Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: New York’s Maintenance Guidelines Act sets an advisory duration schedule for post-divorce maintenance, expressed as a percentage of the marriage’s length, that rises with marriage duration, directly relevant to how long support runs in a long marriage.
The rule that changes the answer in New York
Under N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 236(B)(6)(f): “The court may determine the duration of post-divorce maintenance in accordance with the following advisory schedule:”
The advisory schedule set out in the statute’s own table:
| Length of the marriage | Percent of the length of the marriage for which maintenance will be payable |
|---|---|
| 0 up to and including 15 years | 15% – 30% |
| More than 15 up to and including 20 years | 30% – 40% |
| More than 20 years | 35% – 50% |
“any other factor which the court shall expressly find to be just and proper”
What this means for duration
Advisory schedule: 0-15 years of marriage = 15%-30% of that length payable as maintenance; 15-20 years = 30%-40%; more than 20 years = 35%-50%. Courts may deviate after weighing the enumerated factors under paragraph (e).
Why this matters for a later-life divorce
A 20+ year marriage is explicitly its own duration band under this schedule (35%-50% of the marriage length), the longest-duration tier the statute recognizes.
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.
Re-verified this session against the live official text at nysenate.gov, which now answers most outside requests with a challenge page and had to be opened in a browser; the schedule is reproduced as the statute’s own two-column table rather than re-punctuated into a sentence, and the deviation-factor language was matched verbatim.
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