How Wisconsin calculates maintenance
Wisconsin uses the term "maintenance," and like most states, it hands the amount decision to a judge rather than a formula. Wis. Stat. §767.56 lists factors without any calculation attached: length of the marriage, age and physical or emotional health of the parties, how property gets divided, each party's educational level at the time of marriage and at the time the case was filed, the earning capacity of the spouse seeking maintenance (weighing education, training, work experience, how long they've been out of the job market, and custodial responsibilities for children), how feasible it is for that spouse to become self-supporting at a standard of living reasonably comparable to the marriage, tax consequences, any mutual agreement between the parties, and any contribution one spouse made to the other's education, training, or earning power. The statute closes with a catch-all for any other relevant factor, and importantly, no single listed factor gets statutory priority over the others.
Duration follows the same open-discretion pattern. There's no codified table linking years married to years of maintenance. In practice, though, Wisconsin courts and family-law practitioners informally sort marriages into three buckets: short-term marriages, roughly zero to ten years; medium-length marriages, roughly ten to twenty years; and long-term marriages, twenty years and up. Longer marriages tend to draw longer, or even indefinite, maintenance awards, but that pattern is informal practice built up over years of case outcomes, not a rule written into §767.56. Courts retain broad, case-by-case discretion regardless of which bucket a marriage falls into, and maintenance itself can be ordered for a limited period or an indefinite one.
Fault has essentially no place in a Wisconsin maintenance decision, and this is settled, not ambiguous. Wisconsin is a pure no-fault divorce state, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Dixon v. Dixon confirmed that courts cannot factor marital misconduct into maintenance determinations. That fits with Wisconsin's broader community-property framework under §767.61, which divides marital assets without regard to fault. There is one narrow lane where an affair can still matter financially: if a spouse spent a meaningful amount of marital money on the relationship (hotels, gifts, trips), the other spouse can pursue a marital waste claim to recover their share of those dissipated assets. That's strictly a property-division remedy, though, not something that moves the maintenance number itself.
The core §767.56 factor list hasn't seen a substantive amendment in the 2023-2026 window, and the factor-based, no-fault maintenance framework remains stable heading into the second half of 2026. One related statute did change: §767.59, which governs revising existing support and maintenance orders, was amended by 2025 Wis. Act 82, but that amendment affects the procedure for modifying orders already in place, not the §767.56 factors used to set maintenance in the first place. Worth keeping those two straight if you see "2025 Wisconsin alimony reform" referenced anywhere.
There's no minimum-marriage-length gate here either — Wisconsin doesn't require a couple to have been married a set number of years before maintenance becomes available at all. The short/medium/long grouping described above is purely about how much maintenance a court is likely to order and for how long, once eligibility is already established under the §767.56 factors; it isn't a threshold you need to clear to ask for maintenance in the first place. That distinguishes Wisconsin from states with a hard eligibility floor, and it means even a shorter marriage can produce a maintenance award if the earning-capacity and self-support factors point that way.
Last reviewed: July 2026. Statute citations: Wis. Stat. §767.56 (maintenance factors); §767.61 (community property division, without regard to marital misconduct); §767.59 (order revision procedure, amended 2025 Wis. Act 82).
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Wisconsin have a maintenance formula?
No. Wis. Stat. §767.56 is a factor-based test with no percentage calculation. This tool applies a non-statutory guideline so you have a planning number, alongside the real factor list.
How long does maintenance last in Wisconsin?
There's no statutory formula or table. Courts and practitioners informally group marriages into short-term (0-10 years), medium-length (10-20 years), and long-term (20+ years) categories, with longer marriages more likely to receive longer or indefinite maintenance — but this is informal practice, not codified law.
Does adultery affect maintenance in Wisconsin?
No. Wisconsin is a pure no-fault divorce state, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court confirmed in Dixon v. Dixon (1982) that courts cannot consider marital misconduct in maintenance determinations. A narrow exception exists for a marital waste claim if a spouse spent significant marital funds on an affair — but that's a property-division remedy, not a maintenance factor.
What are the Wisconsin §767.56 maintenance factors?
Factors include length of the marriage, age and health of the parties, division of property, educational level of each party, earning capacity of the requesting spouse, feasibility of becoming self-supporting at a comparable standard of living, tax consequences, any mutual agreement, contribution to the other's education or earning power, and any other relevant factor.
Can I recover marital funds spent on an affair in Wisconsin?
Potentially, through a marital waste claim, which lets a spouse recover their share of marital assets dissipated on an affair (gifts, trips, hotels). This is a property-division remedy under Wisconsin's community-property system, separate from the maintenance factors under §767.56.