Alimony in New Mexico.
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 stateNew Mexico
There is no arithmetic in New Mexico’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
New Mexico calls it spousal support. The 1993 amendment to NMSA 1978, section 40-4-7 substituted 'spousal support' for 'alimony' throughout; the section's own annotation records that the 1993 amendment 'substituted "spousal support" for "alimony" in the first sentence'. The word 'alimony' no longer appears in the operative text.. 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 — There are no brackets and no presumptions tied to the length of the marriage, but there is one hard numeric marriage-length rule and it is jurisdictional rather than arithmetic.
- Does behavior matter? — The statute is silent. None of the ten factors in section 40-4-7(E) refers to fault, conduct or misconduct, and nothing elsewhere in the section requires or bars its consideration.
- When it ends, and when it can change — There is no statutory provision terminating spousal support on remarriage, on cohabitation or on retirement, and the word 'cohabit' does not appear in the section.
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 — There are no brackets and no presumptions tied to the length of the marriage, but there is one hard numeric marriage-length rule and it is jurisdictional rather than arithmetic.
- Does behavior matter? — The statute is silent. None of the ten factors in section 40-4-7(E) refers to fault, conduct or misconduct, and nothing elsewhere in the section requires or bars its consideration.
- When it ends, and when it can change — There is no statutory provision terminating spousal support on remarriage, on cohabitation or on retirement, and the word 'cohabit' does not appear in the section.
In this subject 4
The power the court has
What the judge has to weigh
How long it lasts
Duration
There are no brackets and no presumptions tied to the length of the marriage, but there is one hard numeric marriage-length rule and it is jurisdictional rather than arithmetic. NMSA 1978, section 40-4-7(F), quoted verbatim: 'The court shall retain jurisdiction over proceedings involving periodic spousal support payments when the parties have been married for twenty years or more prior to the dissolution of the marriage, unless the court order or decree specifically provides that no spousal support shall be awarded.' 'The duration of the marriage' is separately a factor under 40-4-7(E)(5). The statute also builds duration into the award types: transitional support must have a period 'clearly stated in the court's final order' (B)(1)(b), and support 'for an indefinite duration' is expressly available (B)(1)(c).
Does behavior matter?
Marital misconduct
The statute is silent. None of the ten factors in section 40-4-7(E) refers to fault, conduct or misconduct, and nothing elsewhere in the section requires or bars its consideration.
When it ends, and when it can change
What brings it to an end
NMSA 1978, section 40-4-7(D), quoted verbatim: 'An award of spousal support made pursuant to the provisions of Subparagraph (a), (b), (c) or (d) of Paragraph (1) of Subsection B of this section shall terminate upon the death of the receiving spouse, unless the court order of spousal support provides otherwise.' The exclusion of subparagraph (e) is deliberate: a lump sum awarded under (e) is 'not subject to any contingencies, including the death of the receiving spouse'. There is no statutory provision terminating spousal support on remarriage, on cohabitation or on retirement, and the word 'cohabit' does not appear in the section.
Changing it later
NMSA 1978, section 40-4-7(B)(2), quoted verbatim: the court 'may: (a) modify and change any order in respect to spousal support awarded pursuant to the provisions of Subparagraph (a), (b) or (c) of Paragraph (1) of this subsection whenever the circumstances render such change proper; or (b) designate spousal support awarded pursuant to the provisions of Subparagraph (a) or (b) of Paragraph (1) of this subsection as nonmodifiable with respect to the amount or duration of the support payments'. Modifiability therefore turns on which of the five award types the court chose: rehabilitative, transitional and indefinite support are modifiable unless designated otherwise; lump-sum awards under (d) and (e) are outside the modification power altogether.
Worth knowing about New Mexico
New Mexico's statute is built around a menu of five named award types, and both modifiability and survival of death are keyed to which type the court picked — a structure no other state in this batch uses. Two consequences are worth stating precisely. Rehabilitative and transitional support can be made nonmodifiable as to amount and duration by express designation, but indefinite support cannot. And an award under 40-4-7(B)(1)(e) survives the recipient's death. New Mexico has no statutory spousal support formula and no statewide court-rule guideline was found; note that New Mexico's codified statutes are published by the New Mexico Compilation Commission on a site that presents a CAPTCHA to automated access, and the chapter text used here was read from that site's own server-rendered PDF of Chapter 40 instead.
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, New Mexico’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. Worth one more line, because it decides what happens if the federal rule ever changes: New Mexico uses rolling conformity, so a change to the federal Internal Revenue Code reaches New Mexico automatically, without the legislature having to act. The fifty-state table.
Source: N.M. Stat. Ann. § 7-2-2(A) (defining ‘adjusted gross income’ by reference to IRC §62) and § 7-2-2(J) (defining ‘Internal Revenue Code’ as ‘the United States Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended’) read it on Justia — a commercial publisher, not the state’s own site
The other number that decides your budget
How New Mexico calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.
And the question underneath it
What New Mexico presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.
The rest of what we have written about New Mexico. Every figure is quoted from New Mexico’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.