Temporary orders: what happens while the divorce is running
A divorce takes months, often more than a year. The rent is due in the middle of it, and so is everything else. What a court can do about that in the meantime has a Latin name — pendente lite, meaning while the case is pending — and it is the part almost nothing written about divorce covers, even though it decides how you actually live through it.
In 47 states we confirmed the court can order temporary spousal support while the case runs, and in 44 it can order one spouse to pay the other’s legal fees — the provision that decides whether the spouse without the money can fight at all. In 20 states, filing itself triggers automatic orders that freeze both of you: no selling assets, no canceling the insurance, no moving the children out of state. Nobody has to ask for those. They are simply on.
The automatic orders: what filing switches on by itself
In 20 states — 18 of them statewide, the rest by local court rule — the act of filing puts both spouses under a standing restraining order without anyone requesting it. They are not about violence. They are about stopping the obvious damage people do in the first two weeks.
- Do not sell, transfer, hide or borrow against the assets. New York’s version also bars withdrawing retirement funds and incurring unreasonable debt.
- Do not cancel the insurance. Health, dental, life, home, car. Colorado requires fourteen days’ written notice and consent before any of it lapses. Oklahoma’s order affirmatively requires both spouses to keep every existing policy in force.
- Do not change the beneficiaries.
- Do not move the children out of state. Wisconsin also bars moving a child more than 100 miles inside the state for more than 90 days. Tennessee’s order sets a 50-mile limit and extends to destroying electronically stored evidence.
- Utah’s goes further than most: it bars using the other spouse’s identity to obtain credit, and cutting off their phone or utilities.
In most of these states the orders bind the person who filed from the moment they file, and the other spouse only when they are served. Arizona, Montana, Rhode Island and Wisconsin all say so explicitly. There is a real gap in between — and it is the reason the sequence of filing and serving is a tactical decision rather than a clerical one.
21 states have no automatic orders at all, and in those nothing is frozen unless you ask a judge to freeze it. In 9 more we could not confirm it at an official source, usually because the rules live behind a commercial publisher.
Temporary support: what you might receive
Almost every state can order it — 47 confirmed — but only four put a number on it. California, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia publish a formula or guideline for the temporary amount. Everywhere else it is the judge’s discretion on need and ability to pay, which is why two neighbors in the same courthouse can get very different answers.
- California: the courts’ own self-help guidance describes 40 per cent of the higher earner’s net income minus 50 per cent of the lower earner’s, and is careful to call it a guide rather than a rule.
- New York: a statutory formula on income up to a cap stated in the law as $184,000 — broadly 20 or 30 per cent of the payer’s income less a share of the payee’s, subject to a 40-per-cent-of-combined-income ceiling.
- Virginia: a presumptive formula in the district courts on combined monthly gross income up to $10,000 — 26 per cent less 58 per cent of the payee’s income where there are children, 27 and 50 where there are not.
- Pennsylvania: a percentage of the difference in incomes, with a self-support reserve, set by rule of court.
Child support is the opposite. In most states the ordinary child support guideline applies to the temporary order too — Alabama and Wyoming say so expressly — so the number for the children is far more predictable than the number for the adult. In West Virginia a temporary child support order and a temporary parenting order are mandatory where there are children, while temporary spousal support is not.
Who pays for the lawyer
This is the provision most people have never heard of, and it is the one that decides whether a spouse without money can be represented at all. In 44 states we confirmed the court can order one spouse to pay the other’s legal fees during the case — not at the end, when it is too late to matter. The old name for it is suit money.
- New York creates a rebuttable presumption that fees will be awarded to the less-monied spouse. The burden is on the richer one to argue otherwise.
- Florida’s statute is mandatory in form: if the claim is well founded the court shall allow a reasonable sum for support and suit money.
- Illinois treats interim fee awards as advances from the marital estate, squared up at the end — which is the honest way to think about it everywhere.
- New Jersey can order a retainer paid up front, for legal and expert services.
- Maryland makes a fee award mandatory against a party who litigated without substantial justification.
- Two states do not appear to have it at all, and that is worth more to you than any of the yeses, because a reader who assumes the power exists will not think to ask for anything else. Louisiana: art. 113 does not reach fees, and R.S. 9:375 is an enforcement remedy rather than an interim provision. New Hampshire: we read the whole of RSA chapter 458 and there is no interim fee provision in it — its only fee section is a contempt remedy.
- Vermont has the power but no statute granting it. Its Supreme Court derives it from two sections that merely presuppose orders for suit money. Worth knowing if you are looking for a section number to point a judge at and cannot find one.
Four states we still could not confirm: Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Mississippi. In each case the obstacle is publication rather than law — a code licensed to a commercial publisher, a server with a broken certificate chain, or a page that returns an empty application to any reader. That is a gap in our reading, not evidence the power is absent. Georgia at least has a name for it: “expenses of litigation”.
The same order, from the other side
Every sentence above is money arriving for one person and leaving for the other, and the second reader deserves the same straight answer as the first.
What to expect
It is not the final answer. Virginia says outright that a pendente lite order has no presumptive effect on the final case. Indiana’s provisional order dies the moment the decree is entered.
Ask early. Kentucky requires a motion for temporary child support within fourteen days of filing. Iowa will not backdate a support change more than three months before the notice of hearing.
Bring the numbers. Missouri requires a sworn affidavit of the amounts sought; Iowa decides on affidavits; Washington decides the temporary parenting plan on declarations about who has actually been doing the caretaking.
What to expect
It usually counts. New York credits temporary maintenance already paid against the award. Illinois treats interim fees as an advance from the marital estate to be reconciled at the end. Assume it is an advance, not a gift — and keep proof of every payment.
It is not permanent, and it is changeable — but only by going back to court. Stopping payment because your income dropped is contempt; asking the court to reduce it is a motion.
Do not try to become poorer. Missouri’s courts are explicit that purposely putting yourself out of funds is not good cause, and every state has some version of imputed income for it.
The number that decides both sides is the same number: what each of you actually earns, and what the household actually costs. That is why the financial affidavit is the most consequential document in the first month. What two households really cost is the arithmetic behind it, and the worksheet is here.
The children, in the meantime
In 42 states we confirmed the court can make temporary custody and parenting-time orders while the case runs. Two things about them matter more than the law.
- They are decided fast and on paper. Often on affidavits or declarations, without live evidence. Ohio can decide on the documents alone if no counter-affidavit arrives within fourteen days.
- They become the status quo, and the status quo tends to win. A temporary schedule that runs for a year is the arrangement a judge is looking at when the final decision arrives. This is why the temporary order deserves more attention than its name suggests — and it is the strongest practical argument against agreeing to something unworkable just to keep the peace early on.
- Emergency orders are genuinely short. Massachusetts caps an emergency custody order made without notice at five days.
State by state
Read against each state’s own statutes and court rules on 4 September 2026. Re-checked on 5 September 2026. Forty-four states confirmed yes, two confirmed no — Louisiana and New Hampshire, where the power simply is not in the divorce statute — and four still say not confirmed, with the reason named in the row. Those four publish their code only through a commercial license, a server with a broken certificate, or a page that returns an empty application to any reader.
| State | Automatic orders on filing | Temporary spousal support | Court can make one spouse pay the other’s legal fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Not confirmed — the legislature’s code viewer serves no text to a reader |
| Alaska | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Arizona | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Arkansas | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| California | Yes — statewide | Yesformula | Yes |
| Colorado | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes — C.R.S. § 14-10-119 |
| Connecticut | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Delaware | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Florida | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Georgia | No — you have to ask | Not confirmed | Not confirmed — the O.C.G.A. is licensed to a commercial publisher. Georgia calls it “expenses of litigation” |
| Hawaii | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Idaho | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Illinois | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Indiana | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Not confirmed — every code path on the legislature’s site returns an empty app |
| Iowa | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes — Iowa Code § 598.11(1) |
| Kansas | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Yes — K.S.A. § 23-2707(a)(5) |
| Kentucky | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Louisiana | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | No — art. 113 does not reach fees, and R.S. 9:375 is an enforcement remedy |
| Maine | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes — 19-A M.R.S. § 105(2), and it names expert witnesses too |
| Maryland | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Massachusetts | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Michigan | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Minnesota | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Mississippi | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Not confirmed — the legislature’s server presents a broken certificate chain |
| Missouri | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Montana | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Nebraska | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Nevada | Yes — by local rule | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| New Hampshire | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | No provision — RSA ch. 458 has none; its only fee section is for contempt |
| New Jersey | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| New Mexico | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| New York | Yes — statewide | Yesformula | Yes |
| North Carolina | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| North Dakota | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Ohio | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Oklahoma | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes — 43 O.S. § 110(B)(1)(e) |
| Oregon | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Pennsylvania | No — you have to ask | Yesformula | Yes |
| Rhode Island | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| South Carolina | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| South Dakota | Not confirmed | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes — SDCL 25-4-38, and 15-17-38 says “before or after judgment” |
| Tennessee | Yes — statewide | Not confirmed | Yes — Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-5-121(b) |
| Texas | Yes — by local rule | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Utah | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Vermont | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes — but from case law, not statute: Randall v. Hooper, 2020 VT 32 |
| Virginia | No — you have to ask | Yesformula | Yes |
| Washington | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| West Virginia | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Wisconsin | Yes — statewide | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
| Wyoming | No — you have to ask | Yes — judge’s discretion | Yes |
The first two weeks
- Find out whether your state has automatic orders, and if it does, read them. They are usually printed on the summons.
- Do not move money, sell anything, or change a beneficiary until you know. In twenty states doing so is already a breach of a court order.
- Fill in the financial affidavit properly. It sets the temporary number and it follows you through the whole case.
- Ask about fees at the same time as support, not later. In several states the two are in the same statute and the same motion.
- Treat the temporary parenting schedule as if it were permanent, because it very often becomes the template.
- Keep proof of everything you pay from the day you separate, whether or not anyone has ordered you to pay it.
Compiled 4 September 2026 from each state’s statutes and rules of court, with the citation for every row in the table. Counts in the text exclude states we could not confirm. This is information, not advice about your case — temporary relief is one of the most fact-driven parts of a divorce. Tell us if we have one wrong.
Keep reading
- Separation and moving out — what it costs you, and what it does not
- Can I afford to get divorced? — the arithmetic behind the number
- What divorce costs
- If you think assets are being hidden
- What to expect in your state — grounds, residency and the clocks
- Questions to ask a lawyer — thirty of them, with bad answers