Alimony in South 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 stateSouth Dakota
There is no arithmetic in South Dakota’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
South Dakota calls it Three terms, used for three different situations. 'Alimony' for support during the case (SDCL 25-4-38, 'Alimony pending action') and for the freestanding action (SDCL 25-4-40). 'Separate maintenance' where a divorce is denied or not sought (SDCL 25-4-39, 25-4-40). SDCL 25-4-41, the section that governs the award on divorce, uses neither word in its text — it speaks of a 'suitable allowance … for support' — though its caption is 'Allowance for support when divorce granted' and SDCL 25-4-46 refers back to 'orders and decrees touching the alimony and maintenance of a spouse'.. 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
None tied to the length of the marriage. SDCL 25-4-41 fixes the outer limit by reference to the recipient's life, not the marriage: an allowance 'for support during the life of that other party or for a shorter period, as the court may deem just'. There is no bracket, presumption or ratio anywhere in chapter 25-4.
Does behavior matter?
Marital misconduct
This is the precision point for South Dakota, and published summaries get it wrong. SDCL 25-4-45.1, quoted verbatim: 'Fault shall not be taken into account with regard to the awarding of property or the awarding of child custody, except as it may be relevant to the acquisition of property during the marriage or to the fitness of either parent in awarding the custody of children.' The section names property and child custody. It does not name alimony. South Dakota's fault-exclusion statute therefore does not on its face bar the consideration of fault in setting an allowance for support under SDCL 25-4-41, and no other section of chapter 25-4 bars it. South Dakota also retains fault grounds for divorce. Anyone writing 'South Dakota does not consider fault' should check which award is meant.
When it ends, and when it can change
What brings it to an end
The statute is silent. Chapter 25-4 contains no provision terminating an allowance for support on death, on remarriage, on cohabitation or on retirement. The word 'remarriage' does not appear in the chapter at all; 'cohabitation' appears only in SDCL 25-4-18, on condonation as a defense to a divorce ground. The only related provision is SDCL 25-4-42: 'The court may require a spouse to give reasonable security for providing maintenance, or making any payments required under the provisions of this chapter, and may enforce the same by the appointment of a receiver, or by any other remedy applicable to the case. But when a spouse has a separate estate sufficient to give that spouse proper support, the court in its discretion may withhold any allowance to that spouse out of the separate property of the other spouse.'
Changing it later
Contained in the same sentence as the grant, with no threshold at all. SDCL 25-4-41: '… and the court may from time to time modify its orders in these respects.' No standard, no requirement of changed circumstances, and no time limit is stated. SDCL 25-4-46 adds that 'all orders and decrees touching the alimony and maintenance of a spouse, and for the custody, education, and support of the children as above provided are subject to revision on appeal in all particulars, including those which are stated to be in the discretion of the court.'
Worth knowing about South Dakota
South Dakota's alimony statute is a single sentence of nineteenth-century text and it does almost nothing: no factors, no formula, no duration rule, no termination rule, no modification standard. The one place the word 'permanent' survives is SDCL 25-4-40, on separate maintenance without a divorce: 'An action for separate maintenance may be maintained without request for divorce, upon any grounds which would be grounds for divorce, and in such cases the court shall have power to award temporary alimony, suit money, and permanent support for a spouse and the children of the parties, or any of them, by the other spouse.' That is 'permanent support' in a separate-maintenance action, not permanent alimony after divorce, and the two should not be conflated. Access note: the South Dakota Legislature's statute pages require JavaScript; the text above was read from that site's own JSON endpoint for chapter 25-4, https://sdlegislature.gov/api/Statutes/Statute/25-4?all=true, which serves the same official text the page renders.
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.
South Dakota has no state income tax, so the question of whether the state follows the federal rule does not arise. The federal treatment above is the entire picture. In four states that do levy an income tax — Arkansas, California, New Jersey and New York — it is not. The fifty-state table.
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.The other number that decides your budget
How South Dakota calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.
And the question underneath it
What South Dakota presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.
The rest of what we have written about South Dakota. Every figure is quoted from South Dakota’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.