Alimony in Alabama.
Whether the state sets a formula or leaves it to the judge, what the court has to weigh, how long it runs, and what brings it to an end.
See a different stateAlabama
There is no formula, cap or presumptive amount for the AMOUNT of Alabama alimony. Every numeric limit in the Alabama alimony statute is a limit on DURATION; those limits are statutory, they are post-divorce, and they are quoted in the duration section below. The statutory standard for amount is qualitative: an amount 'to enable the party to acquire the ability to preserve, to the extent possible, the economic status quo of the parties as it existed during the marriage' (s. 30-2-57(b)(1)). Note one numeric rule nearby that is often misread as an alimony rule and is not: Ala. Code s. 30-2-51(b)(2) provides that 'unless the parties agree otherwise, the total amount of the retirement benefits payable to the noncovered spouse shall not exceed 50 percent of the retirement benefits that may be considered by the court.' That is a cap on the division of retirement benefits in the property award, not on alimony. No statewide court rule or judicial guideline producing an alimony number was found on the Alabama Legislature's or the Alabama Judicial System's own sites.
Use the state’s own words
Alabama calls it alimony. The Code names three kinds and no others: 'interim alimony' (Ala. Code s. 30-2-56), 'rehabilitative alimony' and 'periodic alimony' (Ala. Code s. 30-2-57). A phrase search for 'permanent alimony' on the Alabama Legislature's own Code of Alabama search returned no section on the checked date. Alabama's old alimony-without-divorce section, Ala. Code s. 30-2-31, now reads in its entirety 'Repealed by Act 98-105, effective January 1, 1999', so Alabama has no separate maintenance action of that kind; s. 30-2-57 instead applies on 'granting a divorce or legal separation'.. Using the state’s own term matters when you are searching for forms or reading an order — the words are not interchangeable across state lines, and some of them mean different things in different places.
The short version4 points · tap one to jump to it
- What the law actually says
- How long it lasts — Yes, and Alabama is the only state in this batch that ties the outside limit of a post-divorce award to the length of the marriage by statute.
- Does behavior matter? — Expressly permitted, in two places, and it is not a bar.
- When it ends, and when it can change — It requires a petition and proof, and on that proof the decree 'shall be modified'.
In this subject 4
What the law actually says
The short version4 points · tap one to jump to it
- What the law actually says
- How long it lasts — Yes, and Alabama is the only state in this batch that ties the outside limit of a post-divorce award to the length of the marriage by statute.
- Does behavior matter? — Expressly permitted, in two places, and it is not a bar.
- When it ends, and when it can change — It requires a petition and proof, and on that proof the decree 'shall be modified'.
In this subject 4
The power the court has
What the judge has to weigh
How long it lasts
Duration
Yes, and Alabama is the only state in this batch that ties the outside limit of a post-divorce award to the length of the marriage by statute. Rehabilitative alimony, s. 30-2-57(b)(1): 'for a limited duration, not to exceed five years, absent extraordinary circumstances'. Periodic alimony, s. 30-2-57(g): 'Except upon a finding by the court that a deviation from the time limits of this section is equitably required, a person shall be eligible for periodic alimony for a period not to exceed the length of the marriage, as of the date of the filing of the complaint, with the exception that if a party is married for 20 years or longer, there shall be no time limit as to his or her eligibility.' Alabama also puts a hard jurisdictional deadline on the whole question, s. 30-2-57(c): 'In cases in which a party has proven a lack of means to acquire the ability to preserve, to the extent possible, the economic status quo of the parties as it existed during the marriage, but there exists a present inability of the other party to supply those means, a court, when the circumstances of the case make it equitable, shall reserve jurisdiction to award rehabilitative or periodic alimony. If there is neither an award of alimony nor a reservation of jurisdiction at the time of the divorce, the court shall permanently lose jurisdiction to subsequently make an award of rehabilitative or periodic alimony.'
Does behavior matter?
Marital misconduct
Expressly permitted, in two places, and it is not a bar. Ala. Code s. 30-2-57(f)(3) makes 'The relative fault of the parties for the breakdown of the marriage' a statutory factor in every alimony determination. Separately, Ala. Code s. 30-2-52 provides: 'If the divorce is in favor of either spouse for the misconduct of the other spouse, the judge trying the case shall have the right to make an allowance to either spouse out of the estate of either spouse, or not make an allowance as the circumstances of the case may justify, and if an allowance is made, the misconduct of either spouse may be considered in determining the amount; provided, however, that any property acquired prior to the marriage of the parties or by inheritance or gift may not be considered in determining the amount.' Note what s. 30-2-52 does and does not say: it authorizes the court to make no allowance at all, but it does not disqualify a spouse by reason of fault, and s. 30-2-57(a) contains no freedom-from-fault condition. Misconduct in Alabama is a discretionary factor going to entitlement and amount, not an automatic bar.
When it ends, and when it can change
What brings it to an end
Ala. Code s. 30-2-57(i): 'Rehabilitative or periodic alimony awarded under this section terminates as provided in Section 30-2-55, or upon the death of either spouse.' Ala. Code s. 30-2-55 supplies both the cohabitation trigger and the only statutory definition of cohabitation in this batch: '(a) For the purposes of this section, “cohabiting” means the act of two adults dwelling together continually and habitually in a private heterosexual or homosexual relationship, even if the relationship is not solemnized by marriage, evidenced by the voluntary mutual assumption of those marital rights, duties, and obligations that are usually manifested by married individuals, and which include, but are not necessarily dependent on, sexual relations. (b) Any decree of divorce providing for periodic payments of alimony shall be modified by the court to provide for the termination of the alimony upon petition of a party to the decree and proof that the spouse receiving alimony has remarried or that the spouse is cohabiting with another individual.' Note the mechanism: termination is not automatic on remarriage or cohabitation. It requires a petition and proof, and on that proof the decree 'shall be modified'. Interim alimony has its own end point, s. 30-2-56(c): 'An order awarding interim alimony shall automatically terminate upon entry of the final judgment, the voluntary dismissal of all pending claims, or the abatement of the proceedings', subject to the court's power during an appeal and to either party's right to sue for an arrearage or overage. Retirement of the payer is not addressed anywhere in the chapter.
Changing it later
Ala. Code s. 30-2-57(h): 'An order awarding rehabilitative or periodic alimony may be modified based upon application and a showing of material change in circumstances.' Interim alimony, s. 30-2-56(b): 'An order awarding interim alimony may be terminated or prospectively modified at any time prior to the entry of a final judgment for good cause shown. In case of an emergency, the court may order or prospectively modify interim alimony without notice to the other party pursuant to Rule 65, Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, subject to the right of the other party to a hearing as soon as practicable for the purpose of determining whether the emergency order should be dissolved, maintained, or modified.' Whether the parties may agree that alimony is non-modifiable is NOT addressed in Ala. Code Title 30, Chapter 2. Nothing in the statute either authorizes or forbids it. That is a gap in the statute, not an answer.
Worth knowing about Alabama
Three things a reader will not find elsewhere. First, the priority rule: s. 30-2-57(b) makes rehabilitative alimony the default and periodic alimony the fallback, and the court must 'expressly find' that rehabilitation is not feasible, or that a good-faith attempt failed or only partly succeeded, before it can award periodic alimony. Second, s. 30-2-57(c) causes the court to 'permanently lose jurisdiction' over alimony if the decree neither awards it nor reserves it, so in Alabama the question is decided once, at the decree, and cannot be reopened later. Third, the cohabitation definition in s. 30-2-55(a) was rewritten by Act 2022-430; the definition now covers 'a private heterosexual or homosexual relationship'. Published summaries still quote the earlier opposite-sex wording.
The tax rule changed, and most guides still describe the old one
For a divorce or separation instrument executed after 31 December 2018, alimony is not deductible by the person paying it and not taxable to the person receiving it. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repealed the provisions that made it otherwise. For an instrument executed on or before that date the old treatment continues — deductible to the payer, taxable to the recipient — unless it is later modified and the modification expressly adopts the new rule.
This is not a detail. Under the old rule a higher-rate payer could transfer income to a lower-rate recipient and the two of them shared the saving. That saving no longer exists, which changes what a given number is worth to each side. New Hampshire wrote the point into its own statute: its 23 per cent figure assumes non-deductibility, and reverts to 30 per cent if the federal treatment is ever restored.
Alabama follows the federal result — by a mechanism worth knowing. Alabama writes its own income definitions and points them at federal sections: gross income includes alimony “to the extent they are includable… under 26 U.S.C. § 71”, and the deduction is “the same as the amount deductible… under 26 U.S.C. § 215”. Both of those federal sections were repealed in 2017, so for a post-2018 instrument the Alabama amounts follow the federal ones to zero. This is our reading of the statutory text, not a published Department of Revenue position — the ordinary reading, but not a departmental confirmation. The detail · the fifty-state table.
Source: Ala. Code §§ 40-18-14(a)(1), 40-18-15(a)(17) the state source
The other number that decides your budget
How Alabama calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.
And the question underneath it
What Alabama presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.
The rest of what we have written about Alabama. Every figure is quoted from Alabama’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.