Florida Alimony Reform 2023: Do You Need a Second Opinion?

Florida's 2023 alimony reform, passed as Senate Bill 1416 and effective July 1, 2023, ended permanent alimony and set specific rules for the type, amount, and length of any award. If your divorce involves alimony and was filed on or after that date, or was still pending then, the law applies to you, and a second opinion is how you confirm the numbers were actually run under the current rules. The reform is recent enough that mistakes still happen, and an alimony figure that is wrong by even a few hundred dollars a month becomes a very large number over the life of the award.

I practiced Florida family law for more than twenty years, through the long fight over alimony reform and into the law we have now. This article explains what changed, who it affects, and why alimony is the single issue I would most want reviewed before anyone signs.

A note on timing: this article describes Florida law as of its 2023 reform. Alimony law can change again, and courts continue to interpret the 2023 statute. Confirm the current rules with a licensed Florida attorney before relying on them.

What the 2023 alimony reform changed

Senate Bill 1416 reshaped how Florida courts award alimony in divorces filed or pending on or after July 1, 2023. Here are the core changes.

Permanent alimony is gone. Florida courts can no longer award permanent, lifetime alimony in cases governed by the new law. That is the headline, and it is a real shift.

Four types of alimony remain. A court can award temporary alimony during the case, bridge-the-gap alimony for short-term transition needs, rehabilitative alimony, and durational alimony. Each has its own purpose and its own limits.

Durational alimony is now capped. This is the type that matters most in longer marriages, and the caps are specific. A marriage of less than three years supports no durational alimony at all. A marriage of three to ten years caps it at half the length of the marriage. A marriage of ten to twenty years caps it at sixty percent of the marriage length. A marriage of twenty years or more caps it at seventy-five percent. A court can extend those limits only in narrow circumstances.

The amount of durational alimony is capped too. A durational award cannot exceed the lesser of the recipient's reasonable need or thirty-five percent of the difference between the two spouses' net incomes. That second number is a hard ceiling that did not exist in the same form before.

Rehabilitative alimony is limited to five years. Rehabilitative alimony supports a spouse while they retrain or rebuild earning capacity, and it now requires a specific, defined plan and cannot run longer than five years.

Retirement and supportive relationships

Two more parts of the 2023 law come up constantly, and both can change an alimony number significantly.

Retirement. The law gives a paying spouse a clearer path to ask a court to reduce or end alimony when they reach retirement age and actually retire. A court must consider that retirement as a basis for modification. That matters enormously in longer marriages where one spouse is near retirement, and it should be part of how any alimony award is structured.

Supportive relationships. If the spouse receiving alimony is in a supportive relationship with someone they do not live with as a married couple but who functions like one, the law requires a court to reduce or terminate the alimony when that is proven. The rules on who has to prove what are specific, and they are worth understanding before you agree to anything.

What it means for an existing or older alimony order

People with alimony awards from before July 2023 ask me this constantly, so here is the short version.

The 2023 law did not automatically cancel existing permanent alimony awards. An order entered under the old law generally stays in place. What changed is the landscape for modification. If you are paying or receiving alimony under an older order and your circumstances have changed substantially, the path to modification, including modification at retirement, now runs through the current statute. Whether that helps you or hurts you depends on your specific numbers, which is exactly the kind of question a second opinion answers.

The related 2023 change to timesharing

While you are sorting out a 2023-era Florida divorce, know that the same legislative session brought a separate and major change to parenting. A different 2023 law amended Florida's timesharing statute to create a rebuttable presumption that equal timesharing of a child is in the child's best interest. A parent who disagrees must prove, by the greater weight of the evidence, that equal timesharing is not in the child's interest. That is a parenting change, not an alimony change, but if your divorce involves both alimony and children, both 2023 reforms are in play at once.

Why alimony is the issue I most want reviewed

Alimony is the number I would most want a second set of eyes on, more than anything else in a Florida divorce. Here is why.

The mistakes are quiet. An alimony award of the wrong type, or the wrong length, or above the new amount cap does not announce itself. It looks like a number on a page.

The mistakes are large. Picture an award that is off by $700 a month on a ten-year durational term. That is $84,000. Off by $1,500 a month on a fifteen-year term is $270,000. These are not rounding errors. They are the price of a house.

The law is still settling. The 2023 statute is recent, and courts are still working through how it applies in real cases. That is exactly the environment where a careful, current review earns its fee.

A second opinion on alimony checks the type against your marriage, runs the duration against the statutory caps, tests the amount against the thirty-five percent ceiling and the recipient's reasonable need, and considers how retirement and any supportive-relationship issues should shape the deal. Read how to know if your settlement is fair for the broader checklist, and the complete second opinion guide for how a review works.

Common questions

A 2023-era alimony award follows specific rules, and a small mistake compounds for years.