In Utah, you can be disqualified from alimony if you do not have a demonstrated financial need, if your spouse does not have the ability to pay, if the marriage was short, or if you are able to support yourself at the marital standard of living. Alimony that has already been awarded ends automatically when you remarry, and a court must terminate it if your former spouse proves you cohabited with a new partner. Fault, such as adultery or financial sabotage, can also reduce or eliminate an award.

Utah’s alimony statute, Utah Code 81-4-502, was amended in March 2026. Here is how each of these disqualifiers works under the current law.

Alimony is need-based, so no need means no alimony

The starting point is that alimony in Utah is not a reward for being married. It exists to prevent one spouse from falling far below the marital standard of living while the other maintains it. The court must weigh the factors in 81-4-502(1): the standard of living during the marriage, the recipient’s financial condition and needs, the recipient’s earning capacity, the payor’s ability to pay, the tax consequences to each party, the length of the marriage, custody of minor children, and whether the recipient worked in the payor’s business or contributed to the payor’s education.

Two of those factors function as gatekeepers. If you cannot show a gap between your reasonable needs and your own income, there is nothing for alimony to fill. And if your spouse cannot pay after meeting their own reasonable needs, the court will not order what cannot be paid. Both spouses ending the marriage with similar incomes is the most common reason alimony is denied in Utah.

Earning capacity and imputed income

The court looks at what you can earn, not just what you currently earn. Under Utah Code 81-4-503, a judge can impute income to a spouse who is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed. If you have a nursing license and choose to work part-time at a retail job, the court can calculate your need as though you were earning a nurse’s salary. Spouses who could support themselves but choose not to are frequently disqualified on this basis.

The statute does protect a spouse whose earning capacity was reduced by time out of the workforce to care for children. That reduction is an explicit factor, and for marriages of ten years or more, Utah now applies a rebuttable presumption that the court should equalize the parties’ standards of living. That presumption cuts the other way: a long marriage with a real income gap makes alimony more likely, not less.

Short marriages

Utah Code 81-4-502(5) allows the court, in a marriage of short duration with no children conceived or born, to simply restore each party to the condition they were in before the marriage. In practice, alimony after a marriage of two or three years is rare unless one spouse gave up something significant to enter it. There is no fixed cutoff, but the shorter the marriage, the higher the bar.

Separately, alimony generally cannot last longer than the marriage did. A three-year marriage caps alimony at three years, and temporary alimony paid during the divorce counts against that cap. See How Long Do You Have to Pay Alimony in Utah?

Fault: adultery, abuse, and financial sabotage

Utah is one of the states where fault can matter. Under 81-4-502(2), the court “may consider the fault of the parties in determining whether to award alimony and the terms of the alimony.” Fault is defined in Utah Code 81-4-501 as wrongful conduct that substantially contributed to the breakup of the marriage, specifically:

Engaging in sexual relations with someone other than your spouse
Knowingly and intentionally causing or attempting to cause physical harm to your spouse or minor children
Knowingly and intentionally causing your spouse or children to reasonably fear life-threatening harm
Substantially undermining the financial stability of your spouse or minor children

The Utah Supreme Court explained the standard in Gardner v. Gardner, 2019 UT 28. Fault must be “a significant or an important cause” of the divorce, though it need not be the only cause. The court also made clear that fault is used to avoid an inequitable result, not to punish. A spouse whose affair ended a long marriage may still receive alimony, but the court can reduce it or shorten it. Whether the conduct rises to the level of disqualification depends on the whole picture. Read Is Utah an At-Fault State for Divorce? for more on how fault plays out.

Cohabitation ends alimony

This is the disqualifier that catches people after the divorce is over. Under Utah Code 81-4-505(2), the court shall terminate alimony if the paying spouse establishes that the recipient has cohabited with another person, either during the divorce or after the decree. It does not matter whether the cohabitation is still going on when the motion is filed. The Legislature changed the law after Scott v. Scott, 2017 UT 66, which had held that alimony could only be terminated if the recipient was cohabiting at the moment the motion was filed.

Cohabitation means living together on a regular basis in a romantic or sexual relationship, not just dating. Courts look for the hallmarks of a marriage-like arrangement: shared residence, shared expenses, shared household duties. The paying spouse must file within one year of when they knew or should have known about the cohabitation.

Cohabiting during the divorce itself also bars temporary alimony under the same section.

Remarriage and death

Under 81-4-505(1), alimony automatically ends when the recipient remarries or when either party dies, unless the decree expressly says otherwise. If the new marriage is annulled and the payor participated in the annulment, alimony can be reinstated, but that is an unusual case.

Waiver by agreement

You can also disqualify yourself by contract. A valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement that waives alimony will generally be enforced in Utah. So will a stipulation in the divorce itself. Once you have signed away alimony in a decree, you cannot come back later and ask for it, because under 81-4-504(3) the court cannot award alimony for needs that did not exist at the time of the decree.

Frequently asked questions

Can I lose alimony if I get a job?

Possibly. A substantial material change in circumstances allows the paying spouse to petition to modify. A significant increase in your income is exactly that kind of change. Alimony can be reduced or terminated on modification.

Does moving in with a roommate count as cohabitation?

No. Cohabitation requires a romantic or sexual relationship along with living together on a regular basis. A platonic roommate does not trigger termination.

Am I disqualified from alimony if I had an affair?

Not automatically. Adultery is a form of fault the court may consider, but the court must find it substantially contributed to the breakup and must use it to reach an equitable result rather than to punish. Some Utah judges reduce alimony significantly for adultery; others weigh it lightly against a long marriage and real need.

Can a husband get alimony in Utah?

Yes. The statute is gender-neutral. A husband who earns less and has a demonstrated need is entitled to the same analysis as a wife.

Talk to us about your alimony case

Whether you expect to pay alimony or hope to receive it, the disqualifiers above are where cases are won and lost. Evidence of earning capacity, evidence of fault, and evidence of cohabitation all have to be developed and presented properly. CoilLaw handles alimony cases, modifications, and termination motions throughout Utah. Contact us to schedule a consultation.