimer: This guide is general information and an estimate only — not legal advice. Massachusetts figures follow G.L. c. 208, Sections 49 and 53; Illinois figures follow 750 ILCS 5/504(b-1), with net incomes estimated as described; Arizona material follows A.R.S. Section 25-319 and the Arizona Supreme Court Spousal Maintenance Guidelines (Administrative Order 2025-101, effective September 1, 2025); the AAML benchmark is an unofficial guideline that no state has adopted. Alimony orders are set by the court and may differ from any estimate here. For advice about your case, consult a family law attorney in your state.