Alimony in Montana

Does Montana have an alimony formula?

No. The judge decides it on the factors.

There is no arithmetic in Montana’s statute. The court decides the amount and the length from the factors below, and two judges on the same facts can reach different answers. That is not a flaw in how we are describing it; it is how the law is written.

Use the state’s own words

Montana calls it maintenance. Mont. Code Ann. (MCA) 40-4-203 is captioned simply 'Maintenance'. The statute does not use 'alimony' or 'spousal support'. MCA 40-4-121 uses 'temporary maintenance' for support during the case.. 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.

What the law actually says

The power the court has

MCA 40-4-203 (maintenance); MCA 40-4-208 (modification and termination); MCA 40-4-121 (temporary order for maintenance or support).MCA 40-4-203(1), quoted verbatim: 'In a proceeding for dissolution of marriage or legal separation or a proceeding for maintenance following dissolution of the marriage by a court that lacked personal jurisdiction over the absent spouse, the court may grant a maintenance order for either spouse only if it finds that the spouse seeking maintenance: (a) lacks sufficient property to provide for the spouse's reasonable needs; and (b) is unable to be self-supporting through appropriate employment or is the custodian of a child whose condition or circumstances make it appropriate that the custodian not be required to seek employment outside the home.' Note the word 'only': subsection (1) is a threshold, not a factor. A court that cannot make both findings has no power to order maintenance at all.

What the judge has to weigh

MCA 40-4-203 (maintenance); MCA 40-4-208 (modification and termination); MCA 40-4-121 (temporary order for maintenance or support). — the factorsMCA 40-4-203(2), quoted verbatim: 'The maintenance order must be in amounts and for periods of time that the court considers just, without regard to marital misconduct, and after considering all relevant facts, including: (a) the financial resources of the party seeking maintenance, including marital property apportioned to that party, and the party's ability to meet the party's needs independently, including the extent to which a provision for support of a child living with the party includes a sum for that party as custodian; (b) the time necessary to acquire sufficient education or training to enable the party seeking maintenance to find appropriate employment; (c) the standard of living established during the marriage; (d) the duration of the marriage; (e) the age and the physical and emotional condition of the spouse seeking maintenance; and (f) the ability of the spouse from whom maintenance is sought to meet the spouse's own needs while meeting those of the spouse seeking maintenance.' Source: https://archive.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0400/chapter_0040/part_0020/section_0030/0400-0040-0020-0030.html

How long it lasts

Duration

The length of the marriage is a factor — MCA 40-4-203(2)(d), 'the duration of the marriage' — but it drives nothing. The statute sets no bracket, no presumption, no ratio and no maximum term. Duration is left at large: the order 'must be in amounts and for periods of time that the court considers just'.

Does behavior matter?

Marital misconduct

Expressly barred, in the operative sentence itself. MCA 40-4-203(2): the order 'must be in amounts and for periods of time that the court considers just, without regard to marital misconduct'. Montana is one of the states in this batch where the statute answers the question in terms rather than by silence.

When it ends, and when it can change

What brings it to an end

MCA 40-4-208(4), quoted verbatim: 'Unless otherwise agreed in writing or expressly provided in the decree, the obligation to pay future maintenance is terminated upon the death of either party or the remarriage of the party receiving maintenance.' There is no cohabitation provision anywhere in MCA 40-4-208, and no retirement provision. Source: https://archive.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0400/chapter_0040/part_0020/section_0080/0400-0040-0020-0080.html

Changing it later

MCA 40-4-208(2)(b)(i)-(ii): where the decree already contains maintenance or support provisions, modification 'may only be made: (i) upon a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unconscionable; (ii) upon written consent of the parties'. Where the decree contains no maintenance or support provision, MCA 40-4-208(2)(a) allows modification 'only … within 2 years of the date of the decree'. MCA 40-4-208(1) limits any modification to 'installments accruing subsequent to actual notice to the parties of the motion for modification'.

Worth knowing about Montana

The 'unconscionable' standard in MCA 40-4-208(2)(b)(i) is markedly higher than the 'substantial change in circumstances' test most states use, and it is stated as an exclusive condition ('may only be made'). Montana also front-loads a hard eligibility gate in 40-4-203(1) that many states put among the factors: no property shortfall and no inability to self-support means no maintenance, whatever the other circumstances. Temporary maintenance under MCA 40-4-121 carries no formula either; MCA 40-4-121(7) directs that any temporary order be made 'in conformity with 40-4-203 and 40-4-204' — that is, by the same factor test, with no numeric guideline. Source: https://archive.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0400/chapter_0040/part_0010/section_0210/0400-0040-0010-0210.html

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.

Alongside the federal rule, Montana’s own income tax follows the federal treatment. That means the federal answer above is the whole answer here — no state adjustment for alimony either way. Four states do not — Arkansas, California, New Jersey and New York — so this is worth knowing rather than assuming. The fifty-state table.
Source: Mont. Code Ann. § 15-30-2101(6), (7), (14) the state source

Authority: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Pub. L. 115-97, section 11051, repealing Internal Revenue Code sections 71 and 215; see also IRS Publication 504.

Authority: MCA 40-4-203 (maintenance); MCA 40-4-208 (modification and termination); MCA 40-4-121 (temporary order for maintenance or support). — read it on Montana’s own site. Checked 23 Aug 2026.

The other number that decides your budget

How Montana calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.

Child support →

And the question underneath it

What Montana presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.

Custody →

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Alimony in Montana.