Colorado Spousal Maintenance Calculator
A free alimony estimate under the C.R.S. § 14-10-114 advisory guidelines
How Colorado Calculates Spousal Maintenance
Colorado publishes advisory guidelines for both the amount and the duration of maintenance. They apply where the marriage lasted at least three years and the parties’ combined gross income is $240,000 a year or less. Above that, the guideline formula for the amount does not apply at all and the court weighs the statutory factors directly.
The amount is forty percent of the parties’ combined monthly adjusted gross income, minus the lower earner’s monthly income. If that comes out negative, the guideline amount is zero. Because orders entered from 2019 onward are not tax-deductible to the payer, the result is then reduced to eighty percent of that figure for combined incomes up to $10,000 a month, or seventy-five percent between $10,001 and $20,000.
Duration comes from a table that runs from three years of marriage to twenty. It starts at thirty-one percent of the length of the marriage and rises to fifty percent at the twelve and a half year mark, holding there through twenty years.
A formula worth double-checking
Several Colorado alimony calculators online state the formula as forty percent of the higher earner’s income minus fifty percent of the lower earner’s. That is not what the statute says, and it produces a noticeably higher number. The statute is forty percent of the parties’ combined income minus the lower earner’s income. A useful way to sense-check any maintenance figure: under the correct formula the receiving spouse ends up with exactly forty percent of the combined income, before the tax adjustment. That is the cap built into the guideline.
Why Your Real Number May Differ
- The guidelines are advisory only. They create no presumption that maintenance will be awarded at all, or in any particular amount or for any particular term.
- The court must first find that the spouse seeking maintenance lacks sufficient property to provide for their reasonable needs and is unable to support themselves through appropriate employment.
- Combined gross income above $240,000 a year takes the amount outside the guideline entirely.
- Either party may be found voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, in which case potential income is used instead of actual income.
- Temporary maintenance while a case is pending uses the same amount formula but not the guideline term.
- Marital misconduct is not a factor in Colorado, whatever either spouse feels about the other’s conduct.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is alimony calculated in Colorado?
The advisory formula is forty percent of the parties’ combined monthly adjusted gross income minus the lower earner’s monthly income, floored at zero. For orders entered from 2019 onward the result is reduced to eighty percent of that figure where combined income is $10,000 a month or less, or seventy-five percent where it is between $10,001 and $20,000.
How long does spousal maintenance last in Colorado?
The advisory term is a percentage of the length of the marriage, from thirty-one percent at three years up to fifty percent at twelve and a half years, holding at fifty percent through twenty years. For marriages longer than twenty years the court can set a term or order maintenance indefinitely, and cannot order less than the twenty-year guideline term without specific findings.
Is maintenance taxable in Colorado?
For orders entered on or after January 1, 2019, maintenance is neither deductible to the payer nor taxable to the recipient under federal law. That is why the guideline reduces the calculated amount to seventy-five or eighty percent.
Does cheating affect alimony in Colorado?
No. Colorado does not consider marital misconduct when setting maintenance or dividing property. It is one of the most common misconceptions clients arrive with.
Can maintenance be modified?
Unless the parties agreed to make it non-modifiable, maintenance can be modified on a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the existing terms unfair. It generally terminates on the death of either party or the recipient’s remarriage.
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