How Much Alimony in 2026? The Three Facts That Set the Number
Two couples with identical incomes and identical marriage lengths can walk out of two courthouses with alimony numbers that differ by a factor of two. That is not a malfunction. A minority of states run a published formula; most hand a judge a list of statutory factors and let them weigh it. State law governs all of it, and none of this is legal advice.
What does not vary is the raw material. Every approach starts from the same three facts: how far apart the two incomes are, how long the marriage lasted, and what each person is capable of earning. Lifestyle, health and fault move the number at the edges; the three facts set the range.
Quick answer
Alimony tracks the gap between the two incomes, scaled by how long the marriage lasted. A payer earning $120,000 against a spouse earning $42,000 has a $78,000 gap; a common guideline takes about a third of it, weights it for a 12-year marriage, and lands near $1,287 a month, or $15,444 a year. Run that for the six-plus years a 12-year marriage typically supports and the whole obligation is about $96,400. The rule that trips people up is tax: for any divorce finalised after 31 December 2018, the payer deducts nothing and the recipient reports nothing.
Fact one: the income gap, not either income
Neither salary alone decides this. The gap does. $120,000 against $42,000 is a $78,000 annual gap, and that $78,000 is the pool every formula reaches into. A payer on $250,000 married to a spouse on $210,000 has a $40,000 gap and owes far less than a payer on $120,000 married to someone with no income at all.
Which income counts is where the arguing starts. Illinois runs its formula on net income; the bar-association guideline used informally in many courtrooms runs on gross, and on the same couple that difference is thousands of dollars a year. Bonuses, overtime, business distributions and rental profit are usually all income. And if a judge decides a spouse is deliberately underemployed, they can impute income — the number reverts to what that person could earn. Try moving the two incomes and the marriage length in the alimony calculator to see how sensitive the answer is.
Fact two: how long the marriage lasted
Marriage length does two jobs: it scales the payment, and it sets how long the payment runs.
Twenty years is the informal line in most states between a marriage that earns a partial award and one treated as long-term, where indefinite support is on the table. Our couple has been married 12 of those 20 years, so 60% of the full weight applies: $78,000 × 33% × 60% = $15,444 a year, or $1,287 a month.
The same couple, five ways:
| Approach | The formula | On $120,000 / $42,000, married 12 years |
|---|---|---|
| Income-gap guideline | 33% of the gap, weighted by marriage length (12 ÷ 20 = 60%) | $1,287/mo · $15,444/yr |
| Bar-association guideline (informal, many courtrooms) | 30% of payer's gross − 20% of recipient's gross | $2,300/mo · $27,600/yr |
| Illinois, 750 ILCS 5/504 | 33⅓% of payer's net − 25% of recipient's net, capped so the recipient ends up with no more than 40% of combined net | Runs on net, so below the gross figure above; applies only where combined gross is under $500,000 |
| Texas, Family Code ch. 8 | No percentage formula. A ceiling of $5,000/mo or 20% of the payer's average monthly gross, whichever is lower | Ceiling $2,000/mo — and only if the spouse qualifies at all |
| Pennsylvania support guideline | 33% of payer's net − 40% of recipient's net with no children; 25% − 30% with children | Children move the answer by roughly a third |
Three things fall out of that. The formula matters more than the facts. Gross-versus-net is not a technicality. And a cap beats a formula: at 20 years the full-weight award of $25,740 would leave the recipient with 41.8% of the couple's combined income, past the 40% line Illinois draws on combined net, so a cap of that kind cuts the award before the formula finishes.
Duration follows the same logic. Illinois multiplies the years married by a factor starting at 0.20 under five years and climbing 0.04 a year to 0.80 at 19 — a 12-year marriage gets 0.52, or 6.24 years of payments. That is what turns $15,444 a year into a total obligation of about $96,400 — the figure worth checking against your own income gap and marriage length before anyone signs anything. Texas runs the opposite way, capping support at five years for a marriage of 10 to 20 years. At 20 years or more, Illinois allows support for the length of the marriage or indefinitely.
Fact three: earning capacity
The third fact is the one no formula holds, and it is why identical-looking cases diverge. A 45-year-old who left nursing to raise children and can be retrained in two years is a different case from a 58-year-old who has not worked since 1998. Judges call this rehabilitative potential, and it decides whether an award is a three-year bridge or a floor for life.
The tax rule most articles still get wrong
Alimony is not deductible by the payer and not taxable to the recipient for any divorce or separation instrument executed after 31 December 2018. That is §11051 of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Instruments executed before 2019 keep the old treatment — deductible to the payer, income to the recipient — unless the parties modify the order and the modification expressly adopts the new rules.
A great many articles still describe the deduction as though it survived. It did not, and the difference is large. Take the $15,444:
- Old rule. The payer, in the 24% bracket, deducted it, so the payment cost $11,737 after tax. The recipient added it to income; with $42,000 of wages and the $16,100 single standard deduction, taxable income of $41,344 sat inside the 12% band — $1,853 of tax. Between them the two households were $1,853 ahead of where the code would otherwise have left them, and that spread is why so many pre-2019 settlements were generous.
- Current rule. The payer sends $15,444 of after-tax money and the recipient banks all $15,444. The same transfer costs the two households about $1,853 more in combined federal tax, and the payer now has a much sharper reason to fight about the number.
Two consequences people miss. Several states did not conform, so a state return may still run the old way — check your state's own instructions. And because post-2018 alimony is not includible in gross income, it is not taxable compensation for IRA purposes: a recipient with no other earned income cannot fund an IRA with it (IRS Publication 590-A). Under the old rule it counted. That makes the retirement accounts the more important half of many settlements — the part a court order splits directly, which is why how the 401(k) gets divided often matters more than the monthly figure.
What changes the number after the order
Unless the agreement says otherwise, either side can ask the court to modify support after a substantial change in circumstances — job loss, a large pay cut, a permanent disability. A payer reaching full retirement age (67 for anyone born in 1960 or later) can usually ask for a reduction. Remarriage of the recipient ends support in nearly every state; cohabitation ends or reduces it in many, including California, New York and Illinois. Courts also modify from the date the request is filed, not the date circumstances changed, so months of private negotiation are months at the old number.
Child support is settled first and separately, and it changes the answer. Pennsylvania drops its percentages when children are involved, and Illinois subtracts child support from the payer's net before running the maintenance formula. With children in the picture, the guideline figure will read high until you run your state's own worksheet.
FAQ
Does the length of the marriage change the monthly payment, or just how long it lasts?
Both, in most systems. A 12-year marriage carries 60% of the full weight in the guideline above — $1,287 a month against the $2,145 the same couple would see at 20 years. Illinois separately multiplies the years married by a duration factor (0.52 at 12 years, 0.80 at 19) to set the number of years. Twenty years is the usual line above which indefinite support becomes possible.
My divorce was finalised in 2016. Can I still deduct the alimony I pay?
Yes, if the instrument was executed on or before 31 December 2018 and has not been modified to adopt the current rules. Pre-2019 orders are grandfathered under TCJA §11051 — you deduct, your ex reports it as income. A later modification can expressly opt into the current rules, and once it does the deduction is gone permanently. IRS Publication 504 covers the mechanics.
What if my ex quit their job to get a bigger award?
Judges can impute income, attributing earnings a person is capable of rather than what they report. Voluntary underemployment is a standard statutory factor, and vocational evaluations are routinely ordered to establish the capable figure. The same tool works against a payer who takes a convenient pay cut. What counts as voluntary is state law.
Does alimony affect Social Security?
Not directly — alimony is not earnings and changes neither person's benefit record. What matters is the 10-year rule: a marriage lasting at least 10 years lets a divorced spouse claim on the ex's record without reducing what the ex receives. Note also that the Social Security Fairness Act repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset on 5 January 2025, so older guidance about public-pension reductions is out of date.
Sources
- IRS, Topic No. 452, Alimony and Separate Maintenance — https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc452
- Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (P.L. 115-97), §11051 — repeal of the deduction for instruments executed after 31 December 2018
- IRS Publication 504, Divorced or Separated Individuals; IRS Publication 590-A on compensation for IRA purposes
- Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, 750 ILCS 5/504 (formula, cap, duration multipliers); Texas Family Code, Chapter 8; Pennsylvania's statewide support guideline
- Rev. Proc. 2025-32 — the 2026 standard deduction and brackets used above
- Social Security Administration — divorced-spouse benefits and the 10-year marriage rule
General information about how these rules work, not legal or tax advice. Spousal support is governed by state law and by the judge hearing the case; the figures above are guideline arithmetic, not a prediction of any outcome.