Most people searching this topic type “alimony” into Google. If that’s how you arrived here, you’re not alone, but “alimony” hasn’t been a legal term in New York since 1980. The terminology matters because it shapes how you read court documents, how you talk with your attorney, and how you evaluate what a judge can actually order. Having handled over 3,000 divorce cases with an exclusive focus on divorce and matrimonial law, we see this confusion regularly, and it’s worth clearing up before anything else.
New York uses two related but distinct terms: “spousal support” for married couples seeking financial orders outside of a divorce proceeding, and “spousal maintenance” for financial awards made as part of a divorce action. Post-divorce maintenance is codified in Domestic Relations Law 236(B); spousal support proceedings brought in Family Court are governed by parallel provisions of the Family Court Act. The rest of this post focuses on spousal maintenance, the form that applies when a marriage is ending.
What Spousal Maintenance Actually Means in New York
Spousal maintenance is a court-ordered monetary payment from one spouse to the other, either through a judge’s order or a written agreement incorporated into the divorce judgment. Voluntary transfers between spouses made without an order don’t qualify. There’s no informal version.
New York’s maintenance laws are fully gender-neutral under Domestic Relations Law 236, consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1979 ruling in Orr v. Orr. Either spouse can be the payor or the payee regardless of gender. The determining factor is financial disparity, not who earned more or who stayed home.
One jurisdiction point worth knowing upfront: divorce actions in New York City are filed in the New York Supreme Court, which handles all matrimonial actions in the state. Despite the name, this isn’t New York’s highest court. It operates at the county level, meaning your case will be heard in New York County, Kings County, Queens County, Bronx County, or Richmond County depending on where you file. If spousal support was ordered by Family Court before a divorce action was filed, that order ends when the divorce is granted. Only the Supreme Court can impose maintenance that survives the divorce.
Temporary vs. Post-Divorce Maintenance: Two Distinct Awards
There are two separate phases where maintenance can be awarded, and they operate differently.
Pendente Lite Maintenance
Pendente lite (Latin for “while the litigation is pending”) maintenance is ordered during the divorce proceeding itself. Its purpose is to cover the lower-earning spouse’s immediate financial needs while the case moves through court. It ends automatically when the judge issues a final judgment of divorce. It’s not a preview of what post-divorce maintenance will look like; it’s a temporary bridge.
Post-Divorce Maintenance
Post-divorce maintenance begins after the divorce is finalized and takes one of two forms. Durational maintenance runs for a fixed term tied to the length of the marriage. Non-durational maintenance, reserved for cases where the recipient is unlikely to achieve financial self-sufficiency due to age, serious health conditions, or disability, continues indefinitely. Courts treat non-durational awards as the exception, not the rule.
How the Amount Is Calculated: The Statutory Formula
New York uses a two-formula approach under Domestic Relations Law 236(B). The court runs the calculation both ways and awards the lower of the two results. Which formula applies first depends on whether the payor is also paying child support to the same spouse in the same case. This isn’t discretionary. It’s the required starting point.
The formula applies only to the payor’s income up to the statutory cap, which increased from $228,000 to $241,000 effective March 1, 2026, following the required biennial Consumer Price Index adjustment published by the New York Office of Court Administration. The self-support reserve, the floor designed to prevent maintenance from leaving the payor unable to cover their own basic needs, increased at the same time from $21,128 to $21,546. If applying the formula would reduce the payor’s income below that reserve, the formula result is reduced accordingly.
For payor income above the $241,000 cap, the formula stops and judicial discretion begins. A court weighing income above that threshold must consider 15 statutory factors before deciding whether to award additional maintenance. In New York City divorces, that discretion comes into play more frequently than elsewhere in the state. Judges here are familiar with what it actually costs to live in the five boroughs, and standard-of-living considerations specific to this region factor into how that discretion is applied.
What Courts Consider When Deciding Whether to Award Maintenance
Even within the formula, courts can deviate based on 15 enumerated factors. The most commonly weighted include:
- Length of the marriage: Longer marriages generally support more substantial awards.
- Each spouse’s income and earning capacity: This includes imputed income. A court can assign income a spouse could earn if they’re voluntarily underemployed or unemployed without a compelling reason.
- Age and health: A spouse with a serious medical condition or who is near retirement age has fewer options for building financial independence.
- Contributions to the marriage: This covers direct financial contributions and indirect ones, including caring for children or supporting a spouse’s career or education.
- Standard of living established during the marriage: Courts consider what both spouses were accustomed to, not just what either can afford post-divorce on their own.
Marital fault doesn’t affect maintenance in New York except in rare, egregious circumstances. The overwhelming majority of New York City divorces proceed on no-fault grounds, and a spouse’s behavior during the marriage generally doesn’t enter the maintenance calculation. Both spouses are also required to file a complete financial disclosure, including a net worth statement, in any case where maintenance is at issue.
How Long Maintenance Lasts & When It Can Change
Duration follows an advisory schedule tied to the length of the marriage. For marriages under 15 years, the guideline range is 15 to 30 percent of the marriage length. For marriages between 15 and 20 years, the range is 30 to 40 percent. For marriages over 20 years, the range is 35 to 50 percent. These are starting points for judicial analysis, not hard caps. A judge can go above or below based on the statutory factors. Maintenance ends automatically on the death of either spouse or the remarriage of the recipient, and a court may also terminate it if the recipient becomes financially self-sufficient.
Either party can petition to modify a maintenance order when there’s been a substantial change in circumstances, three years have passed since the last order, or one party’s income has changed by 15 percent or more, whichever threshold comes first. Modification isn’t guaranteed. The party asking for the change has to meet the burden of showing that the threshold has actually been crossed and that the change warrants a different award.
Federal vs. New York State Tax Treatment of Maintenance
This is an area where many people planning for post-divorce finances get caught off guard, particularly in New York City divorces where the numbers are often significant.
Under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, maintenance payments are no longer deductible by the payor or taxable as income to the recipient at the federal level, for any divorce or separation agreement entered after December 31, 2018. What most people don’t realize is that New York State and New York City tax law didn’t conform to that federal change. Under state and city income tax rules, maintenance remains deductible to the payor and taxable to the recipient. This creates a split-tax obligation: the same payment is treated one way on your federal return and the opposite way on your state and city returns. For anyone going through a New York City divorce, that distinction affects how much either party actually nets from a maintenance award and should be factored into any financial planning done alongside the legal case.
What This Means for Your Case
Spousal maintenance in New York involves a statutory formula, a judicial discretion layer above the income cap, advisory duration guidelines, and a tax treatment that splits between federal and state law. None of those pieces exist in isolation. In a New York City divorce, the cost-of-living realities here influence how courts exercise the discretion points in that framework, and generic guidance written for the state at large won’t capture that.
Our attorneys at Eiges & Orgel at Ballon Stoll P.C. bring over 60 years of combined experience and an exclusive focus on divorce and matrimonial law to every case we handle. If you have questions about spousal maintenance and what it could mean for your situation, we’re available to talk at (347) 848-1850.