Pennsylvania Alimony & Spousal Support
Only a handful of states publish a formula for spousal support. Some cap the amount without publishing a formula, and most publish a factor checklist and no number at all. Pick your state to see which of the three it is, run whatever math it does publish, and read the factors a court actually weighs.
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Estimate only — not legal advice. This is the published math for Pennsylvania spousal support, shown as a range. Your actual outcome depends on facts, evidence, and decisions this page cannot see.
Pennsylvania: Statutory factors — no formula
Pennsylvania publishes no spousal support formula, and no ceiling either.
This state publishes no formula and no ceiling for the amount of spousal support. The court decides it on the statutory factors below. Any site that shows you a dollar figure for this state has applied a guideline the state did not adopt.
What a Pennsylvania court actually weighs
Transcribed from 23 Pa.C.S. §3701(b). These are the statutory factors, in the statute’s own order.
- 01The relative earnings and earning capacities of the parties
- 02The ages and the physical, mental and emotional conditions of the parties
- 03The sources of income of both parties, including, but not limited to, medical, retirement, insurance or other benefits
- 04The expectancies and inheritances of the parties
- 05The duration of the marriage
- 06The contribution by one party to the education, training or increased earning power of the other party
- 07The extent to which the earning power, expenses or financial obligations of a party will be affected by reason of serving as the custodian of a minor child
- 08The standard of living of the parties established during the marriage
- 09The relative education of the parties and the time necessary to acquire sufficient education or training to enable the party seeking alimony to find appropriate employment
- 10The relative assets and liabilities of the parties
- 11The property brought to the marriage by either party
- 12The contribution of a spouse as homemaker
- 13The relative needs of the parties
- 14The marital misconduct of either of the parties during the marriage (misconduct after the date of final separation is not considered, except that the court shall consider the abuse of one party by the other)
- 15The Federal, State and local tax ramifications of the alimony award
- 16Whether the party seeking alimony lacks sufficient property, including property distributed under Chapter 35, to provide for the party's reasonable needs
- 17Whether the party seeking alimony is incapable of self-support through appropriate employment
Spousal support and child support are set separately and interact — in New York the child-support arrangement chooses which maintenance formula applies. Run your state’s child support guideline alongside this, and build the parenting schedule that feeds it with the custody planner.
Verified 2026-08-03 against 23 Pa.C.S. §3701 (Alimony), Consolidated Statutes, Pennsylvania General Assembly. The seventeen factors are transcribed from §3701(b); §3701(c) governs duration and §3706 bars alimony on remarriage or cohabitation. (effective 1998-01-01)
Source of record
Courts retain discretion — guideline results can be adjusted or deviated from. This is the published guideline math, not a prediction of your order.
🎓 Understand this tool
What it is
A state-by-state answer to a question most alimony calculators skip: does your state publish a formula for spousal support at all? A few do. Some publish no formula but cap the amount by statute. Most publish a list of factors and no number whatsoever, and this tool says so rather than borrowing a guideline from somewhere else.
How it works
Each state page is driven by a rule pack transcribed from that state’s own statute, and the pack records which of three kinds the state is. A formula state — Illinois and New York among the few — computes a guideline amount from both incomes, usually a share of the payor’s income less a share of the payee’s, then limits the result so the payee does not end up above a set share of the parties’ combined income. New York applies its formula only to the payor’s income up to a cap the Unified Court System republishes every two years, and switches between two formulas depending on whether the payor is also the non-custodial parent paying child support. A cap state publishes no formula but does set a ceiling: Texas at the lesser of $5,000 a month or twenty per cent of the obligor’s average monthly gross income, Florida at thirty-five per cent of the difference between the parties’ net incomes or the obligee’s reasonable need, whichever is less. A factors state publishes neither, and the page shows the statutory checklist instead.
Getting the most from it
- Start with the badge at the top of your state’s page. It tells you which of the three kinds you are in before any figure appears.
- Enter annual incomes on the basis the page names — gross or net differs by state, and using the wrong one produces a confident answer to the wrong question.
- Enter the length of the marriage. Every state that publishes anything about duration keys it to this.
- Read the factors. In most states they are the entire answer, and they are what a lawyer will ask you about first.
Reading your result
A guideline figure is presumptive, not an order — a court can depart from it and explains why when it does. A ceiling is something else again: it is the most the statute permits, so an award at the ceiling is the exception rather than the expectation, and many spouses are not eligible for any award at all. Where the page shows no number, that is the finding, not a gap in the data.
What it can't tell you
This does not predict what a court will order, does not decide whether you are eligible, and does not account for property division, tax treatment, or the conduct-based provisions several states attach to spousal support. It cannot weigh factors — that is the judicial act itself. Temporary support during a case often runs on entirely different local rules than the post-divorce figures shown here. A family lawyer licensed in your state is the person who answers your question.
Frequently asked questions
Because most states publish no formula for the amount of spousal support — the statute lists factors and the court decides. Where that is true, the honest output is the factor list and whatever ceiling or duration limit the statute does set. A site that shows you a dollar figure for one of those states has applied a guideline the state never adopted.
Related calculators
Custody Planner
Build a parenting schedule from the standard rotations courts see most — 2-2-3, 2-2-5-5, 3-4-4-3, week-on-week-off, or every other weekend — then count the overnights exactly. The percentage carries straight into your state’s child support calculator, and the calendar exports and prints.
Child Support
Every state sets child support with a published guideline formula — income shares, percentage of income, or the Melson formula. Pick your state to run its own math step by step, see which figures the statute actually uses, and open the official worksheet it comes from.
Change alerts — when a state revises the guideline or deadline behind this page
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