Last updated 2026-07-09
TL;DR
Texas rarely awards alimony. The state calls it "spousal maintenance" and caps it at $5,000 per month or 20% of the paying spouse's average gross monthly income, whichever is less. Eligibility is narrow. Most marriages under 10 years don't qualify at all. Maximum duration runs 5 to 10 years depending on how long you were married, with disability cases being the exception.
What is alimony called in Texas, and does Texas even allow it?
Texas calls court-ordered post-divorce support "spousal maintenance." The word "alimony" has no legal meaning in Texas statutes, which matters the second you start searching court rules or forms with the wrong term. [1]
Texas is one of the stingiest states in the country for spousal support. The legislature wrote the rules narrow on purpose. Texas Family Code Section 8.051 says a court "may not" order spousal maintenance unless the spouse asking for it meets specific threshold conditions. That phrase "may not" is doing real work. A judge has no power to award support just because one spouse earns more than the other. [1]
There's a second, separate thing called "contractual alimony." That's a deal the two of you reach privately and write into your divorce decree, with no court ordering it. It's enforceable as a contract rather than as a court order, so the remedies for non-payment are different. More on that below.
Want the national picture on how support works elsewhere? The general alimony guide covers the wider context.
Who qualifies for spousal maintenance in Texas?
To get in the door at all, you first have to show you lack enough property after the divorce to provide for your "minimum reasonable needs." [1] The statute never defines that phrase precisely, so courts look at your budget, your assets, and what you can realistically earn.
Clear that threshold and you still have to meet at least one of these four conditions:
| Eligibility Condition | Details |
|---|---|
| Marriage lasted 10+ years and spouse lacks earning ability | You cannot earn enough to meet minimum needs, even after reasonable effort |
| Spouse convicted or received deferred adjudication for family violence | Must have occurred during marriage or while divorce pending, within 2 years of filing [1] |
| Spouse has a physical or mental disability | Disability prevents self-support |
| Custodian of a child with a disability | Child's condition requires substantial care that prevents the parent from earning enough |
The 10-year rule is the one most people run into. The marriage has to have lasted at least 10 years on the date you file. [1] If you're sitting at 9 years and 11 months, that prong is closed to you.
The family violence exception comes with a hard clock. The conviction or deferred adjudication has to have happened during the marriage or while the divorce was pending, and within 2 years before the petition was filed. [1] Documentation carries weight here. A police report, a protective order, or a criminal record helps a lot.
Have a disability yourself? No minimum marriage length. Same if you're the primary caregiver for a child with a physical or mental disability that needs substantial care. [1]
How much can a Texas court actually award?
Texas Family Code Section 8.055 sets a hard statutory cap: spousal maintenance cannot exceed the lesser of $5,000 per month or 20% of the paying spouse's average gross monthly income. [1] These are not soft guidelines. A judge cannot go past them for any reason.
Average gross monthly income covers wages, salary, commissions, overtime, tips, and most other recurring income. It leaves out child support received and certain government benefits.
Most awards land well below the cap. A judge working through the factors in Section 8.052 looks at each spouse's financial resources, how long the marriage lasted, the education and work history of the person asking for support, whether that person put the other through school or helped a career along, and how the marital property got split. [1]
Section 8.052 lists the full factor set. Read it directly if you expect a contested hearing, because judges have wide latitude inside that cap.
One honest caveat: nobody publishes good aggregate data on average Texas maintenance awards. The only clean number available is the statutory maximum of $5,000 per month, and few recipients ever see it.
How long does spousal maintenance last in Texas?
Duration is tied straight to how long you were married. [1] Texas Family Code Section 8.054 sets these ceilings:
| Marriage Length | Maximum Maintenance Duration |
|---|---|
| Less than 10 years (family violence exception only) | 5 years |
| 10 to less than 20 years | 5 years |
| 20 to less than 30 years | 7 years |
| 30 years or more | 10 years |
| Disability (spouse or child) | Indefinite (as long as disability continues) |
These are maximums, not defaults. Courts are told to award the shortest period and smallest amount that lets the supported spouse meet minimum needs. [1] The statute says maintenance should run "for the shortest reasonable period." That language matters. A judge handing down 10 years in a 30-year marriage is supposed to find real justification for stretching it that long.
Maintenance ends automatically on the earliest of three events: the date written in the order, the death of either spouse, or the remarriage of the spouse getting support. [1] If that spouse is living with a romantic partner, the payer can file to modify or terminate based on changed circumstances, but cohabitation alone doesn't cut off payments the way remarriage does.
Here's the practical part. Texas courts expect the supported spouse to work toward standing on their own. If you're asking for maintenance, a real plan for school, job training, or employment strengthens your case. If you're the one paying, evidence that the other party isn't making an honest effort to become self-supporting matters at modification hearings.
What is contractual alimony and how is it different from spousal maintenance?
Contractual alimony is a voluntary deal between divorcing spouses. You set the amount, the frequency, and the duration yourselves, then write it into the divorce decree. No statutory eligibility test applies. No dollar cap. No minimum marriage length. [2]
The difference in enforcement is real. Court-ordered spousal maintenance can be enforced by contempt, meaning a judge can hold a non-paying spouse in contempt and even jail them. Contractual alimony gets enforced like any other contract, through a civil lawsuit for breach. You cannot use contempt to collect it. [2]
For most uncontested divorces where both people agree on some support, contractual alimony is the more flexible tool. You're free of the $5,000 cap and the marriage-length rules. The tradeoff is slower, pricier enforcement if the payer walks away.
Want contractual alimony in your paperwork? It needs careful drafting. The DivorceClear $149 document packet covers standard uncontested Texas divorce paperwork, though any support agreement with unusual terms is worth an attorney's eyes before you sign.
Tax note: under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, for divorces finalized after December 31, 2018, neither spousal maintenance nor contractual alimony is deductible by the payer or taxable to the recipient. [3] This flipped decades of prior tax treatment and changes how you should negotiate the actual number.
How does Texas decide between awarding support and denying it?
Even after you clear the eligibility threshold, a judge weighs the factors in Texas Family Code Section 8.052 before deciding whether to award maintenance and how much. [1] The list is long. These are the factors that carry the most real weight:
The financial resources of the spouse asking for support, including the property awarded in the divorce. Walk away with a house full of equity and that counts against you.
Your ability to earn. Courts look at education, job skills, work history, and what's actually available in your market. A spouse who left the workforce to run a home gets more credit for reduced earning capacity than one who quit a career for an unrelated reason.
Contributions to the other spouse's education or career. If you worked while your spouse got through medical or law school, that goes on the scale.
Duration of the marriage. Longer marriages make stronger cases, especially once you cross the 10-year line.
The age, employment history, and earning ability of the spouse seeking support. A 30-year-old with a college degree and recent work faces a much harder ask than a 58-year-old who spent 25 years out of the workforce.
Marital misconduct, including adultery, can be considered under Section 8.052(a)(4). Texas doesn't require fault to get divorced, but fault can still shift whether and how much maintenance gets awarded. [1]
One thing judges do not weigh: which spouse filed first.
Can you modify or terminate spousal maintenance after it's ordered?
Yes. Either spouse can ask a court to modify or terminate a maintenance order if there's been a material and substantial change in circumstances since the order was signed. [1] Texas Family Code Section 8.057 governs this.
Common grounds: a big jump or drop in either party's income, the receiving spouse landing a job or finishing a degree, or the paying spouse losing work. Courts look at whether the change is real and lasting, not a temporary dip.
Remarriage of the recipient ends maintenance automatically, by operation of law. No court filing needed to stop it, though you'll want documentation if there's a fight. [1]
Cohabitation with a romantic partner does not end maintenance automatically in Texas, unlike some states. The paying spouse has to file a motion and prove it. That's a meaningful gap between the two.
Contractual alimony works differently. Because it's a contract, not a court order, you can only change it by mutual written agreement or by winning a separate civil suit. A court has no power to just adjust it at a hearing the way it can with a maintenance order.
What happens if a spouse doesn't pay court-ordered maintenance?
Texas gives courts real teeth for enforcing maintenance orders. A judge can hold the non-paying spouse in contempt of court, which can mean fines or jail time. Courts can also order income withholding, where payments come straight out of the payer's paycheck and route through the state disbursement unit. [4]
The Texas Attorney General's office handles enforcement of court orders including spousal maintenance, though child support is its main focus. For maintenance, you typically file a motion for enforcement in the district court that issued the original order.
Have contractual alimony instead of a court order, and payments stop? Now you're filing a breach of contract suit in civil court. It takes longer and costs more. That's the practical reason some attorneys push for at least a court order on any support deal, even when both sides agree voluntarily.
Keep records. Bank statements, deposit records, and written messages about missed payments all help if enforcement ever becomes necessary.
How does property division in Texas affect a spousal maintenance claim?
Texas is a community property state. Anything earned or acquired during the marriage is generally community property and gets split between both spouses. Separate property, meaning assets owned before the marriage or received as a gift or inheritance, stays with the owner spouse. [5]
This matters for maintenance because a judge looks at the property you receive in the settlement when deciding whether you have enough resources to cover minimum needs. Get awarded a paid-off house, a retirement account, or a pile of liquid assets, and the court weighs those before granting a dime of support.
So a favorable property split can work against a maintenance request. That creates a genuine strategic tension in negotiations. Take more property and you might shrink or kill your maintenance eligibility. Take less and you might strengthen a maintenance claim while leaving yourself asset-poor.
For a full breakdown of how property gets divided in Texas, the divorce papers guide walks through the documents that capture those agreements and how they get filed.
Worth knowing: Texas Family Code Sections 3.001 and 3.002 define separate and community property. [5] Courts presume all property is community unless a spouse proves otherwise by clear and convincing evidence. If you're holding significant separate property, documentation of where it came from is what wins that argument.
Does fault matter for getting alimony in Texas?
Texas allows both no-fault and fault-based divorces. No-fault means you cite "insupportability," which is the Texas term for irreconcilable differences. Fault grounds include adultery, cruelty, abandonment, felony conviction, and living apart for three years. [6]
Fault can touch maintenance in two ways. First, the judge can consider marital misconduct, including adultery, under Section 8.052 when setting the amount and duration. [1] Second, fault affects property division under Section 7.001, and since property division feeds the maintenance analysis, the effects stack. [5]
If your spouse committed adultery, you can plead it in your petition and argue it should shape both property division and maintenance. If your spouse is throwing fault at you, that can cut what a court awards.
In uncontested divorces, fault grounds almost never surface because both people are agreeing to terms. But if you're staring down a contested case, a conversation with a divorce attorney about fault allegations is worth the consultation fee.
What do you actually have to file to request spousal maintenance in Texas?
You request spousal maintenance in your Original Petition for Divorce. The standard Texas petition form has a checkbox asking whether you're requesting maintenance. Skip it in your original petition and you may have to amend before the final hearing. [7]
At the final hearing, you bring evidence that backs your eligibility: proof of how long the marriage lasted, documentation of your finances, records of any disability, or the criminal records if you're using the family violence exception.
Texas Law Help (texaslawhelp.org), run by the Texas Legal Services Center, offers free self-help forms and instructions built specifically for spousal maintenance requests. The Texas Courts website also keeps official approved forms. [7][8]
Filing fees vary by county but usually run $250 to $350 for the initial divorce petition across most of Texas. Harris County (Houston) sits around $300, and Travis County (Austin) is in the same range. Fee waivers are available if you qualify by income. [9]
If both spouses agree on contractual alimony and want a clean uncontested divorce, DivorceClear's $149 document packet prepares the core Texas paperwork, and you add the contractual alimony terms as a separate agreed order or fold them into the final decree.
One real-world warning: maintenance hearings can turn contested fast. If your spouse disputes eligibility or amount, you'll likely want a divorce lawyer for at least that piece.
How does Texas spousal maintenance compare to other states?
Texas sits at the restrictive end of the national spectrum. A few comparisons:
| State | Typical Standard | Cap or Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Texas | Must meet statutory threshold; short default periods | $5,000/mo or 20% of gross income [1] |
| California | Discretionary; long marriages often get long-term support | No statutory dollar cap; judge-guided |
| New York | Formulaic calculation; presumptive duration limits | Percentage of income formula |
| Florida | "Bridge-the-gap" default; permanent alimony largely eliminated 2023 | Various types; income-based |
| Massachusetts | Discretionary; general term alimony capped at 35% of income difference | 35% income cap [10] |
Stack up the hard dollar cap, the 10-year marriage threshold for the most common eligibility prong, and the standing instruction to award the shortest possible duration, and Texas comes out genuinely unusual. States like California hand judges far more room to work.
If you moved to Texas from another state recently, the marriage-length and residency rules from where you lived before don't matter. Texas law applies once you file here, and you have to meet Texas residency requirements first: 6 months in the state and 90 days in the county. [6]
For a wider look at how divorce rates and financial outcomes shake out nationally, the divorce rate in America page has the context.
Frequently asked questions
Does Texas have alimony?
Texas doesn't use the word "alimony" in its statutes. The equivalent is spousal maintenance, available only in limited circumstances under Texas Family Code Section 8.051. Eligibility is strict: you generally need a marriage of at least 10 years plus a proven inability to earn enough for minimum needs, or specific situations like family violence or disability. Awards are capped at $5,000 per month.
How long do you have to be married in Texas to get spousal maintenance?
For the most common path, the marriage must have lasted at least 10 years as of the date you file. There are exceptions with no minimum length: if your spouse was convicted of or received deferred adjudication for family violence during the marriage, if you have a disabling condition that prevents self-support, or if you care for a disabled child, under Texas Family Code Section 8.051.
What is the maximum alimony payment in Texas?
Texas Family Code Section 8.055 caps spousal maintenance at the lesser of $5,000 per month or 20% of the paying spouse's average gross monthly income. Courts cannot exceed this limit no matter the circumstances. Most awards land below the cap because judges are also directed to award the smallest amount needed to cover minimum reasonable needs.
How long does spousal maintenance last in Texas?
Duration depends on marriage length under Section 8.054. For marriages of 10 to 20 years, the maximum is 5 years. For 20 to 30 years, up to 7 years. For 30 or more years, up to 10 years. If the family violence exception applies and the marriage was under 10 years, the maximum is 5 years. Disability-based maintenance can continue as long as the disability lasts.
Can you get alimony after a short marriage in Texas?
Generally no, unless the family violence exception applies or you or a child in your care has a disability. The standard 10-year threshold shuts out shorter marriages from the typical route. If you and your spouse agree on voluntary post-divorce support, you can still write contractual alimony into your decree with no minimum marriage-length requirement.
What is contractual alimony in Texas and is it enforceable?
Contractual alimony is a voluntary agreement between spouses, written into the divorce decree, that skips the statutory eligibility rules. It's enforceable as a contract, not a court order. If payments stop, you file a civil breach of contract suit rather than a contempt motion. You cannot be jailed for missing contractual alimony the way you can for violating a court-ordered maintenance obligation.
Is Texas alimony taxable income?
No, for divorces finalized after December 31, 2018. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act killed the deduction for the payer and the income inclusion for the recipient. Both spousal maintenance and contractual alimony are now tax-neutral: the paying spouse gets no deduction, and the receiving spouse pays no income tax on the payments. This holds regardless of what your decree says about taxes.
Can I get alimony in an uncontested Texas divorce?
You can include contractual alimony in an agreed, uncontested divorce with no eligibility threshold. Both spouses agree on the amount and duration and put it in the final decree. Court-ordered spousal maintenance in a truly uncontested divorce is uncommon because a judge has to make statutory findings, but a spouse can acknowledge eligibility and consent to an order, which simplifies the hearing.
Does adultery affect alimony in Texas?
Yes, it can. Texas Family Code Section 8.052 lets courts consider marital misconduct, including adultery, when deciding whether to award spousal maintenance and how much. Adultery can also affect property division under Section 7.001, and since the property you receive feeds the maintenance analysis, fault can hit both issues at once.
How do I stop paying spousal maintenance in Texas?
Maintenance ends automatically when the recipient remarries or either spouse dies. For other changes, you file a motion to modify or terminate under Texas Family Code Section 8.057, showing a material and substantial change in circumstances. Common grounds include a big income change for either party, the recipient finishing school and getting hired, or cohabitation. A judge then holds a hearing and decides.
What does 'minimum reasonable needs' mean in Texas spousal maintenance law?
Texas Family Code Section 8.051 requires the requesting spouse to show they lack enough property to cover their minimum reasonable needs, but the statute never defines the phrase precisely. Courts compare basic living expenses (housing, food, transportation, healthcare) against the spouse's income and assets after the divorce. It's a low bar, not a comfortable-lifestyle standard, and judges have discretion in how they apply it.
Can a man get spousal maintenance in Texas?
Yes. Texas Family Code Section 8.051 is gender-neutral. Either spouse can request maintenance, and the same eligibility rules apply regardless of who earns more. Men in long marriages where their spouse out-earned them, or men with disabilities, do receive maintenance awards. What decides it is financial circumstances and marriage duration, not gender.
What Texas forms do I need to request spousal maintenance?
You request spousal maintenance in your Original Petition for Divorce. Standard Texas district court petition forms include a spousal maintenance checkbox. At the final hearing you present supporting evidence. Free official forms are available through the Texas Courts website (txcourts.gov) and Texas Law Help (texaslawhelp.org). Filing fees run roughly $250 to $350 depending on county, with fee waivers available based on income.
Sources
- Texas Legislature, Texas Family Code Chapter 8 (Maintenance): Texas Family Code Sections 8.051 through 8.059 set all eligibility, cap, duration, and modification rules for spousal maintenance in Texas
- Texas Legislature, Texas Family Code Section 9.011 (Contractual Alimony Enforcement): Contractual alimony is enforceable as a contract, not a court order, so contempt remedies do not apply to unpaid contractual alimony
- IRS, Publication 504: Divorced or Separated Individuals: For divorce or separation agreements executed after December 31, 2018, alimony and separate maintenance payments are not deductible by the payer and not included in the recipient's income under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
- Texas Attorney General, Child Support Division: Texas courts can order income withholding for spousal maintenance, requiring payments to be deducted directly from the paying spouse's paycheck
- Texas Legislature, Texas Family Code Chapter 3 (Marital Property Rights): Texas Family Code Sections 3.001 and 3.002 define separate and community property; all property is presumed community unless proven otherwise with clear and convincing evidence
- Texas Legislature, Texas Family Code Chapter 6 (Grounds for Divorce): Texas fault-based divorce grounds include adultery, cruelty, abandonment, felony conviction, and living apart for three years; residency requires 6 months in state and 90 days in the filing county
- Texas Law Help (Texas Legal Services Center), Divorce Forms and Instructions: Free self-help forms and instructions for Texas divorce including spousal maintenance requests are available through the Texas Legal Services Center's public website
- Texas Courts, Self-Help Center Forms: The Texas Courts website provides official approved forms for divorce proceedings including petitions with spousal maintenance checkboxes
- Harris County District Clerk, Filing Fees Schedule: Divorce petition filing fees in Harris County (Houston) are approximately $300; similar fees apply across major Texas counties with fee waivers available based on income
- Massachusetts Legislature, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 208 Section 53 (Alimony Reform Act): Massachusetts caps general term alimony at 35% of the difference in the spouses' gross incomes, providing a comparison point for Texas's 20% of payer gross income cap