How Much Is Alimony in Utah?

There is no alimony calculator in Utah. Not an official one, not a reliable unofficial one. If you have found a website promising to tell you the number, close it. The amount and length of alimony in Utah are set by a judge applying a list of factors from the Utah Code to the specific facts of your marriage, and two judges looking at the same facts can land in different places. What we can do is explain exactly what the judge is required to look at, show you how the arithmetic actually works on a real set of numbers, tell you what the law says about how long alimony can last, and explain what moves the outcome in the cases we handle.

The short answer

Alimony in Utah is meant to do one thing: keep the lower-earning spouse from falling off a cliff after the divorce, for a limited time, to the extent the higher-earning spouse can afford it. The court starts with the standard of living the two of you had during the marriage and asks three questions in order.

What does the receiving spouse reasonably need each month?
What can that spouse earn on their own? The gap between the first answer and this one is the shortfall.
What can the paying spouse afford after covering their own reasonable monthly needs?

Alimony is the smaller of the shortfall and the ability to pay, and it can be zero. If the receiving spouse has no shortfall, there is no alimony. If the paying spouse has nothing left after their own reasonable expenses, there is no alimony to order, no matter how large the shortfall is.

Two things sit on top of that basic analysis and can change the number substantially. The first is the equalization presumption that Utah added for marriages of ten years or more, described below. The second is the ceiling on how long alimony can run. Both are set out in Utah Code Section 81-4-502.

A worked example, with real numbers

Clients almost never find the three questions useful until they see them applied. Here is a composite of the kind of case we see most often in Utah County and Salt Lake County. The figures are illustrative rather than a formula, child support is set aside for clarity and picked up at the end, and a different judge could reasonably land somewhere else on the same facts.

Assume a fourteen-year marriage with two minor children. One spouse earns $9,500 a month gross, roughly $7,100 after taxes and withholding. The other left a part-time job in year four, by agreement, to care for the children, and could now realistically earn about $3,200 a month gross, roughly $2,700 net.

Question one, reasonable monthly need. Housing $2,200, utilities $320, groceries $700, car payment and insurance $560, health insurance $420, childcare $480, fuel $220, phone and internet $180, clothing and household goods $250, out-of-pocket medical $150, and $300 for everything else. That totals $5,780 a month.

Question two, earning capacity. $2,700 net. The shortfall is $5,780 minus $2,700, or $3,080 a month.

Question three, ability to pay. The higher earner’s own reasonable needs come to about $4,300 a month: housing $1,700, utilities $220, food $500, car payment and insurance $520, health insurance $340, fuel $250, phone and internet $120, clothing and household $200, and $450 for everything else. Subtracting that from $7,100 leaves $2,800 a month of ability to pay.

So the three questions have produced two figures: a shortfall of $3,080 and an ability to pay of $2,800. Most explanations stop here and tell you the answer is the smaller of the two. On these facts that would be wrong, for two reasons.

Why the answer is not simply the smaller number

First, the two budgets add up to $10,080 a month while the two incomes add up to $9,800. There is not enough money to keep both households where they were. Utah courts do not resolve that shortage by funding one household completely and leaving the other short; they spread it.

Second, this marriage lasted fourteen years and the lower earner left the workforce by agreement to care for the children. That is precisely the fact pattern in Section 81-4-502(4)(b)(i), so unless the higher earner rebuts the presumption for good cause, the court starts from equalizing the two standards of living rather than from funding demonstrated need and stopping.

Three defensible approaches produce three different numbers on identical facts:

Need capped by ability to pay: $2,800 a month. The smaller of the $3,080 shortfall and the $2,800 ability. This leaves the paying spouse whole at $4,300 and the receiving spouse $280 short, which is the one outcome that is hard to square with how Utah handles insufficient income.
Splitting the shortage: $2,940 a month. The $280 gap is divided, so each household absorbs $140. The receiving spouse lands at $5,640 against a $5,780 budget, and the paying spouse at $4,160 against a $4,300 budget.
Equalizing income: $2,200 a month. Combined net income of $9,800 split evenly leaves each spouse with $4,900, which takes a transfer of $2,200.

The distance between $2,200 and $2,940 is about $8,900 a year, and across a ten-year award it approaches $89,000. Nothing in the statute chooses among these methods. That is why the argument over which one fits your facts is worth having, and why two competent lawyers can read the same tax returns and give you different numbers in good faith.

One simplification to be aware of. The example leaves child support out so the arithmetic stays visible. In a real Utah case with two minor children, child support is calculated first, under the guidelines in Title 81, Chapter 6, and it moves both sides of this analysis: it adds to the receiving household’s resources, reduces the paying spouse’s ability to pay, and covers some of the expenses sitting in the receiving spouse’s budget. On these facts, expect the actual alimony figure to come in below all three numbers above.

The practical lesson is that the case is usually won or lost in the two budgets and in the earning capacity figure, not in an argument about alimony doctrine. Move the receiving spouse’s imputed earning capacity from $2,700 to $3,700 and the shortfall falls by a thousand dollars a month under every method above. That single number is often the whole fight.

The nine factors the judge must consider

Section 81-4-502(1) requires the court to consider at least nine factors. Courts routinely consider more, but these nine are mandatory, and a decree that fails to address them is vulnerable on appeal.

81-4-502(1)(a), the standard of living during the marriage. The statute breaks this down into income, the approximate value of real and personal property, and any other factor the court finds useful in fixing what your life actually looked like.
81-4-502(1)(b), the financial condition and needs of the spouse asking for alimony. There is a detail here that matters: the statute expressly permits that spouse to prove need by itemizing expenses that existed during the marriage, rather than being limited to post-petition expenses. That protects a spouse who has been living on a friend’s couch since separation from being told their needs are only what they have managed to spend since.
81-4-502(1)(c), earning capacity or ability to produce income, including the impact of diminished workplace experience from primarily caring for the other spouse’s minor child. This is capacity, not current paychecks. A spouse who left the workforce for fifteen years is judged differently from one who took a two-year break.
81-4-502(1)(d), the ability of the payor to provide support. The statute says only that. The practice of measuring it after the paying spouse’s own reasonable monthly expenses comes from case law rather than from the text.
81-4-502(1)(e), the tax consequences of alimony on each party. Where the divorce or separation instrument was executed after December 31, 2018, alimony is not deductible by the payor and not taxable to the recipient for federal purposes, which is why the analysis above runs on after-tax figures.
81-4-502(1)(f), the length of the marriage.
81-4-502(1)(g), whether the receiving spouse has custody of a minor child requiring support.
81-4-502(1)(h), whether that spouse worked in a business owned or operated by the payor.
81-4-502(1)(i), whether that spouse directly contributed to an increase in the payor’s skill by paying for the payor’s education or by enabling the payor to attend school during the marriage.

On timing, Section 81-4-502(3)(a) requires the court to consider the standard of living that existed at the time of separation, though under 81-4-502(3)(b) the judge has discretion to use the standard of living at the time of trial instead. For short marriages with no children conceived or born during the marriage, 81-4-502(5) lets the court look instead at the standard of living at the time of the marriage and consider restoring each spouse to the position they were in when it started.

The equalization presumption for marriages of ten years or more

For divorce petitions filed on or after May 1, 2024, Utah added a presumption that matters a great deal in traditional marriages. Under Section 81-4-502(4)(b)(i), if a marriage lasted ten years or more and the spouse seeking alimony has significantly diminished workplace experience resulting from an agreement between the spouses that they reduce that experience to care for the payor’s minor child, it is a rebuttable presumption that the court equalize the parties’ standards of living.

Rebuttable is the operative word. Under 81-4-502(4)(b)(ii), the paying spouse can overcome the presumption by showing good cause, and if the judge departs from equalization, the judge has to enter specific findings of fact explaining the evidence behind that decision. That findings requirement cuts both ways: it gives the receiving spouse something concrete to appeal, and it gives the paying spouse a clear target to build a record against.

Section 81-4-502(4)(c) contains the limit people miss. The equalization subsection may not be applied to or used as the basis to modify an alimony award if the petition for divorce was filed before May 1, 2024. If your divorce was filed in 2021, you cannot go back now and ask for equalization on the strength of this rule.

If you were the stay-at-home parent in a long marriage, this is the provision most likely to change your result. If you were the earner in a marriage that fits those conditions, the familiar assumption that the court will fund demonstrated need and stop there does not control, and the case needs to be built accordingly from the first filing. Outside that narrow class of cases, the need and ability-to-pay ceiling is unchanged.

What if the spouse asking for alimony has not worked in years

This is the question that decides more Utah alimony cases than any other, and it has its own statute that most summaries leave out. Section 81-4-503 gives the court a separate framework it may apply when imputing income to a spouse seeking alimony who either has diminished workplace experience from an agreement to care for the payor’s minor child, or has been diagnosed with a disability that reduced their workplace experience.

When that section applies, the court may consider the reasonable efforts the spouse has made to improve their employment situation and any reasonable barrier to getting or keeping a job. Under 81-4-503(2)(b), the court is not required to treat that spouse as underemployed if they are working and have shown reasonable barriers to improving their situation. In assessing what counts as a reasonable barrier, 81-4-503(3)(b) lets the court decide how far back a work history still counts as recent, and whether the spouse is genuinely competitive against other applicants whose training and experience are current, or, in a disability case, against applicants without a disability.

Two more pieces of 81-4-503 are worth knowing. If the court does impute income under this section, 81-4-503(3)(c) requires specific findings of fact on the evidentiary basis for the figure, so the number cannot simply be asserted. And under 81-4-503(4)(b), a later showing that real barriers have blocked meaningful improvement despite genuine effort can itself count as a substantial material change in circumstances, opening the door to revisiting the imputed figure after the decree.

In practice this is where vocational evidence earns its cost. A vocational evaluation that puts a defensible number on current earning capacity, or that documents why the old career is no longer available, usually does more for a case than any argument about the equities.

How long alimony lasts

Under Section 81-4-502(7)(a), the court may not order alimony for a period longer than the length of the marriage. A twelve-year marriage cannot produce fifteen years of alimony.

How that length is measured matters more than most people realize, and it is defined rather than left to argument. Under Section 81-4-501(4), the length of the marriage runs from the day you were legally married to the day the petition for divorce is filed, not to the day the decree is signed. A marriage that began in 2012 and produced a petition filed in 2024 is twelve years long for this purpose even if the divorce is not final until 2026.

Then, under 81-4-502(7)(b), temporary alimony paid while the divorce is pending counts toward that period. Put those two rules together and a slow case costs the receiving spouse twice: the two years of litigation do not extend the ceiling, and any temporary alimony paid during them eats into it.

Section 81-4-502(7)(c) is the exception. At any time before alimony terminates, the court may find extenuating circumstances or good cause justifying a longer period. The timing is the trap. Once the alimony term has run out, the door is closed, so a spouse who will need an extension has to move before the clock expires rather than after.

Within the ceiling, judges have wide discretion, and the ceiling is not the norm. It is common to see alimony ordered for a period long enough for the receiving spouse to finish training or re-enter the workforce, rather than for the full length of the marriage.

If you divorced each other before and then remarried

Utah added a rule for this in 2026, and it is new enough that it has not reached most legal summaries. Under Section 81-4-502(8), if two people married, divorced, remarried each other, and are now divorcing again, the court shall treat the combined length of both marriages as the length of the marriage for the alimony ceiling, provided the petition in the current divorce was filed on or after January 1, 2026. The combined figure adds the first marriage, measured to the day the first divorce petition was filed, to the second marriage, measured to the day the current petition was filed, and excludes the gap between the two. Under 81-4-502(8)(c) the court can decline to combine them if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that doing so would be inequitable, and under 81-4-502(8)(d) combining the marriages does not reopen or change anything about the first divorce.

For a couple who were married eight years, divorced, remarried, and have now been married another six, the aggregation rule is the difference between a six-year alimony ceiling and a fourteen-year one, unless the court finds that combining them would be inequitable.

What ends alimony early

Under Section 81-4-505(1)(a), alimony to a former spouse terminates upon the remarriage or death of that spouse, unless the decree of divorce expressly provides otherwise. Silence or ambiguity in the decree will not preserve it. Under 81-4-505(1)(b), if the new marriage is annulled and found void from the beginning, alimony can resume, but only if the paying spouse was a party to that annulment action.

Cohabitation is the harder question, and the statute is specific. Under 81-4-505(2)(a), the court may not order alimony to a former spouse who is cohabiting, and shall terminate alimony to a spouse the court determines has cohabited, even if that spouse is not cohabiting at the time the motion is filed. That last clause closes a gap that used to let a recipient end the living arrangement once a motion was coming.

The deadline is where paying spouses lose this issue. Under 81-4-505(2)(b), the payor may not seek termination later than one year after the day on which the payor knew or should have known of the cohabitation. Should have known does real work in that sentence. If you have suspected for eighteen months and have been gathering proof, you may already be out of time. If you suspect cohabitation, talk to a lawyer about the clock before you talk to anyone about the evidence.

What counts as cohabiting is defined rather than left to impression. Under Section 81-4-501(2), to cohabit means to live together, or to reside together on a regular basis, in the same residence and in a relationship of a romantic or sexual nature. Both halves are required. A roommate is not cohabitation because the relationship element is missing, and a serious partner who keeps a separate residence is generally not cohabitation because the shared-residence element is missing. Proving the “on a regular basis” piece is usually where these motions are won or lost.

Does fault matter?

Yes, and this surprises people who have heard that Utah is a no-fault state. Under Section 81-4-502(2)(a), the court may consider the fault of the parties in deciding whether to award alimony and on what terms. Fault is not a loose, general idea of bad behavior. Section 81-4-501(3) defines it as a closed list of four kinds of wrongful conduct during the marriage that substantially contributed to the breakup:

engaging in sexual relations with someone other than the party’s spouse;
knowingly and intentionally causing or attempting to cause physical harm to the other party or a minor child;
knowingly and intentionally causing the other party or a minor child to reasonably fear life-threatening harm; or
substantially undermining the financial stability of the other party or the minor child.

Two points get missed. The fourth item is financial: hiding assets, running up debt, or wrecking a family business can be statutory fault in Utah, and it is litigated more often than people expect. And the list is exhaustive. Conduct that was genuinely awful but does not fall within one of these four items is not “fault” for alimony purposes, however it felt at the time.

Section 81-4-502(2)(b) gives the court authority, when fault is at issue, to close the proceedings and seal the court records. That is a meaningful protection for a spouse who is weighing whether raising fault means putting the worst period of their life into a public file.

Fault does not automatically raise or lower alimony, and raising it turns the case into a contested fight about conduct that often costs more than it recovers. Whether to raise fault is a strategy decision to make with your attorney, not one to make on your own.

Can alimony be changed later?

Yes, within limits. Under Section 81-4-504(1), the court keeps continuing jurisdiction to change alimony based on a substantial material change in circumstances not expressly stated in the divorce decree or in the findings the court entered at the time of the decree. That is the actual test, and it is narrower than the “unforeseeable change” phrasing people often repeat. If a change was written into your decree or into the findings, it is not a basis to modify later, even if it was a surprise in practice.

Retirement has its own rule. Under 81-4-504(2)(a), a party’s retirement is a substantial material change in circumstances subject to a petition to modify, unless the decree or the findings expressly say otherwise. Under 81-4-504(2)(b), that applies to decrees entered on or after May 12, 2020. For an older decree, retirement is argued the ordinary way rather than treated as automatically qualifying.

Section 81-4-504(3) sets an important boundary: the court may not modify alimony, or enter a new alimony order, to address needs of the recipient that did not exist at the time the decree was entered, unless the court finds extenuating circumstances justifying it. A recipient whose expenses have grown since the divorce cannot simply come back for more on that basis alone.

Section 81-4-504(4) addresses the remarriage of the paying spouse. In modifying the amount, the court may not consider a new spouse’s income, with two exceptions: it may consider that new spouse’s financial ability to share living expenses, and it may consider their income outright if the court finds the payor’s improper conduct justifies it.

Two practical points. A job loss that was not the paying spouse’s choice can qualify as a substantial material change; quitting a job to reduce alimony does not, and the court can impute income instead. And the decree itself can make alimony non-modifiable if both spouses agree to that, which is a trade some clients are glad to have made and others regret.

What actually moves the number

After years of alimony cases, a few things reliably matter more than clients expect. Documentation of real monthly expenses, not estimates, and ideally tied to what the household actually spent during the marriage, which the statute expressly allows. A credible plan for how the receiving spouse becomes self-supporting, and on what timeline. Evidence of what the receiving spouse could earn now, which is often the fight the whole case turns on, and where a vocational evaluation is worth its cost. And the temporary orders entered early in the case, which anchor the final outcome more than they should.

The things that matter less than clients expect are who filed, who wanted the divorce, and who behaved badly in ways that fall short of legal fault.

Can we agree on alimony ourselves?

Yes, and most Utah divorces resolve alimony by agreement, often in mediation. Utah law requires it: under Section 81-4-403(2)(a), if any issues remain contested after a response to the divorce petition is filed, the parties shall participate in good faith in at least one mediation session. Under 81-4-403(5), the court, the mediator, or the director of the courts’ dispute resolution programs may excuse a party for good cause, and under 81-4-403(4) the cost is split evenly unless the parties agree otherwise or the court orders differently. Spouses frequently trade alimony for something else, such as a larger share of retirement or the equity in the house. Agreements the court approves are enforceable, and they can be written to be non-modifiable, which gives both sides a certainty that a judge’s order never will.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an alimony calculator for Utah?

No. Utah has no statutory alimony formula and no official calculator. Child support in Utah runs on published guideline tables, but alimony does not. Any site offering a Utah alimony number is guessing.

How is the alimony amount actually determined in Utah?

The court determines the receiving spouse’s reasonable monthly need, subtracts what that spouse can earn or could reasonably earn, and compares the resulting shortfall to what the paying spouse can afford after their own reasonable expenses. The award is often the smaller of those two figures, considered against the standard of living at separation and weighed under the nine factors in Utah Code Section 81-4-502(1). Two things can change that. Where the combined income will not cover both households, Utah courts spread the shortage rather than funding one household fully. And for petitions filed on or after May 1, 2024, in a marriage of ten years or more where one spouse reduced their work experience by agreement to care for the other’s minor child, Section 81-4-502(4)(b)(i) creates a rebuttable presumption that the court equalize the two standards of living.

How long do you have to pay alimony in Utah?

No longer than the length of the marriage, under Section 81-4-502(7)(a). Section 81-4-501(4) measures that from the day you married to the day the divorce petition was filed, not to the date of the decree, and temporary alimony paid during the divorce counts toward the period. The court can extend beyond the length of the marriage only on a finding of extenuating circumstances or good cause, and only if it makes that finding before the alimony terminates.

Does adultery affect alimony in Utah?

It can. Section 81-4-502(2)(a) allows the court to consider fault in deciding whether to award alimony and on what terms, and adultery can qualify. It is not automatic, and raising it makes the case more expensive and more contested. Section 81-4-502(2)(b) lets the court close the proceedings and seal the records when fault is at issue.

Does alimony stop if my ex moves in with someone?

Under Section 81-4-505(2)(a) the court shall terminate alimony to a former spouse it determines has cohabited, even if that spouse is no longer cohabiting when the motion is filed. But under 81-4-505(2)(b) the paying spouse has to bring it within one year of the day they knew or should have known about the cohabitation. Missing that window forfeits the issue.

Can I stop paying alimony when I retire?

Not on your own, but retirement gives you a basis to ask. For decrees entered on or after May 12, 2020, Section 81-4-504(2) makes retirement a substantial material change in circumstances subject to a petition to modify, unless your decree or the court’s findings expressly say otherwise. You still have to file the petition, and alimony continues until the court changes it.

What happens to alimony if I have not worked in fifteen years?

It depends on why. Section 81-4-503 lets the court weigh real barriers to employment, rather than assume you could step into a competitive job today, but only if the time out of the workforce came from an agreement between the spouses that you reduce your work experience to care for the other spouse’s minor child, or from a diagnosed disability. Time away for another reason does not trigger that section, and the court may impute full earning capacity. Alimony still requires demonstrated need and an ability to pay on the other side, so it can be zero. If the marriage lasted ten years or more, the petition was filed on or after May 1, 2024, and the caregiving agreement existed, the equalization presumption in Section 81-4-502(4)(b)(i) may also apply.

Can alimony be waived permanently in a Utah divorce?

Yes. Spouses can agree to waive alimony or to make it non-modifiable, and Utah courts generally enforce those agreements once they are incorporated into the decree. Because a waiver is very difficult to undo later, it should not be signed without independent advice about what is being given up.

Does alimony end automatically if my ex remarries?

Yes. Under Section 81-4-505(1)(a), alimony terminates upon the remarriage or death of the receiving spouse unless the decree provides otherwise. If the new marriage is later annulled as void from the beginning, alimony can resume under 81-4-505(1)(b), but only if the paying spouse was a party to the annulment action.

Is alimony taxable in Utah?

Where the divorce or separation instrument was executed after December 31, 2018, alimony is not deductible by the payor and not included in the recipient’s income for federal tax purposes, and Utah follows the federal treatment. The same applies to an older instrument modified after 2018 if the modification expressly adopts the current rule. That is why alimony in Utah is analyzed on after-tax figures, and why Section 81-4-502(1)(e) requires the court to consider tax consequences for both parties.

Talk to us before you assume

If you are worried about paying alimony, or worried about living without it, the worst thing you can do is guess. Bring your income information and a rough monthly budget to a consultation and we will walk you through the factors a Utah court will apply to your facts, the range those factors realistically produce, and where the room to negotiate is.

This article is general information about Utah law, not legal advice for your situation. Alimony outcomes depend on facts specific to your marriage.

Reviewed by Jill L. Coil, founder of CoilLaw, LLC. Last reviewed September 22, 2026.