Alimony in Wisconsin.
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 stateWisconsin
There is no arithmetic in Wisconsin’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
Wisconsin calls it 'Maintenance'. Wis. Stat. 767.56 is captioned 'Maintenance' and its subsection (1c) is captioned 'Factors to consider for granting.' The words 'alimony' and 'spousal support' do not appear in the operative text. Wisconsin also uses 'family support' as a separate combined award, formerly under Wis. Stat. 767.531 (now shown as '767.531, 2019 stats.' in the definition at 767.59(1)).. 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 — No bracket, no cap, no schedule and no presumption keyed to the length of the marriage.
- Does behavior matter? — The maintenance statute is silent.
- When it ends, and when it can change — Death, by statute, at Wis. Stat. 767.56(2c), quoted verbatim in full: 'Terminates at death of payee or payer.
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 — No bracket, no cap, no schedule and no presumption keyed to the length of the marriage.
- Does behavior matter? — The maintenance statute is silent.
- When it ends, and when it can change — Death, by statute, at Wis. Stat. 767.56(2c), quoted verbatim in full: 'Terminates at death of payee or payer.
In this subject 4
The power the court has
What the judge has to weigh
How long it lasts
Duration
No bracket, no cap, no schedule and no presumption keyed to the length of the marriage. The entire duration rule is the phrase in Wis. Stat. 767.56(1c): maintenance may be granted 'for a limited or indefinite length of time, subject to sub. (2c)'. Subsection (2c) is the death provision quoted in the termination field. The length of the marriage enters only as factor (1c)(a).
Does behavior matter?
Marital misconduct
The maintenance statute is silent. Wis. Stat. 767.56 contains no reference to fault, misconduct, adultery or the cause of the breakdown, and no such item appears among the ten factors. Chapter 767 does abolish fault as a defense to the action itself: Wis. Stat. 767.317, quoted verbatim in full, is 'Defenses abolished. Previously existing defenses to divorce and legal separation, including but not limited to condonation, connivance, collusion, recrimination, insanity, and lapse of time, are abolished.' That section governs grounds, not the maintenance award. The Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau prints an annotation to 767.56 on the Legislature's own site which states: 'The trial court may not consider marital misconduct as a relevant factor in granting maintenance payments. Dixon v. Dixon, 107 Wis. 2d 492, 319 N.W.2d 846 (1982).' That is an annotation summarizing a decision, not statutory text, and is reproduced here labeled as such; the opinion itself was not read from a primary source. Sources: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/767/vi/56 and https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/767/iv/317
When it ends, and when it can change
What brings it to an end
Death, by statute, at Wis. Stat. 767.56(2c), quoted verbatim in full: 'Terminates at death of payee or payer. Unless already terminated for another reason, maintenance granted under this section terminates upon the death of the payee or the payer, whichever occurs first.' Remarriage is handled differently: it does not terminate the order by operation of law, it obliges the court to vacate the order. Wis. Stat. 767.59(3), quoted verbatim in full: 'Remarriage; vacating maintenance order. After a final judgment requiring maintenance payments has been rendered and the payee has remarried, the court shall, on application of the payer with notice to the payee and upon proof of the payee's remarriage, or upon receiving notice from the payee of the payee's remarriage, as required under s. 767.58 (1r) (c), vacate the order requiring the maintenance payments.' The payee's own notice duty is imposed by Wis. Stat. 767.58(1r)(c), quoted verbatim: 'Each order for maintenance payments shall include an order requiring the payee to notify the court and the payer within 10 business days of the payee's remarriage.' There is no cohabitation provision. Neither 767.56 nor 767.59 makes cohabitation by the payee a termination event, a presumption or a listed factor. The LRB annotation to 767.56 on the Legislature's own site records: 'It was improper to discontinue maintenance payments to a former wife solely upon the ground of her cohabitation with another man. Van Gorder v. Van Gorder, 110 Wis. 2d 188, 327 N.W.2d 674 (1983).' Again, that is an annotation, not statutory text. Sources: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/767/vi/59 and https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/767/vi/58
Changing it later
Wis. Stat. 767.59(1c), quoted verbatim in full: 'Court authority. (a) On the petition, motion, or order to show cause of either of the parties, the department, a county department under s. 46.215, 46.22, or 46.23, or a county child support agency under s. 59.53 (5) if an assignment has been made under s. 48.57 (3m) (b) 2. or (3n) (b) 2., 48.645 (3), 49.19 (4) (h), or 49.45 (19) or if either party or their minor children receive aid under s. 48.57 (3m) or (3n) or 48.645 or ch. 49, a court may, except as provided in par. (b), do any of the following: 1. Revise and alter a support or maintenance order as to the amount and payment of maintenance or child support and the appropriation and payment of the principal and income of property held in trust. 2. Make any judgment or order on any matter that the court might have made in the original action. (b) A court may not revise or modify a judgment or order that waives maintenance payments for either party or a judgment or order with respect to final division of property.' Cost of living is expressly enough, at Wis. Stat. 767.59(1k), quoted verbatim in full: 'Maintenance: change in cost of living. In an action under this section to revise maintenance payments, a substantial change in the cost of living for either party or as measured by the federal bureau of labor statistics may be sufficient to support a revision of the amount of maintenance, except that a change in an obligor's cost of living is not by itself sufficient if payments are expressed as a percentage of income.' Relief runs forward only, at 767.59(1m): 'In an action under sub. (1c) to revise a judgment or order with respect to child support, maintenance payments, or family support payments, the court may not revise the amount of child support, maintenance payments, or family support payments due, or an amount of arrearages in child support, maintenance payments, or family support payments that has accrued, prior to the date that notice of the action is given to the respondent, except to correct previous errors in calculations.' Note the drafting: the express 'substantial change in circumstances' requirement at 767.59(1f) is written for child and family support, not for maintenance; the maintenance-specific threshold provision is (1k).
Worth knowing about Wisconsin
Four. First, a waiver of maintenance in Wisconsin is final and the court has no power to undo it: Wis. Stat. 767.59(1c)(b) provides that 'A court may not revise or modify a judgment or order that waives maintenance payments for either party or a judgment or order with respect to final division of property.' A maintenance award of $0 held open and a waiver of maintenance are therefore two entirely different outcomes in a Wisconsin judgment. Second, remarriage does not end maintenance by itself. It obliges the payee to notify the court and the payer within 10 business days under 767.58(1r)(c), and it obliges the court, on application or on receiving that notice, to vacate the order under 767.59(3). Third, the statute is silent on cohabitation – Wisconsin has no cohabitation provision at all in its maintenance sections. Fourth, Wisconsin legislated a modification trigger most states do not: a substantial change in the cost of living, for either party or as measured by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, 'may be sufficient' on its own under 767.59(1k), with a carve-out where the order is expressed as a percentage of income.
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, Wisconsin’s own income tax follows the federal treatment, so for any instrument executed after 31 December 2018 — which is almost everyone reading this — the federal answer above is the whole answer here, with no state adjustment either way. Four states do not conform their state income tax to it — Arkansas, California, New Jersey and New York — so this is worth knowing rather than assuming. The fifty-state table.
Two Wisconsin-specific things the federal answer does not cover. First, if your instrument predates 1 January 2019 and is grandfathered into the old deductible treatment, Wisconsin’s marital property law can cut the state deduction to nothing for payments you make while you are still married — which in practice means payments under a temporary order. Publication 109 allows the deduction only to the extent that the payments, plus the marital property income your spouse already controlled, exceed your spouse’s half share of the marital property income. The Department’s own worked example: your services produce $40,000 of wages, your spouse’s produce none, and you pay $15,000 of alimony under a temporary order. Because your spouse’s half share is $20,000, none of the $15,000 is deductible in Wisconsin, although it would be deductible on the federal return. Payments made after the divorce is final under a pre-2019 instrument stay deductible. Second, Wisconsin does not pick up federal tax changes automatically. It uses the Internal Revenue Code as amended to 31 December 2022, and laws enacted after that date do not apply in Wisconsin unless the Legislature adopts them. So if Congress ever restored the alimony deduction — the contingency New Hampshire wrote into its own statute, just above — Wisconsin would not follow along until it legislated to.
Source: Wisconsin Department of Revenue, Publication 109, ‘Tax Information for Married Persons Filing Separate Returns and Persons Divorced in 2025’ (rev. 02/26), page 19, section C(5) Alimony: ‘Beginning on January 1, 2019, any divorce agreement providing for the payment of alimony no longer has a tax effect on the payor or payee’s tax return… for divorce agreements entered into after December 31, 2018, the payor of the alimony is no longer allowed to claim a deduction for the payment and the payee… is no longer required to include the alimony on their tax return as income. Wisconsin follows these federal changes.’ Pre-2019 agreements are expressly grandfathered with the old deductible/includable treatment, subject to the marital-property limitation and the worked examples at pages 19–20 of the same publication. The conformity date was confirmed twice: by the Department of Revenue’s Customer Service Bureau in correspondence of 15 September 2026, and by Wisconsin’s own 2025 Form 1 Instructions, page 13 — ‘Wisconsin uses the provisions of federal law amended to December 31, 2022, with certain exceptions. Laws enacted after December 31, 2022, may not be used for Wisconsin unless adopted by the Legislature.’ the state source
The other number that decides your budget
How Wisconsin calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.
And the question underneath it
What Wisconsin presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.
The rest of what we have written about Wisconsin. Every figure is quoted from Wisconsin’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.