Delaware Alimony Laws: Duration, Termination, and Taxes

Under Delaware alimony laws, a court can order one spouse to pay financial support to the other during a divorce and after it is final, but only if the receiving spouse qualifies as a “dependent party” and the paying spouse has the means to pay. The amount and duration turn on the couple’s finances, the length of the marriage, and how quickly the dependent spouse can realistically become self-supporting. Delaware also caps how long alimony can last based on how long the marriage lasted.

Who Can Receive Alimony in Delaware

A Delaware court will award alimony only if it finds the requesting spouse is financially dependent on the other and that the other spouse isn’t already contractually obligated to provide post-divorce support.¹ Dependency is not the same as being unable to earn anything. The judge looks at the whole financial picture, including the marital property each spouse walks away with, and decides whether the requesting spouse can actually meet their own reasonable needs after the split.

A spouse may also qualify if they need time and funds to get further education or training before they can find appropriate work. That path is common where one spouse stepped back from a career to raise children or run the household.

What the Court Considers

Delaware law directs the court to weigh a specific set of factors in deciding whether to award alimony, how much, and for how long:

Each spouse’s financial resources, including income, assets, debts, and share of marital property after division.
How much time and money it would take for the dependent spouse to get the training or education needed for suitable employment.
The standard of living the couple maintained during the marriage.
The length of the marriage.
The age, physical condition, and emotional condition of both spouses.
Any contribution one spouse made to the other’s education, training, or earning power, including homemaking and child care.
Whether the paying spouse can meet their own needs while making the payments.
Tax consequences for each party.
Whether either spouse gave up employment or economic opportunities during the marriage.

The statute also lets the court consider any other factor it finds just and appropriate.¹

One thing the court doesn’t weigh is who behaved badly during the marriage. Delaware is a no-fault state, and the alimony statute tells the court to decide “without regard to marital misconduct.”¹ An affair or other misbehavior won’t disqualify a dependent spouse from receiving support, and it won’t increase the award either.

How Long Alimony Can Last

The duration rule is where Delaware law trips people up. For any marriage that lasted less than 20 years, alimony cannot run longer than half the length of the marriage. A 12-year marriage produces a maximum alimony window of six years. A five-year marriage produces a maximum of two and a half.¹

For marriages of 20 years or more, there is no statutory cap. That doesn’t mean payments automatically run forever. The court still applies the factors above and can set a shorter term when the facts call for it. Open-ended awards tend to appear where the dependent spouse is unlikely to achieve financial independence because of age, serious health problems, or a long absence from the workforce.

While a divorce case is still pending, the court can order temporary (interim) support to keep the dependent spouse afloat until a final order replaces it. Most post-divorce awards are time-limited and designed to bridge the period while the recipient trains for or finds work.

The Recipient’s Duty to Seek Work

Receiving alimony in Delaware comes with an ongoing obligation. The recipient must make good-faith efforts to find appropriate employment and, where needed, pursue vocational training.¹ A recipient who sits on the award and makes no effort toward self-support can lose it.

The court can waive this requirement in limited circumstances. A severe and incapacitating physical or mental illness or disability, or an age that makes employment unrealistic, can excuse it permanently. Caring for minor children living in the home can excuse it temporarily.¹

When Alimony Ends Automatically

Certain events end alimony on their own, with no court hearing required, unless the parties agreed otherwise in writing. The obligation to pay future alimony terminates on:

The death of either spouse.
The recipient’s remarriage.
The recipient’s cohabitation with another adult where the two hold themselves out as a couple. The other person’s gender doesn’t matter, and the new relationship doesn’t need to provide any financial benefit. Sexual relations can be used as evidence of cohabitation but aren’t required to prove it.

A recipient who remarries or begins cohabiting has to notify the paying spouse promptly.¹ Cohabitation is where most disputes come up. Courts look at the totality of the circumstances to decide whether the couple is holding themselves out as a pair, rather than fixing on any single indicator.

Changing an Alimony Order

Either spouse can ask the court to modify or terminate an existing alimony order, but the standard is high. The moving party has to show a “real and substantial change of circumstances” since the original order.² Small income swings or routine cost-of-living shifts usually won’t clear that bar.

Changes that may justify a modification include a serious illness or disability that drops the paying spouse’s earnings, an unexpected job loss, or a significant jump in the recipient’s income beyond what anyone anticipated. Courts also consider whether the change was foreseeable when the original order was entered. A shift both sides could have predicted carries less weight.

Taxes on Delaware Alimony

For any alimony agreement finalized after December 31, 2018, the paying spouse cannot deduct the payments on their federal return, and the receiving spouse does not report them as taxable income.³ Alimony comes out of after-tax dollars for the payer.

Older agreements finalized on or before December 31, 2018, still follow the prior rules: deductible to the payer, taxable to the recipient. If one of those older agreements was modified after 2018, the old tax treatment stays in place unless the modification specifically says the payments are no longer deductible or includable in income.⁴ Factor that reality in when negotiating numbers today, because the tax shelter that once softened larger payments is gone for new orders.

1
Justia. Delaware Code 13 – 1512 – Alimony in Divorce and Annulment Actions; Award; Limitations
2
Justia. Delaware Code 13 – 1519 – Modification or Termination of Decree or Order; Termination of Alimony; Enforcement of Alimony Order
3
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 504 (2025), Divorced or Separated Individuals
4
Internal Revenue Service. Divorce or Separation May Have an Effect on Taxes