Alimony in Wyoming.
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 stateWyoming
There is no arithmetic in Wyoming’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
Wyoming calls it alimony, and the statute uses 'temporary or permanent' as its only classification. Wyo. Stat. section 20-2-112(a) refers to a court's power '[t]o enforce its orders concerning alimony, temporary or permanent, or property or pecuniary interests'. Section 20-2-111 is captioned 'Alimony during pendency of action'. Wyoming's statutes do not use 'spousal support' or 'maintenance' for this award.. 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 — None. Nothing in Wyo. Stat. sections 20-2-111 through 20-2-116 ties duration to the length of the marriage; there is no bracket, presumption, ratio or maximum term, and the length of the marriage is not named as a consideration anywhere in the alimony provisions.
- Does behavior matter? — Wyoming's statute therefore neither requires, permits nor bars consideration of marital misconduct in fixing alimony; it does direct the court to weigh 'the respective merits of the parties' when dividing property.
- When it ends, and when it can change — The statute is silent. Title 20 contains no provision terminating alimony on death, on remarriage, on cohabitation or on retirement.
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 — None. Nothing in Wyo. Stat. sections 20-2-111 through 20-2-116 ties duration to the length of the marriage; there is no bracket, presumption, ratio or maximum term, and the length of the marriage is not named as a consideration anywhere in the alimony provisions.
- Does behavior matter? — Wyoming's statute therefore neither requires, permits nor bars consideration of marital misconduct in fixing alimony; it does direct the court to weigh 'the respective merits of the parties' when dividing property.
- When it ends, and when it can change — The statute is silent. Title 20 contains no provision terminating alimony on death, on remarriage, on cohabitation or on retirement.
In this subject 4
The power the court has
What the judge has to weigh
How long it lasts
Duration
None. Nothing in Wyo. Stat. sections 20-2-111 through 20-2-116 ties duration to the length of the marriage; there is no bracket, presumption, ratio or maximum term, and the length of the marriage is not named as a consideration anywhere in the alimony provisions. The only durational language is the power in section 20-2-114(a) to assign real estate or its rents and profits 'to either party for life'.
Does behavior matter?
Marital misconduct
Not answered for alimony, and the phrase that looks like an answer belongs to the property sentence. 'Having regard for the respective merits of the parties' appears in the first sentence of section 20-2-114(a), which governs 'such disposition of the property of the parties as appears just and equitable'. The alimony sentence that follows names only 'the other's ability to pay'. Wyoming's statute therefore neither requires, permits nor bars consideration of marital misconduct in fixing alimony; it does direct the court to weigh 'the respective merits of the parties' when dividing property.
When it ends, and when it can change
What brings it to an end
The statute is silent. Title 20 contains no provision terminating alimony on death, on remarriage, on cohabitation or on retirement. The word 'remarriage' appears in Title 20 only at section 20-2-204(b), on the remarriage of the parents to each other in the child support context; 'cohabit' appears only in the marriage-validity and condonation provisions at sections 20-2-101 and 20-2-104 and in section 20-2-108. Nothing in the divorce article addresses the effect of a recipient's remarriage on alimony.
Changing it later
Wyo. Stat. section 20-2-116, quoted verbatim in full: 'After a decree for alimony or other allowance for a party or children and after a decree for the appointment of trustees to receive and hold any property for the use of a party or children pursuant to W.S. 20-2-314, the court may from time to time, on the petition of either of the parties, revise and alter the decree respecting the amount of the alimony or allowance or the payment thereof and respecting the appropriation and payment of the principal and income of the property so held in trust and may make any decree respecting any of the matters which the court might have made in the original action.' No threshold, standard or time limit is stated.
Worth knowing about Wyoming
Wyoming has the thinnest alimony statute in this batch: one sentence of grant, one sentence of revision, no factors, no formula, no cap, no duration rule and no termination rule. It is also the one state in this group whose statutes still use the phrase 'permanent' alimony — section 20-2-112(a), on enforcement, speaks of 'orders concerning alimony, temporary or permanent' — although no section defines what a permanent award is or when one may be made. Set against North Dakota, which in the same batch forbids permanent spousal support by name and caps the term by statute, the two states bracket the range.
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.
Wyoming 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 Wyoming calculates child support, and the overnight count that moves it more than income does.
And the question underneath it
What Wyoming presumes about custody, and what the judge has to weigh.
The rest of what we have written about Wyoming. Every figure is quoted from Wyoming’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.