How Maintenance Is Calculated in New York

Maintenance is what New York calls alimony. Since 2016, it has been calculated under a formula for the first 241,000 dollars of the paying spouse's income, with a court deciding what, if anything, to add above that figure. This page walks through the formula, the duration schedule, and the situations where the formula does not control.

What are the two formulas?

The statute uses two formulas depending on whether child support is also being paid.

Where the maintenance payor is also the non-custodial parent paying child support, the guideline amount is the lower of two calculations. The first is 20 percent of the payor's income minus 25 percent of the payee's income. The second is 40 percent of the combined income minus the payee's income.

Where there are no children, or the maintenance payor is the custodial parent, the guideline amount is the lower of these two calculations. The first is 30 percent of the payor's income minus 20 percent of the payee's income. The second is 40 percent of the combined income minus the payee's income.

In both cases, the payor's income is counted only up to the cap, which is 241,000 dollars as of March 1, 2026. The cap adjusts every two years.

Here is an example with no children. The payor earns 200,000 dollars and the payee earns 50,000 dollars. Thirty percent of 200,000 is 60,000. Twenty percent of 50,000 is 10,000. The first calculation is 50,000. Forty percent of the combined 250,000 is 100,000, minus the payee's 50,000, which is 50,000. The guideline amount is 50,000 dollars per year, or about 4,167 dollars per month.

Now, the same couple with children, where the payor pays child support. Twenty percent of 200,000 is 40,000. Twenty-five percent of 50,000 is 12,500. The first calculation is 27,500. The second calculation is again 50,000. The guideline is the lower figure, 27,500 dollars per year. The reason the child support formula lowers maintenance is that child support is calculated after maintenance and the statute is trying to avoid stacking the two.

What happens above the cap?

If the payor earns more than 241,000 dollars, the court applies the formula to the first 241,000 dollars and then decides whether to award additional maintenance on the income above that figure by considering the statutory factors. Those factors include the age and health of the parties, the present or future earning capacity of each party, the need of one party to incur education or training expenses, the termination of child support, wasteful dissipation, the existence and duration of pre-marital cohabitation, acts that inhibited a party's earning capacity, the availability of health insurance, the care of children or elderly relatives that inhibited earning capacity, tax consequences, the standard of living during the marriage, the reduced earning capacity of a party who delayed a career, the equitable distribution award, contributions as a homemaker and to the other party's career, and any other factor the court finds just and proper. The court must explain its reasons in writing.

How long does maintenance last?

The statute gives the court an advisory schedule based on the length of the marriage, measured from the date of the marriage to the date the divorce action was commenced.

For a marriage of up to fifteen years, maintenance for 15 to 30 percent of the length of the marriage.

For a marriage of more than fifteen years and up to twenty years, 30 to 40 percent of the length of the marriage.

For a marriage of more than twenty years, 35 to 50 percent of the length of the marriage.

So a twelve-year marriage produces a range of roughly two to four years. A twenty-five-year marriage produces a range of roughly nine to twelve and a half years. The court can go outside the schedule if it explains why, and it can award maintenance for life in an appropriate case, which is rare and usually involves a long marriage and a spouse who cannot become self-supporting because of age or health. Maintenance ends on the death of either party or the remarriage of the payee, and can be terminated if the payee is living with another person and holding themselves out as married.

What about temporary maintenance while the case is pending?

The same formulas apply to temporary maintenance under DRL 236B(5-a), and a court can award it on motion at the start of the case. Who pays the mortgage, taxes, and insurance on the marital home while the case is pending is decided at the same time, and the two awards have to be looked at together because the guideline amount may not leave room for both. In July 2026, the Second Department affirmed a Nassau County temporary maintenance award calculated under the formula and rejected the payor's argument that it should have been reduced.

Can we agree to something different?

Yes. Parties can opt out of the guidelines in a prenuptial agreement, a postnuptial agreement, or a settlement agreement, but the agreement has to recite that the parties were advised of the guidelines and, if it deviates, state what the guideline amount would have been and why the parties chose something else. A 2025 Kings County decision refused to enforce a maintenance waiver in a prenuptial agreement signed by a self-represented party because the agreement did not set out the guideline calculation. If you are signing an agreement that waives or reduces maintenance, the recitals are not boilerplate.

Taxes

For divorces finalized after December 31, 2018, maintenance is not deductible by the payor or taxable to the payee for federal income tax purposes. The state treatment can differ and should be confirmed with your accountant before a number is agreed to. Because the federal deduction is gone, the same monthly payment now costs a high-bracket payor considerably more than it did before 2019, and this affects how maintenance and property division are traded against each other in a settlement.

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