If you are heading into a Florida divorce and want to know whether alimony will be part of it, the plain answer: it is still possible, it is never automatic, and the form of it most people have heard about is gone. A Florida court can order one spouse to support the other after the marriage ends. What it cannot do is order support that lasts for life.
Alimony is governed by section 61.08 of the Florida Statutes, which the Legislature rewrote in 2023. Under the current statute a court may award temporary, bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, or durational alimony, as periodic payments, a lump sum, or a combination. Permanent alimony was removed from that list. What follows is how the framework works today, so you can plan against the law as it is rather than a version of it that no longer applies.
What alimony is meant to do
Alimony addresses a financial imbalance the marriage itself created. One spouse may have stepped back from earning to raise children or to support the other's career, and that gap does not close on the day the judgment is signed. The court's task is to decide whether one spouse has a genuine need for income support and whether the other can realistically provide it.
It is decided alongside, but separately from, property division, which answers who ends up owning what. Alimony answers what happens to monthly cash flow afterward. The two interact: a spouse who receives income-producing assets may need less support.
The forms of alimony a Florida court can award
Section 61.08 gives the court four forms to work with, and it may award one form or a combination of them.
- Temporary alimony supports a spouse while the divorce is pending. It keeps a household stable and ends when the case is resolved.
- Bridge-the-gap alimony covers legitimate, identifiable short-term needs during the move from married to single life. It may not exceed two years, cannot later be modified in amount or duration, and ends on the death of either party or the remarriage of the recipient.
- Rehabilitative alimony funds a return to self-support through education, training, or the redevelopment of prior skills. The statute requires a specific and defined rehabilitative plan, not a general intention to find work, and it may not exceed five years.
- Durational alimony provides support for a set period after a marriage of at least three years, where there is a need but no plan that would make rehabilitative alimony the right fit. Its length and its amount are both capped, as described below.
Every form on that list has an end point written into it.
The threshold question: need and ability to pay
Before the court reaches the question of which form, it makes a more basic finding. The spouse asking for alimony carries the burden of proving both an actual need for support and the other spouse's ability to pay it. If either half fails, there is no award, regardless of how long the marriage lasted.
The statute also requires the judge to show the work. A court awarding alimony must make written findings of fact explaining the basis for the form or forms chosen, including type and length. A court denying a request must make findings on the absence of need or of ability to pay. That written record is what makes an award reviewable on appeal.
What the court weighs
The statute then directs the court to consider all relevant factors, including:
- The duration of the marriage
- The standard of living established during the marriage and each spouse's anticipated needs afterward
- The age and the physical, mental, and emotional condition of each spouse, including any disability
- The financial resources of each spouse, marital and non-marital, and all available sources of income
- Earning capacity, education, vocational skills, and employability, plus the time and cost of training needed for suitable work
- Contributions to the marriage, including homemaking, child care, education, and support of the other spouse's career
- Responsibilities for any minor children, with particular weight given to a child with a disability
- Any other factor necessary to do equity and justice between the parties
Florida grants divorces without proof of fault, so conduct is not a ground for support on its own. The statute does allow the court to consider the adultery of either spouse and its economic impact when setting the amount. That turns on money rather than grievance: what marital funds were spent, and on what.
How long support can last
Length is where the 2023 rewrite is most visible. The statute sets rebuttable presumptions for classifying a marriage, measured from the date of the marriage to the date the petition for dissolution was filed:
- Short-term: less than 10 years
- Moderate-term: 10 years or more but less than 20
- Long-term: 20 years or more
Durational alimony is then capped against that classification. It may not exceed 50 percent of the length of a short-term marriage, 60 percent of the length of a moderate-term marriage, or 75 percent of the length of a long-term marriage. It is not available at all after a marriage of less than three years.
A court may extend a durational award beyond those limits only under exceptional circumstances, and only on clear and convincing evidence, weighing considerations such as the age and employability of the person receiving support, the resources actually available to that person, a disability, or the demands of caring for a child with a disability. It is a narrow door rather than a general escape valve.
How the amount is approached
For durational alimony the statute puts a ceiling on the number: the recipient's reasonable need, or an amount not to exceed 35 percent of the difference between the parties' net incomes, whichever is less.
That figure is often mistaken for a formula. It is a cap. Reasonable need still has to be proved with real numbers, and where the proved need falls below the 35 percent line, the lower figure governs. A careful budget and an accurate financial affidavit do more for your position than any argument about what the other spouse deserves.
If you were counting on permanent alimony
Many people arrive having heard, often from someone divorced years earlier, that a long marriage means lifetime support. That is no longer the law here. Under the current statute the question is not whether support ends but when, so numbers built on an open-ended award have to be rebuilt. Our alimony and spousal support page covers the 2023 reform in more depth, along with entitlement and enforcement.
The tax treatment changed too
Older articles on this subject, including the one this page replaces, told readers to negotiate around the alimony tax deduction. That advice is out of date. Under federal law, for divorce or separation instruments executed after December 31, 2018, alimony is not deductible by the paying spouse and is not taxable income to the spouse receiving it. Orders finalized before that date generally keep the older treatment unless modified with language adopting the new one. Confirm the treatment with a tax professional before agreeing to a number.
You and your spouse can still decide this yourselves
The statute governs what a judge may order. It does not require you to let a judge decide. Spouses can agree on support themselves, through counsel or in mediation, and a negotiated resolution can be shaped around circumstances a court order handles bluntly: a business with uneven income, a planned return to school, a house one spouse hopes to keep. Those terms will follow both people for years, so they deserve the care of a contested hearing. Our divorce page explains how the pieces fit together.
What to do next
Start with the numbers, because every part of this analysis runs on them. Pull together recent tax returns, pay records, a list of accounts and debts, and an honest monthly budget for the household you expect to be running a year from now. Florida requires financial disclosure in a dissolution case in any event, and gathering it early tells you quickly whether alimony is genuinely in play.
Tampa Bay families file in the Hillsborough County Circuit Court, Family Law Division, at the George Edgecomb Courthouse, 800 E. Twiggs Street. Ask your questions about support before you commit to a position, particularly if the figure in your head came from a divorce decided under the old law.