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Updated for 2026 guidelines

Washington Alimony Calculator 2026

No Washington statute turns incomes into a maintenance amount, and none sets how long maintenance lasts. RCW 26.09.090 hands both questions to the judge, guided by six factors. Any site that prints a Washington alimony number invented it. Here is the real framework instead.

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What Washington courts weigh instead of a formula

WA sets alimony by judicial discretion; there is no statutory formula. Courts weigh the enumerated factors below.

Factors the court weighs

  • The financial resources of the party seeking maintenance, including separate or community property apportioned to that party, and that party ability to meet his or her needs independently
  • The time necessary to acquire sufficient education or training to enable the party seeking maintenance to find employment appropriate to his or her skill, interests, style of life, and other attendant circumstances
  • The standard of living established during the marriage or domestic partnership
  • The duration of the marriage or domestic partnership
  • The age, physical and emotional condition, and financial obligations of the spouse or domestic partner seeking maintenance
  • The ability of the spouse or domestic partner from whom maintenance is sought to meet his or her needs and financial obligations while meeting those of the spouse or domestic partner seeking maintenance

RCW 26.09.090(1)(a)-(f) (nonexclusive: "all relevant factors including")

Duration limits

  • No statutory duration schedule: RCW 26.09.090 authorizes maintenance "in such amounts and for such periods of time as the court deems just" and sets no durational bands, multipliers, or caps of any kind. Length-of-marriage rules of thumb heard in practice are habits, not law.
  • Modification and termination: Unless the decree provides otherwise, maintenance ends at the death of either party or the remarriage or new registered domestic partnership of the receiving party, and is modifiable on a substantial change of circumstances (RCW 26.09.170).

Assumptions

  • This tool does not estimate a dollar amount for discretionary states: any number would be invented.
  • Maintenance and the child support worksheet feed each other: court-ordered maintenance ACTUALLY PAID is a deduction from the payor gross income, and maintenance actually received is gross income to the recipient, before the RCW 26.19 net-income shares run (RCW 26.19.071).
  • Washington publishes no maintenance formula and no official maintenance calculator. Any Washington alimony dollar figure printed by a website is invented.

Estimate only. The court or state agency calculation controls.

Washington alimony under RCW 26.09.090 (maintenance orders for either spouse or domestic partner).

How Washington decides maintenance

Washington calls it spousal maintenance, and the whole law fits in one section: RCW 26.09.090. In a dissolution, legal separation, or domestic partnership case, the court may grant maintenance to either party "in such amounts and for such periods of time as the court deems just", after considering all relevant factors. The statute then lists six: the financial resources of the party seeking maintenance, including property awarded to them; the time needed to acquire education or training for appropriate employment; the standard of living established during the marriage or partnership; the duration of the marriage or partnership; the age, physical and emotional condition, and financial obligations of the party seeking maintenance; and the other party’s ability to meet their own needs while paying.

What the statute does not contain is any arithmetic. No percentage of the income gap, no multiplier, no schedule matching years of marriage to years of support. Other states publish formulas for temporary support or advisory duration bands; Washington’s legislature has never adopted either. The rules of thumb lawyers sometimes quote, such as a year of maintenance for every three or four years of marriage, are habits of practice, not law, and no court is bound by them.

Duration is as open as amount. A Washington court can order a short bridge award, a multi-year transition, or, after a long marriage, maintenance with no end date. Unless the decree says otherwise, maintenance ends at the death of either party or the remarriage or new registered domestic partnership of the receiving party, and it can be modified on a substantial change of circumstances under RCW 26.09.170.

Maintenance and child support are wired together through income. Under RCW 26.19.071, court-ordered maintenance actually paid is a deduction from the payor’s gross income, and maintenance received is income to the recipient, before the child support worksheets run. A maintenance award therefore moves the child support number in the same case, which is a real reason to work the two out together.

Since 2019, federal tax law treats maintenance the same everywhere: for decrees and agreements from that year on, payments are neither deductible to the payor nor taxable income to the recipient.

Amount rule
None. Judicial discretion over the six factors of RCW 26.09.090source
Duration rule
None. "For such periods of time as the court deems just"; no bands, no capssource
Who can receive it
Either spouse or domestic partner; the statute is gender-neutralsource
Marital misconduct
Excluded: the statute orders maintenance "without regard to misconduct"source
Child support interaction
Maintenance actually paid is deducted from the payor’s gross income before the child support worksheets run (RCW 26.19.071)source

How to use this page

Use the panel above as a preparation checklist rather than a calculator. It carries the six statutory factors a Washington judge must weigh. Build your file to match: both parties’ incomes and separate resources, the property division you expect, a concrete education or retraining plan with dates and costs, the marital budget that defines the standard of living, and health documentation where age or condition matters.

Think in terms of need and ability to pay over a defined runway. Washington judges commonly frame maintenance as support while the lower-earning spouse becomes self-sufficient at a standard the marriage justifies, so a specific plan beats an abstract request.

Be skeptical of any Washington maintenance number a website prints, including averages of past awards. With no formula in the statute, those numbers describe someone else’s case, not yours. The figure in a real case comes from the factors, the budgets, and the judge, or from your own settlement.

If child support is also in play, settle the maintenance figure first on paper and carry it into our Washington child support calculator: maintenance paid comes off the payor’s net income and maintenance received adds to the recipient’s, exactly as RCW 26.19.071 directs.

What this estimate includes

  • The six RCW 26.09.090 factors, condensed faithfully from the statute
  • The duration reality: no statutory schedule, and termination and modification rules from RCW 26.09.170
  • The income interplay between maintenance and the child support worksheets
  • Links to the controlling statute on the official legislature site

What it leaves out

  • Any dollar estimate of a Washington maintenance award, temporary or final
  • Temporary maintenance while the case is pending, which runs on need and ability to pay
  • Property division under RCW 26.09.080, decided alongside maintenance and able to substitute for it
  • Committed intimate relationship claims, which follow case law rather than the statute

Washington alimony FAQs

How is alimony calculated in Washington?

It is not calculated; it is judged. RCW 26.09.090 gives the court six factors, from the seeking spouse’s resources and retraining timeline to the marriage’s standard of living and the other spouse’s ability to pay, and no formula of any kind. Two cases with identical incomes can end with different maintenance because the factors point differently.

How many years of maintenance do you get in Washington?

There is no schedule. The statute authorizes maintenance for such periods as the court deems just, and Washington courts have ordered everything from a few months of transition to indefinite support after decades-long marriages. The one-year-per-three-or-four rule of thumb you may hear has no statutory basis. Absent a different agreement, maintenance ends if either party dies or the recipient remarries or enters a new registered domestic partnership.

Does adultery or other misconduct change maintenance?

No. RCW 26.09.090 directs the court to order maintenance without regard to marital misconduct. Washington is a no-fault state, and the maintenance factors are entirely financial and practical. Conduct that wasted marital assets can matter in the property division, but the maintenance statute itself looks forward, not back.

Is there a temporary maintenance formula while the divorce is pending?

No. Courts can order temporary maintenance to hold the household together during the case, and they decide it on need and ability to pay, but Washington publishes no formula for that either. Some states hand their judges percentage formulas for temporary support; Washington has never adopted one.

Does maintenance change Washington child support?

Yes, mechanically. Washington child support runs on net income, and RCW 26.19.071 subtracts court-ordered maintenance actually paid from the payor’s income and counts maintenance received as income to the recipient. A $1,000 maintenance award moves $2,000 of monthly income between the worksheet columns, which shifts each parent’s share of the support obligation.

Can Washington maintenance be changed later?

Usually. Under RCW 26.09.170, maintenance is modifiable on a substantial change of circumstances unless the decree makes it non-modifiable, and separation contracts can lock the terms. Retirement, disability, or an involuntary job loss are the classic grounds. The modification reaches back only to the filing of the petition, so timing matters.

Why does this site calculate Washington child support but not maintenance?

Because only one of them has a formula. Child support runs on the published RCW 26.19.020 economic table, so a calculator can reproduce the court’s own arithmetic. Maintenance rests on judicial weighing of six factors with no numbers attached, so any dollar output would be an invention. We would rather show the real framework than a fake number.

Good to know in Washington

  • Washington publishes no official maintenance calculator; the DSHS calculators cover child support only.
  • The statute covers registered domestic partnerships on the same terms as marriages, and the factors read on partnership duration the same way.
  • Maintenance is one lever among several: Washington courts divide community and separate property under RCW 26.09.080, and a larger property award can reduce or replace maintenance through the first statutory factor.

Official sources

Official sources last verified: .

Reviewed by SupportDecode Editorial Team Page content reviewed Sources Methodology Update log

Changelog: page first published with the RCW 26.09.090 factor framework and the no-duration-schedule explanation. Material changes are dated in the update log.