Alimony in Arkansas.
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 stateArkansas
No formula, cap or presumptive amount for alimony. The whole of the statutory standard is the phrase 'as are reasonable from the circumstances of the parties and the nature of the case'. The contrast sits inside the same Code section and is worth quoting because published lists sometimes read Arkansas's family support chart as an alimony guideline: A.C.A. s. 9-12-312(a)(2) provides that 'In determining a reasonable amount of support, initially or upon review to be paid by the noncustodial parent, the court shall refer to the most recent revision of the family support chart. It shall be a rebuttable presumption for the award of child support that the amount contained in the family support chart is the correct amount of child support to be awarded.' The chart is confined by its own text to child support, and by s. 9-12-312(a)(4) it is 'approved' and published 'through per curiam order' of the Arkansas Supreme Court — so it is a court instrument given statutory force for child support and nothing else.
Use the state’s own words
Arkansas calls it alimony. The modification section, A.C.A. s. 9-12-314, is captioned 'Modification of allowance for alimony and maintenance — Child support' and uses 'alimony and maintenance'.. 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 — No. Nothing ties duration to the length of the marriage.
- Does behavior matter? — Not addressed. Neither A.C.A. s. 9-12-312 nor s. 9-12-314 mentions adultery, desertion or any other marital fault, either as a bar to alimony or as a factor in it.
- When it ends, and when it can change — Liability for alimony 'shall automatically cease' on the remarriage of the recipient, or on either of two events the statute deems 'the equivalent of remarriage', unless the court orders otherwise or the parties agree otherwise.
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 — No. Nothing ties duration to the length of the marriage.
- Does behavior matter? — Not addressed. Neither A.C.A. s. 9-12-312 nor s. 9-12-314 mentions adultery, desertion or any other marital fault, either as a bar to alimony or as a factor in it.
- When it ends, and when it can change — Liability for alimony 'shall automatically cease' on the remarriage of the recipient, or on either of two events the statute deems 'the equivalent of remarriage', unless the court orders otherwise or the parties agree otherwise.
In this subject 4
The power the court has
What the judge has to weigh
How long it lasts
Duration
No. Nothing ties duration to the length of the marriage. A.C.A. s. 9-12-312(b) contemplates alimony 'in fixed installments for a specified period of time' but sets no bracket, presumption or maximum, and the length of the marriage is not named anywhere in either section.
Does behavior matter?
Marital misconduct
Not addressed. Neither A.C.A. s. 9-12-312 nor s. 9-12-314 mentions adultery, desertion or any other marital fault, either as a bar to alimony or as a factor in it.
When it ends, and when it can change
What brings it to an end
A.C.A. s. 9-12-312(a)(1)(A)-(C), quoted in full above. Liability for alimony 'shall automatically cease' on the remarriage of the recipient, or on either of two events the statute deems 'the equivalent of remarriage', unless the court orders otherwise or the parties agree otherwise. Read the two equivalents carefully: each requires the establishment of a relationship that produces a child AND a resulting court order about support. Neither is a cohabitation provision. Arkansas has no cohabitation-termination rule and no statutory definition of cohabitation. Death is not made an automatic terminating event by subsection (a); it appears in subsection (b) as one of the contingencies to which an award may be made subject. Retirement is not addressed.
Changing it later
A.C.A. s. 9-12-314(a): 'The court, upon application of either party, may make such alterations from time to time, as to the allowance of alimony and maintenance as may be proper and may order any reasonable sum to be paid for the support of the wife or the husband during the pending of a complaint for a divorce.' That single subsection is both the modification power and the source of authority for support during the case. It states no threshold — no substantial-change requirement appears — and it does not address whether the parties may agree that alimony is non-modifiable. The words 'Unless otherwise ordered by the court or agreed to by the parties' in s. 9-12-312(a)(1) are directed at the automatic-cessation triggers, not at modification generally.
Worth knowing about Arkansas
A.C.A. s. 9-12-312(b) writes a federal tax objective into Arkansas law: an award may be made subject to stated contingencies 'so that the payments qualify as periodic payments within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code.' That drafting assumes the pre-2019 federal regime in which alimony was deductible by the payer and includible by the recipient. Public Law 115-97, s. 11051, repealed that treatment for instruments executed after December 31, 2018. The Arkansas sentence now points at a tax consequence that no longer exists for new orders, and the General Assembly has not amended it.
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.
But that is only the federal rule, and Arkansas is one of four states where it is not the end of the story. Ark. Code § 26-51-417 adopts 26 U.S.C. §§ 71 and 215 “in effect on January 1, 1987” as Arkansas’s own rule. Arkansas incorporated a historical snapshot rather than tracking current federal law, so the 2017 repeal of those sections did nothing to it — the 1987 text carries forward as state law. On the Arkansas return the payer still deducts and the recipient still includes.
Why it matters: alimony that is invisible on the federal return still moves money on the Arkansas one. A settlement modeled on federal treatment alone is mispriced here. How the four decoupled states differ.
Source: Ark. Code § 26-51-417(a)-(b) read it on FindLaw — a commercial publisher, not the state’s own site
How far we got, and where we stopped
The Arkansas legislature’s server would not complete a modern secure connection and had to be read over an older one. The text is the state’s own; what we could not pin down is the exact publication date of the version served.
What that means for you: the words above are reliable — every quoted passage came from a source we name and link. What we cannot vouch for is that nothing has changed since, or that the subsection numbering matches what a subscription service would show. If you are citing a section in a filing, check the number against a law library copy. Quote the words with confidence.
The other number that decides your budget
How Arkansas calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.
And the question underneath it
What Arkansas presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.
The rest of what we have written about Arkansas. Every figure is quoted from Arkansas’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.