Do You Have to Pay Alimony in Illinois? Amounts, Duration, and Taxes

In Illinois, you may have to pay alimony, but only if a judge decides your situation calls for it. Alimony, which Illinois law calls spousal maintenance, is not automatic in every divorce. The court first looks at whether support is appropriate given things like the income gap between spouses, each person’s earning capacity, and how long the marriage lasted. If the answer is yes, a statutory formula then sets both the monthly amount and how many years payments continue.¹

Either spouse can be ordered to pay. The statute is gender-neutral, and marital misconduct is not a factor. Illinois won’t make you pay more because you caused the divorce, and it won’t reduce your obligation because your spouse did.

When a Court Will Order You to Pay

Before any formula gets applied, the judge decides whether maintenance is appropriate at all. The factors that tend to carry the most weight:

Each spouse’s income, property received in the divorce, and debts assigned
What each spouse can realistically earn now and going forward, not just current paychecks
Career sacrifices during the marriage, such as leaving the workforce or passing up advancement to handle childcare or household duties
How long the lower-earning spouse would need to get the education or training required for appropriate work
The standard of living established during the marriage
Parenting responsibilities that limit full-time work
Contributions one spouse made to the other’s career or professional training
Any valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement
The length of the marriage and each party’s age and health

The statute also lets the judge weigh anything else it finds relevant and fair.¹ Short marriages between two self-sufficient earners often produce no maintenance at all. Long marriages with a significant income disparity almost always do.

How Much You’ll Pay

Illinois uses a guideline formula when two conditions are met: the couple’s combined gross annual income is under $500,000, and the paying spouse has no existing child support or maintenance obligation from a prior relationship.¹ When those apply, the math works like this:

Take 33.33% of the paying spouse’s net annual income.
Subtract 25% of the receiving spouse’s net annual income.
Check the cap: the maintenance amount plus the recipient’s net income cannot exceed 40% of the couple’s combined net income. If it does, the award is reduced to hit that ceiling.

A quick example. Say you earn $120,000 net per year and your spouse earns $40,000 net. The formula gives $39,996 (33.33% of your income) minus $10,000 (25% of your spouse’s income), for a preliminary figure of $29,996 per year. But combined net income is $160,000, and 40% of that is $64,000. Adding $29,996 to your spouse’s $40,000 brings them to $69,996, which blows past the cap. The award drops to $24,000 per year, the number that brings your spouse to exactly $64,000.

Combined Income Above $500,000

Once combined gross income tops $500,000, the formula becomes a reference point rather than a binding rule. The judge still looks at the formula number but has full discretion to order more, less, or nothing based on the statutory factors. A judge who departs significantly from the formula is expected to explain why.¹

How Long You’ll Pay

Duration is set by multiplying the length of your marriage (measured from the wedding to the divorce filing date) by a factor that climbs with longer marriages:¹

Under 5 years: 0.20
5 to under 6 years: 0.24
6 to under 7 years: 0.28
7 to under 8 years: 0.32
8 to under 9 years: 0.36
9 to under 10 years: 0.40
10 to under 11 years: 0.44
11 to under 12 years: 0.48
12 to under 13 years: 0.52
13 to under 14 years: 0.56
14 to under 15 years: 0.60
15 to under 16 years: 0.64
16 to under 17 years: 0.68
17 to under 18 years: 0.72
18 to under 19 years: 0.76
19 to under 20 years: 0.80
20 years or more: the court may order maintenance for a period equal to the marriage, or indefinitely

A 12-year marriage produces about 6.24 years of maintenance (12 × 0.52). A 7-year marriage produces about 2.24 years (7 × 0.32). The bracket boundaries matter: a marriage lasting exactly 10 years uses the 0.44 multiplier, not the 0.40 that stops at 9-and-change years.

For marriages of 20 years or more, the shift to possibly indefinite maintenance reflects that a spouse out of the workforce for decades may never regain comparable earning power. A judge can deviate from these guideline durations when applying them would be inappropriate.

Fixed, Reviewable, or Indefinite

The label attached to your maintenance award shapes your long-term exposure as much as the dollar amount:¹

Fixed-term maintenance ends on a specific date. Once that date arrives, maintenance is permanently barred. There is no extension.
Reviewable maintenance has a set term, but the court schedules a review before it expires to decide whether to continue, modify, or end the obligation. The recipient typically has to show ongoing need.
Indefinite maintenance has no end date and continues until a court modifies or terminates it, or until an automatic termination event occurs.

If you’re negotiating a settlement, pushing for fixed-term rather than reviewable can mean the difference between a known end date and years of continued exposure.

When the Obligation Ends or Changes

Three events terminate maintenance automatically, with no court filing required:²

Death of either party ends the obligation immediately.
Remarriage of the recipient terminates maintenance by operation of law on the remarriage date.
Cohabitation by the recipient with another person in a marriage-like, continuing relationship ends the obligation, with the termination date backdated to when the cohabitation began.

These defaults apply unless your written agreement, incorporated into the divorce judgment, says otherwise. Some negotiated settlements trade a lower monthly figure for maintenance that survives remarriage; if yours contains language like that, the defaults don’t apply.

Beyond those automatic events, either party can petition to modify or terminate maintenance by showing a substantial change in circumstances.² Job loss, a significant salary change for either side, serious illness, or retirement are common grounds. A future event that was foreseeable at the time of the divorce generally cannot be used as a defense against modification, unless the original order specifically addressed it.

Taxes: You Can’t Deduct What You Pay

For any divorce finalized after December 31, 2018, maintenance payments are not deductible for the paying spouse and not taxable income for the recipient. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made this change permanent.³ Every dollar you pay comes out of your after-tax income, so the real cost is higher than the headline number suggests. Factor that into any settlement discussion.

If your divorce was finalized on or before December 31, 2018, the old rules still apply (payor deducts, recipient reports as income), unless you later modified the agreement to specifically adopt the new treatment.

What Happens If You Don’t Pay

Court-ordered maintenance is not something you can quietly let slide. Illinois can enforce the obligation through income withholding, which routes payments directly from your paycheck to the State Disbursement Unit. The withholding framework explicitly covers maintenance, and an employer that fails to comply faces penalties of up to $100 per day, capped at $10,000 per violation.

Your former spouse can also petition to hold you in contempt. A contempt finding for failure to pay support can result in probation, periodic imprisonment of up to six months, and suspension of your driver’s license if you fall 90 or more days behind. Unpaid maintenance accrues interest, so the balance grows while it sits.

Federal law adds more teeth. Under the Consumer Credit Protection Act, wages can be garnished up to 50% of disposable earnings for support if you’re also supporting another spouse or dependent child, or up to 60% if you aren’t, with an extra 5% available if you’re more than 12 weeks behind.⁴ And bankruptcy won’t save you: domestic support obligations are specifically exempt from discharge, so a bankruptcy filing erases neither past-due nor future maintenance.⁵

1
Illinois General Assembly. 750 ILCS 5/504 – Maintenance
2
Illinois General Assembly. 750 ILCS 5/510 – Modification and Termination of Provisions for Maintenance, Support, Educational Expenses, and Property Disposition
3
Internal Revenue Service. Alimony, Child Support, Court Awards, Damages
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 523 – Exceptions to Discharge