Do You Have to Pay Alimony in Texas? Eligibility, Limits, and Duration

Alimony in Texas is the exception, not the rule. A judge can order one spouse to pay the other, but only if the requesting spouse clears strict eligibility rules in Chapter 8 of the Texas Family Code, and even then payments are capped at the lesser of $5,000 per month or 20 percent of the paying spouse’s average gross monthly income, with duration tied to how long the marriage lasted. Most divorcing couples in Texas never see a court-ordered award. What people commonly call “alimony” in a Texas settlement is often something different: a contractual agreement between the spouses, with its own rules and its own weaknesses.

The Two Kinds of Alimony in Texas

Texas law separates post-divorce support into two tracks, and the difference matters for enforcement.

Court-ordered spousal maintenance is periodic payment from one spouse’s future income, ordered by a judge under Chapter 8. It carries eligibility requirements, dollar caps, and time limits. If the paying spouse stops paying, the court can hold them in contempt, which can mean fines or jail.

Contractual alimony is support the spouses agree to during settlement, usually in mediation, written into the final decree as a contract term. Because it is contractual rather than court-ordered, enforcement is weaker. A court generally cannot hold someone in contempt for failing to pay contractual alimony unless the agreement specifically allows income withholding or the payments fall behind. The receiving spouse would instead have to bring a breach-of-contract claim, which is slower and offers weaker remedies. Automatic income withholding through an employer does not apply the way it does to court-ordered maintenance.¹

Contractual alimony does buy flexibility. Spouses can agree to amounts above the statutory cap, longer payment periods, or lump-sum arrangements a court could never order on its own. For higher-earning couples, that flexibility is often why contractual alimony shows up in a settlement even when a court would not order maintenance.

Who Qualifies for Court-Ordered Maintenance

A Texas court can order maintenance only if the requesting spouse first proves they will lack enough property after the divorce, including their own separate property, to meet their minimum reasonable needs. That alone disqualifies many people. Meeting it is just the opening step. The spouse must also fit into one of four categories.²

Family violence. The other spouse was convicted of or received deferred adjudication for a family violence offense against the requesting spouse or their child. The offense must have occurred within two years before the divorce was filed or while the case was pending. Marriage length does not matter here.
Long marriage with inability to earn. The marriage lasted at least 10 years, and the requesting spouse cannot earn enough to meet their minimum reasonable needs.
Disability. The requesting spouse has a physical or mental disability that prevents them from earning sufficient income.
Disabled child. The requesting spouse is the primary caregiver for a child of the marriage with a physical or mental disability that requires substantial care, and that caregiving prevents the spouse from earning enough.

Note the family violence category requires a conviction or deferred adjudication, not just an allegation. A protective order on its own does not satisfy it.²

The Presumption Against Maintenance

Even when a spouse qualifies under the 10-year marriage category, Texas law begins with a rebuttable presumption that maintenance is not warranted. The requesting spouse has to show they were diligent in either earning enough income or developing the skills to support themselves during separation and while the divorce was pending.³

In practice, the court looks for a real job search, enrollment in training, or other concrete steps toward self-sufficiency. Claiming an inability to find work without evidence of an active search is where many requests fall apart. The burden sits squarely with the spouse asking for support.

How Much and For How Long

Texas puts hard ceilings on court-ordered maintenance. Monthly payments cannot exceed the lesser of $5,000 or 20 percent of the paying spouse’s average monthly gross income. There is no judicial discretion to go above that line, no matter the parties’ wealth or the receiving spouse’s needs.

Duration is tied to the length of the marriage:

Marriages of 10 to 20 years: up to five years of maintenance.
Marriages of 20 to 30 years: up to seven years.
Marriages of 30 years or more: up to 10 years.

These are ceilings, not defaults. The statute tells the court to limit maintenance to the shortest reasonable period that allows the receiving spouse to become self-supporting. When the basis for maintenance is a spouse’s own disability or caring for a disabled child of the marriage, the court can order payments to continue as long as the disability lasts, without the marriage-length caps.²

In family violence cases arising from marriages shorter than 10 years, maintenance can still be awarded, but duration is generally capped at five years.

What the Judge Weighs in Setting the Amount

Once eligibility is cleared, the judge works through a list of factors to decide how much to award and for how long. Those include each spouse’s ability to meet their own needs after the property division, both spouses’ education and job skills, how long it would take the requesting spouse to get the training needed for adequate employment, and whether that training is realistically available.⁴

The court also considers the length of the marriage, the requesting spouse’s age and health, employment history, and whether either spouse engaged in marital misconduct such as adultery or cruel treatment. If one spouse contributed to the other’s education or career advancement, that goes into the weighing too. A spouse’s contributions as a homemaker are an explicit statutory factor, which matters when years out of the workforce have cut into earning capacity.⁴

Either side can request a vocational evaluation. A vocational expert assesses the requesting spouse’s education, work history, transferable skills, and the local job market to estimate realistic earnings. These reports can be decisive because they give the judge concrete earning-capacity numbers instead of speculation.

How Payments Get Collected

Court-ordered maintenance is paid periodically, usually monthly. The standard enforcement tool is an income withholding order directing the paying spouse’s employer to deduct the amount from each paycheck and send it on. Combined withholding for spousal maintenance and child support cannot exceed 50 percent of the paying spouse’s disposable earnings, and child support takes priority if both exist.¹

Income withholding does not automatically reach contractual alimony unless the agreement allows it or the payer falls behind. That enforcement gap is one of the most important practical differences between the two tracks.

Enforcement When a Spouse Stops Paying

If the paying spouse falls behind on court-ordered maintenance, the receiving spouse can ask the court to enforce the order. The strongest tool is contempt, where the court can impose fines or jail time for willful failure to pay. The court can also enter a judgment for the full arrearage. Income withholding can be initiated or adjusted after the original order too, so a receiving spouse who did not have withholding in place can request it once payments stop.

Bankruptcy does not get the paying spouse out of this. Under federal law, domestic support obligations are excluded from discharge in both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13.⁵ The automatic stay that normally freezes collection does not apply to domestic support either, so a receiving spouse can keep collecting through income withholding even during an active bankruptcy.

When Maintenance Changes or Ends

Court-ordered maintenance is not permanent, and changes in circumstances can shorten or end it. A court can modify an existing order if there has been a material and substantial change in either party’s situation since the original order. Significant shifts in income, employment, or the receiving spouse’s financial needs can qualify. Modifications generally go one direction: a court can decrease or terminate payments, but it cannot increase the amount or extend the duration.

Maintenance terminates automatically on the death of either spouse or the receiving spouse’s remarriage. It also ends if the receiving spouse lives with a romantic partner on a continuing basis, but this one takes a court hearing. The paying spouse has to file a motion and present evidence of the cohabitation before the court will terminate.⁶

Termination does not wipe out unpaid amounts that accrued before the termination date. If back payments are owed when the receiving spouse remarries or dies, that debt survives.⁶

Because maintenance ends when the paying spouse dies, courts sometimes require the paying spouse to carry a life insurance policy naming the receiving spouse as beneficiary. The death benefit is typically tied to the remaining obligation. Five more years of $3,000 monthly payments, for instance, points to a policy around $180,000. Letting the required policy lapse can trigger a court enforcement action.

Federal Tax Treatment

For any divorce finalized after December 31, 2018, alimony and spousal maintenance carry no federal income tax consequences for either spouse. The paying spouse cannot deduct the payments, and the receiving spouse does not report them as income. This applies to both court-ordered maintenance and contractual alimony.⁷

Divorces finalized on or before December 31, 2018, follow the old rules unless a post-2018 modification expressly adopts the new treatment. Under the old rules, the paying spouse deducted the payments and the receiving spouse reported them as taxable income.⁷

1
Justia Law. Texas Code Family – Chapter 8 – Maintenance
2
State of Texas. Texas Code Family – Section 8.051 – Eligibility for Maintenance
3
State of Texas. Texas Code Family – Section 8.053 – Presumption
4
State of Texas. Texas Code Family – Section 8.052 – Factors in Determining Maintenance
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 523 – Exceptions to Discharge
6
State of Texas. Texas Code Family – Section 8.056 – Termination
7
Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Alimony and Child Support