Updated September 17, 2026. Quick answer: Alabama’s 2017 alimony reform caps periodic alimony at the length of the marriage unless the marriage lasted 20 years or more, separately caps rehabilitative alimony at five years absent extraordinary circumstances, and automatically ends periodic alimony if the recipient remarries or cohabits with a partner.
Married, or planning for a spouse’s death? Whether the state is a community property state, from its own statutes: Is Alabama a community property state?.
The rule that changes the answer in Alabama
Under Ala. Code § 30-2-57 (Act 2017-164): “the court shall award rehabilitative alimony to the party for a limited duration, not to exceed five years, absent extraordinary circumstances, of an amount to enable the party to acquire the ability to preserve, to the extent possible, the economic status quo of the parties as it existed during the marriage.”
“a person shall be eligible for periodic alimony for a period not to exceed the length of the marriage, as of the date of the filing of the complaint, with the exception that if a party is married for 20 years or longer, there shall be no time limit as to his or her eligibility.”
What this means for duration
Rehabilitative alimony is capped at five years absent extraordinary circumstances; periodic alimony is capped at the length of the marriage, except that marriages of 20 years or longer carry no statutory time limit on eligibility.
Periodic and rehabilitative alimony both terminate automatically on remarriage or cohabitation, under a separate section: Under Ala. Code § 30-2-55: “Any decree of divorce providing for periodic payments of alimony shall be modified by the court to provide for the termination of such alimony upon petition of a party to the decree and proof that the spouse receiving such alimony has remarried or that such spouse is living openly or cohabiting with a member of the opposite sex.”
Why this matters for a later-life divorce
The 20-year marriage-length threshold is the exact dividing line between a periodic-alimony award Alabama caps by statute and one it does not, which is directly relevant to how long support can run after a gray divorce.
Read it yourself
Read the full official text before relying on any figure here. Alimony law is fact-specific and this rule is only one input to a court’s decision, not a guaranteed outcome. This is a source-backed planning guide, not individualized legal advice.
This rule is cross-checked against a second source, the termination provision, Ala. Code § 30-2-55.
Read directly from codes.findlaw.com’s and law.onecle.com’s codified text of Ala. Code §§ 30-2-57 and 30-2-55, both independently re-fetched by this session via a direct HTTP request (HTTP 200 on both); law.justia.com’s mirror returned HTTP 403 to direct fetch this session.
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