Alimony in North Dakota.
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 stateNorth Dakota
There is no formula for the AMOUNT of spousal support in North Dakota. There is a numeric statutory cap on DURATION, tied to the length of the marriage, and it is a statute — not a court rule, not a local rule — and it governs post-divorce support, not temporary support. N.D.C.C. 14-05-24.1(5), quoted verbatim: 'Except upon written findings by the court which require a deviation beyond the time limits of this section is necessary, spousal support terminates upon the following:' followed by this table, reproduced as printed: Length of marriage | Duration of spousal support award as percentage of the number of months of the length of the marriage Less than 5 years | Up to 50% Between 5 and 10 years | Up to 60% Between 10 and 15 years | Up to 70% Between 15 and 20 years | Up to 80% 20 years or more | Duration agreed upon by parties or for a limited time as determined by the court. The cap is expressed as a percentage of the length of the marriage measured in months, not as a percentage of anyone's income. 'Length of marriage' is defined in 14-05-24.1(1)(a): 'from the date of the marriage until the service of a summons for an action for legal separation or divorce.' A court may exceed the bracket only 'upon written findings … which require a deviation beyond the time limits of this section is necessary'.
The limit is on how long, not how much.
Use the state’s own words
North Dakota calls it spousal support. N.D.C.C. section 14-05-24.1 is captioned 'Spousal support' and uses that term exclusively. The statute names three sub-types: 'rehabilitative spousal support', 'general term spousal support' and 'lump sum spousal support'.. 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
What the judge has to weigh
How long it lasts
Duration
Yes, and expressly so. The verbatim bracket table in N.D.C.C. 14-05-24.1(5) is quoted above. In addition, 14-05-24.1(2) opens with a flat prohibition: 'The court may not award permanent spousal support.' Duration is thus doubly constrained: no permanent award at all, and a percentage-of-marriage-length ceiling on the term unless the court makes written findings justifying a longer one.
Does behavior matter?
Marital misconduct
Expressly permitted, and required to be weighed. N.D.C.C. 14-05-24.1(3)(d) lists among the factors the court 'shall consider': 'The conduct of the parties during the marriage'. North Dakota is one of two states in this batch (with Rhode Island) whose statute names conduct as a mandatory factor.
When it ends, and when it can change
What brings it to an end
Three separate statutory rules, all quoted verbatim. Death and remarriage, 14-05-24.1(9): 'Unless otherwise agreed to by the parties in writing, spousal support is terminated upon the remarriage or death of the spouse receiving support. The court may require reasonable security from the payor spouse in the event of the payor's death. Immediately upon remarriage, the spouse receiving support shall provide notice of the remarriage to the payor spouse at the last known address of the payor spouse.' Cohabitation, 14-05-24.1(10): 'Unless otherwise agreed to by the parties in writing, upon an order of the court based upon a preponderance of the evidence that the spouse receiving support has been habitually cohabiting with another individual in a relationship analogous to a marriage for one year or more, the court shall terminate spousal support.' The statutory definition of the triggering conduct is therefore contained in the operative words themselves: 'habitually cohabiting with another individual in a relationship analogous to a marriage for one year or more'. Retirement, 14-05-24.1(11): 'There is a rebuttable presumption that spousal support terminates upon the payor's attaining full retirement age for social security purposes. The rebuttable presumption may be overcome if the court determines spousal support should continue based on the following factors: a. The ages of the parties at the time of the marriage, the time of the entry of the spousal support award, and the time of the application for retirement; b. The degree and duration of the economic dependency of the recipient upon the payor during the marriage; c. Whether the recipient has foregone, relinquished, or otherwise sacrificed claims, rights, or property in exchange for a more substantial or longer spousal support award; d. The duration or amount of spousal support already paid; e. The health of the parties at the time of the retirement application; f. Assets of the parties at the time of the retirement application; g. Sources of income, both earned and unearned, of the parties, including whether the payor spouse intends to continue employment; h. The ability of the recipient to have saved adequately for retirement; and i. Any other factors the court deems relevant.'
Changing it later
N.D.C.C. 14-05-24.1(6)-(8), quoted verbatim: '6. The court may modify its spousal support order, subject to the following limitations: a. If a material change in circumstances occurs during the rehabilitative period, rehabilitative spousal support may be modified. b. If a material change in circumstances occurs, general term spousal support may be modified. 7. Upon the filing of a judgment, the parties may not seek and the court may not order a modification of lump sum spousal support. 8. The parties may expressly preclude or limit the modification of spousal support through a written agreement that is part of the judgment for divorce.' 'Material change in circumstances' is defined in 14-05-24.1(1)(b): 'a change that substantially affects the financial abilities or needs of the parties and which was not contemplated by the parties at the time of the original award.'
Worth knowing about North Dakota
North Dakota is the most heavily engineered spousal support statute in this batch and the one most likely to be described wrongly elsewhere. Three points. First, permanent spousal support is abolished by name: 'The court may not award permanent spousal support' (14-05-24.1(2)). Second, the duration brackets are a statute, not a guideline: they were enacted by 2023 House Bill No. 1037, approved March 30, 2023, and the act's own Section 2 says 'It is the intent of the sixty-eighth legislative assembly that this Act becomes effective on August 1, 2023, and applies to actions for divorce or legal separation filed on or after August 1, 2023.' Orders in cases filed before that date are governed by the prior law. Third, the cohabitation rule is mandatory once proved — 'the court shall terminate spousal support' — and it carries its own one-year and 'analogous to a marriage' qualifiers, so it is narrower and harder-edged than the discretionary cohabitation provisions in most states. Session law source: https://ndlegis.gov/assembly/68-2023/session-laws/documents/DOMRP.pdf
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, North Dakota’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: N.D. Cent. Code § 57-38-01(5) (defining references to the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended, as meaning ‘the United States Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended’) and § 57-38-01(13) (taxable income computed under the Internal Revenue Code ‘plus or minus the adjustments as may be provided by this chapter’) the state source
The other number that decides your budget
How North Dakota calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.
And the question underneath it
What North Dakota presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.