Colorado Spousal Maintenance Advisement: Formula, Duration, and Waiver

Colorado spousal maintenance — the state’s term for alimony — can be ordered when one spouse lacks the income or property to meet reasonable needs and the other has the ability to pay. The amount and length follow advisory guidelines in C.R.S. 14-10-114 that key off combined income and how long the marriage lasted, with the judge free to adjust either figure when the facts warrant it.¹

Who Can Ask for Maintenance

Either spouse can request maintenance in a dissolution, legal separation, or invalidity proceeding. Before running any numbers, the court answers two threshold questions: does the requesting spouse lack enough property or income to meet reasonable needs, and can the other spouse afford to pay?

If the answer is yes on both, the court weighs a longer list of factors to shape the award. Those include the standard of living during the marriage, each spouse’s actual and potential income, how the marital property is being divided, the length of the marriage, age and health of each party, contributions one spouse made to the other’s career or education, and whether one spouse needs to reduce work to care for a child of the marriage.¹

Marital misconduct is off the table. The statute says maintenance is awarded “without regard to marital misconduct,” so infidelity or bad behavior does not increase or decrease what a spouse receives.

How the Amount Is Calculated

The advisory formula applies when the marriage lasted at least three years and the couple’s combined annual adjusted gross income is $240,000 or less. Above that ceiling, the formula drops out and the court exercises discretion using the statutory factors.¹

The base calculation is straightforward. Take 40% of the couple’s combined monthly adjusted gross income, then subtract the lower earner’s monthly adjusted gross income. A negative result means the guideline amount is zero. Note that the 40% figure runs off combined income, not the higher earner’s income alone.

The Post-2018 Tax Reduction

The base formula was written when maintenance was tax-deductible for the payor and taxable to the recipient. For any divorce or separation agreement executed after December 31, 2018, the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated that treatment. The payor gets no deduction; the recipient owes no income tax.²

Because current divorces sit under the new tax rules, the statute builds in a haircut on the base formula:

Combined monthly income of $10,000 or less: 80% of the base formula result.
Combined monthly income between $10,001 and $20,000: 75% of the base formula result.

A Worked Example

Say one spouse earns $6,000 a month and the other earns $2,000, for $8,000 combined. Forty percent of $8,000 is $3,200. Subtract the lower earner’s $2,000 and the base formula gives $1,200. Because combined income is under $10,000 and the payments are not tax-deductible, the guideline drops to 80% of $1,200, or $960 per month. The judge is not bound to that number, but must calculate it, state it on the record, and explain any departure.

How Long Maintenance Lasts

Duration is tied to the length of the marriage through a statutory table. The table starts at 36 months of marriage (the floor for the guidelines) and runs to 240 months. A three-year marriage produces a guideline term of 11 months. A ten-year marriage yields 54 months. Fifteen years produces about 75 months, and twenty years produces 120 months.¹

Marriages over 20 years are treated differently. The court may set a specific number of years or order maintenance for an indefinite term, but it cannot go below the 120-month floor without specific findings explaining why a shorter term fits. For long marriages where one spouse was out of the workforce for decades, indefinite maintenance is a realistic outcome.

Judges can deviate up or down from the guideline term using the same factors that shape the amount — age, health, career sacrifices, time needed to become self-supporting, and anything else the court finds relevant. The guidelines are advisory, but a judge who departs from them has to show the work.

Temporary Maintenance While the Case Is Pending

Divorces take months, and the lower-earning spouse often needs support before final orders. Under C.R.S. 14-10-114(4), the court can order temporary maintenance using the same formula and factors that apply to permanent orders. The duration table does not apply to temporary awards; the judge sets a length that matches the expected life of the case.

A temporary award does not lock in a permanent one. The statute is explicit that a temporary determination does not prejudice either party at permanent orders, and the court starts fresh when the divorce is finalized.¹

Waiving Maintenance

Spouses can waive maintenance during the divorce or in advance through a prenuptial or marital agreement. C.R.S. 14-10-114(7) allows written or oral waivers made in court. The enforceability of premarital waivers falls under Colorado’s Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act.

There is a safeguard for unrepresented spouses. If either party lacks an attorney or licensed legal paraprofessional, the court cannot approve a waiver or a below-guideline agreement unless the unrepresented spouse confirms awareness of what the guidelines would have produced. That prevents someone from giving up substantial support without knowing what they were owed.

Changing or Ending an Order

Under C.R.S. 14-10-122, either party can move to modify maintenance by showing changed circumstances “substantial and continuing” enough to make the current terms unfair. Common triggers include a significant change in either party’s income, a serious illness, or involuntary job loss. Modifications reach only payments coming due after the motion is filed, so any arrears under the original order remain owed.³

The moving party carries the burden. A payor asking to reduce payments after a job loss needs documentation showing the loss is genuine rather than a maneuver to avoid paying.

Retirement

Retirement is one of the most frequently litigated triggers. Colorado gives the payor a rebuttable presumption that retirement is in good faith when it occurs at “full retirement age,” meaning the age at which the payor would qualify for full Social Security benefits. That is not early retirement age, and it is not the delayed age that maximizes benefits. The recipient can challenge the presumption, but the payor starts with the advantage.³

Automatic Termination

Unless the decree or a written agreement says otherwise, maintenance ends automatically on the first of these events:

Death of either party.
Remarriage or civil union of the recipient.
Expiration of the court-ordered term, unless a modification motion was filed before it ran out.
A court order terminating maintenance for another reason.

The “unless otherwise agreed” clause matters. If your separation agreement writes in different termination terms, those terms control, so the language is worth reading closely before you sign.

Enforcing Payment

When a payor falls behind, Colorado provides several enforcement tools. The general authority sits in C.R.S. 14-10-118, which lets courts require security and use any enforcement method available under state statutes or the rules of civil procedure.⁴

Income withholding is the default. Under C.R.S. 14-14-111.5, whenever a court orders maintenance, an income assignment activates immediately. The payor’s employer deducts the amount from wages and sends it to the recipient or through the family support registry. It applies to temporary and permanent orders alike, and it starts whether the payor is behind or current.⁵

When a payor willfully refuses to pay despite the ability to do so, the recipient can move for contempt under Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 107. Punitive sanctions can include up to six months in jail (without a jury trial) and fines. Remedial sanctions can include confinement until the payor complies, along with attorney fees. Contempt is the court’s sharpest option and is generally used when other methods have failed.

Courts can also secure unpaid maintenance with liens on real estate or other property. A lien creates a legal claim that must be paid before the property can be sold or refinanced, and Colorado case law has upheld liens where a payor threatened to dispose of assets to avoid paying.

What Bankruptcy and Social Security Don’t Do

Two areas often get confused with maintenance and deserve a brief mention. Filing for bankruptcy does not erase the obligation: a “domestic support obligation” cannot be discharged in Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, and the automatic stay that halts other collection efforts does not apply to it. Enforcement can continue while the bankruptcy is pending.⁶

Separately, Social Security divorced-spouse benefits are not maintenance and are not paid by an ex. If the marriage lasted at least ten years, a divorced spouse who is at least 62, currently unmarried, and not entitled to a higher benefit of their own may claim up to 50% of the ex’s full retirement amount without reducing what the ex or their current spouse receives.⁷

1
Justia. Colorado Code 14-10-114 – Spousal Maintenance Advisory Guidelines Legislative Declaration Definitions
2
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 452, Alimony and Separate Maintenance
3
Justia. Colorado Code 14-10-122 – Modification and Termination of Provisions for Maintenance, Support, and Property Disposition
4
Justia. Colorado Code 14-10-118 – Enforcement of Orders
5
Justia. Colorado Code 14-14-111.5 – Income Assignments
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 523 – Exceptions to Discharge
7
Social Security Administration. Code of Federal Regulations 404.331