Updated for 2026 guidelines
Colorado Maintenance Calculator 2026
Colorado is honest in an unusual way: the statute prints an exact maintenance formula and an exact term table, then says in so many words that neither is presumptive. This tool computes both, the way a Colorado court starts its analysis, and tells you exactly where the advisory math ends and the judge begins.
Reviewed by SupportDecode Editorial Team Page content reviewed Sources Methodology Update log
Estimate Colorado advisory guideline maintenance
Advisory guideline maintenance per month: $800.00
The court sets the actual award; this is the statutory formula amount, not a guarantee.
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| 40 percent of the parties combined monthly adjusted gross income minus the lower-income party monthly adjusted gross income (floor zero)C.R.S. 2024 Title 14 official PDF (14-10-114 maintenance, 14-10-115 child support guidelines, 14-14-106 arrears interest) (Colorado Office of Legislative Legal Services (leg.colorado.gov)) | $1,000.00 |
| Times 80 percent: combined monthly adjusted gross income is $10,000 or less (post-2019 tax treatment, § 14-10-114(3)(b)(I)(B))C.R.S. 2024 Title 14 official PDF (14-10-114 maintenance, 14-10-115 child support guidelines, 14-14-106 arrears interest) (Colorado Office of Legislative Legal Services (leg.colorado.gov)) | $800.00 |
| Advisory guideline maintenance, monthlyC.R.S. 2024 Title 14 official PDF (14-10-114 maintenance, 14-10-115 child support guidelines, 14-14-106 arrears interest) (Colorado Office of Legislative Legal Services (leg.colorado.gov)) | $800.00 |
Duration limits
- Marriages of 3 to 20 years (36 to 240 months): The advisory term is the months of marriage times the table percentage: 31.00% at 36 months (an 11-month term), rising one-sixth of a percentage point per month of marriage to 50.00% at 150 months (a 75-month term) and staying at 50% through 240 months (a 120-month term).
- Marriages longer than 20 years: The court may award maintenance for a specified term of years or for an indefinite term, but without making additional findings it may not order a term shorter than the 20-year table term of 120 months.
- Marriages shorter than 3 years: The guideline term table does not reach below 36 months of marriage; amount and term are for the court under the § 14-10-114(3)(c) factors.
Advisory guideline term: 54 months (120 months of marriage times the table percentage of 45%, rounded to whole months; term values carry the pack's archived-mirror provenance flag).
C.R.S. § 14-10-114(3)(b)(II) (term table; values cross-checked against an archived unofficial mirror of the CRS, official-confirmation-required)
Assumptions
- ADVISORY ONLY: § 14-10-114(3)(e) says the guideline amount and term "do not create a presumptive amount or term"; the court must make findings under the § 14-10-114(3)(c) factors and may order more, less, or nothing.
- Maintenance is awarded only if the seeking spouse lacks sufficient property and cannot meet reasonable needs through appropriate employment (§ 14-10-114(3)(d)); this tool does not test that threshold.
- Monthly adjusted gross incomes follow the § 14-10-114(8) definitions; this tool uses the figures you supply.
- Maintenance is determined before child support runs: maintenance actually paid or received adjusts each party's gross income under § 14-10-115(5), so a Colorado maintenance award changes the child support worksheet.
- The amount formula is verified verbatim from the official CRS text. The term table is a graphic insert in the official CRS PDF; its values here reproduce the published rule and were cross-checked against an archived UNOFFICIAL mirror of the CRS (official-confirmation-required against the official printed table).
Estimate only. The court or state agency calculation controls.
Colorado alimony under C.R.S. § 14-10-114(3)(b) (advisory maintenance guideline: amount formula and term table), effective 2014-01-01.
An exact formula that is advisory on purpose
Colorado calls spouse-to-spouse support maintenance, and section 14-10-114 gives courts a guideline formula for it. The formula applies when the marriage lasted at least 3 years and the parties' combined annual adjusted gross income is $240,000 or less, which is $20,000 a month.
The amount math has two steps. First: 40 percent of the parties' combined monthly adjusted gross income, minus the lower-income spouse's monthly adjusted gross income. If that is negative, the guideline amount is zero. Second, a tax-treatment multiplier: the result is multiplied by 80 percent when combined monthly income is $10,000 or less, or by 75 percent when it is above $10,000 up to $20,000. The multipliers exist because federal law stopped making maintenance deductible for the payor in 2019, and the statute adjusted the math rather than the concept.
The term has its own table, indexed by whole months of marriage from 36 to 240. At 36 months the term is 31 percent of the marriage length, about 11 months. The percentage climbs one-sixth of a percentage point per month of marriage until it reaches 50 percent at 150 months, then stays at 50 percent through 240. A 10-year marriage, 120 months, yields a 45 percent term: 54 months. Past 20 years, the court may order a term of years or indefinite maintenance, but not less than the 20-year term of 120 months without findings.
Now the Colorado twist: subsection (3)(e) says the guideline amount and term do not create a presumptive amount or term. The court must make findings under the statutory factors and may order more, less, or nothing. There is also a threshold gate: maintenance is awarded only when the seeking spouse lacks sufficient property to meet reasonable needs and cannot self-support through appropriate employment.
Outside the bounds, the formula simply does not apply. For marriages under 3 years, and for combined incomes above $240,000 a year, this tool shows the statutory framework instead of a number, because Colorado law does not supply one there.
- Statutory term
- Maintenance (C.R.S. § 14-10-114); advisory guideline, not presumptivesource
- Amount formula
- 40% of combined monthly AGI minus the lower earner's AGI, floor zerosource
- Tax-treatment multiplier
- x80% at combined income up to $10,000/month; x75% from there to $20,000source
- Applies when
- Marriage of at least 3 years and combined annual AGI of $240,000 or lesssource
- Term table
- 31% of the marriage length at 36 months, rising to 50% at 150 months, flat through 240source
How to use this estimate
Enter each spouse's monthly adjusted gross income under the statute's definitions, before taxes. The formula runs on the combined figure and on whichever income is lower, so enter both accurately rather than just the payor's.
Enter the marriage length in whole years plus any extra months. The term table runs on whole months of marriage, and near a band edge a single month changes the advisory term.
Read the output as the guideline a Colorado court calculates first, not the award. The statute makes the number advisory, the judge weighs the section 14-10-114(3)(c) factors on the record, and the threshold gate about property and self-support comes before any award at all. If your inputs fall outside the formula's bounds, the tool explains the framework that applies instead.
What this estimate includes
- The section 14-10-114(3)(b) amount formula at both multipliers, computed exactly
- The advisory term from the month-by-month table, with the over-20-years rule
- The structured refusal outside the bounds: marriages under 36 months, combined income above $240,000
- The maintenance-before-child-support ordering, so you can chain the two tools
What it leaves out
- Any prediction of what a judge will actually order; the guideline is advisory by statute
- The threshold determination that the seeking spouse cannot meet reasonable needs
- Temporary maintenance while the case is pending, which uses the amount methodology but not the term table
- Modification and termination questions, including remarriage and cohabitation
Colorado maintenance FAQs
Does Colorado have an alimony formula?
Yes, and it is genuinely statutory: 40 percent of the parties' combined monthly adjusted gross income minus the lower-income spouse's monthly income, times 80 percent at combined incomes up to $10,000 a month or 75 percent up to $20,000. But section 14-10-114(3)(e) makes the result advisory. The court must consider it, and must also make findings under the statutory factors before ordering anything.
How long does maintenance last in Colorado?
The advisory term comes from a table indexed by whole months of marriage. At 36 months of marriage the term is about 31 percent of the marriage length, 11 months. The percentage rises one-sixth of a point per month until it hits 50 percent at 150 months, then stays there: a 12.5-year marriage suggests half its length in maintenance, and so does a 20-year marriage, 120 months. Past 20 years the court can order a term of years or indefinite maintenance, but not less than 120 months without findings.
Why does the calculator multiply by 80 or 75 percent?
Federal tax law. Before 2019, maintenance was deductible for the payor and taxable to the recipient, and Colorado's original formula assumed that. When the deduction ended, Colorado adjusted the guideline downward instead: 80 percent of the formula result at combined incomes up to $10,000 a month, 75 percent above that up to the $20,000 cap. The bands are in the statute itself.
What if we earn more than $240,000 a year together?
The formula does not apply. Above $240,000 of combined annual adjusted gross income, the statute sends the amount to the court's discretion under the maintenance factors, though the court may still consider the term table for duration. This tool shows that framework instead of printing a number the statute does not support.
Is there maintenance for a marriage under 3 years?
Not under the guideline. The formula and the term table start at 36 months of marriage. A court can still award maintenance in a shorter marriage if the threshold findings are met, but it does so under the factors, without a guideline amount or term. The tool tells you that plainly rather than extrapolating below the table.
Does maintenance change child support in Colorado?
Yes, and the order of operations matters: maintenance is decided first. Maintenance actually paid or received adjusts each parent's gross income before the child support guideline runs, so a maintenance award moves the child support number. Our Colorado child support calculator takes the adjusted incomes this produces.
Is the guideline binding on the judge?
No. Colorado wrote the honesty into the statute: the guideline amount and term do not create a presumption, and the court must make its own findings under the section 14-10-114(3)(c) factors. In practice many Colorado courts start from the formula and explain departures, which is why computing it is still worth your time.
Good to know in Colorado
- The term table in the official statute PDF is a graphic insert that cannot be text-extracted, so this tool reproduces the table's published rule and cross-checks it against an archived unofficial mirror of the CRS. That provenance is flagged in our source registry as official-confirmation-required.
- The guideline in its current advisory form dates to the 2014 rewrite of section 14-10-114; HB25-1159, which rewrote child support for 2026, left the maintenance formula intact and only adjusted an income-imputation detail.
- Temporary maintenance while a case is pending uses the same amount methodology, but the term table does not apply to it.
Official sources
Official sources last verified: .
- C.R.S. 2024 Title 14 official PDF (14-10-114 maintenance, 14-10-115 child support guidelines, 14-14-106 arrears interest)
Colorado Office of Legislative Legal Services (leg.colorado.gov) Last checked
- C.R.S. 14-10-114 maintenance guideline term table values (36-240 months), from an archived reproduction of the official CRS
Justia (UNOFFICIAL reproduction of C.R.S. 2024, 14-10-114) Last checked
Reviewed by SupportDecode Editorial Team Page content reviewed Sources Methodology Update log
Changelog: page first published with the 40 percent formula at both tax-treatment multipliers, the month-by-month term table, and the advisory framing. Material changes are dated in the update log.