Two kinds capped by time, not by a percentage

Published 2026-09-23 · Last reviewed 2026-09-23

When people picture alimony they picture the durational kind: a monthly amount paid for a stretch of years, both numbers on the page. Florida's statute actually names three kinds, and two of them have no amount at all.

Bridge-the-gap alimony and rehabilitative alimony are each capped only by how long they may run - 2 years and 5 years - and the money itself is left to the court. That is a different shape from durational alimony, and misreading the three is how people end up arguing about the wrong ceiling. This guide tells the two time-capped kinds apart, and says what the engine on this page can and cannot print about them.

The cap that matters is a date, not a percentage

A durational award is bounded by arithmetic: by a share of the marriage's length, and by the percentage of the income difference studied in the companion guide. The two kinds here are bounded instead by a year count written straight into the statute. When the count is up, the award ends - not because the financial picture has changed, but because that kind of alimony has a statutory shelf life. Understand that and the whole question of these two is really a question of which one was ordered, because the number that decides them is already in the law.

Bridge-the-gap alimony is the shortest of the two

Bridge-the-gap alimony exists to carry a spouse across the specific disruption of the divorce itself - the move, resettling household costs, the window before a separate income starts to flow. Florida caps it at 2 years (s. 61.08(6)), and by design it is the briefest kind, because it is about the gap, not about a life plan.

Its amount has no formula anywhere in the statute - that is why the calculator prints a length ceiling and deliberately prints no amount for it. The engine makes this boundary visible: for a marriage of any length, the bridge-the-gap figure the page shows is a duration (2 years), never a dollar.

Rehabilitative alimony is the rebuilding kind

Rehabilitative alimony is aimed at the longer job of re-establishing a spouse's ability to support themselves - education, training, re-entry to work. Florida puts a higher ceiling on it (5 years under s. 61.08(7)(c)) precisely because the project is bigger than a gap.

But the rule is the same shape: the cap is a time, the amount is the court's, and this site will not invent a number the statute does not contain. A visitor who wants the ceiling to compare against gets it - 5 years - and a visitor who wants a monthly figure for rehabilitation gets an honest "no formula exists" instead of a guess.

Where the durational kind goes instead

Durational alimony is the third kind, and the one that actually carries the percentage. It is only available after a marriage of at least 3 years, and its length may not exceed a share of the marriage that grows with the band the marriage falls in:

• short-term marriage: no more than 50 percent of the marriage, and only if the marriage lasted at least 3 years.
• moderate-term marriage: no more than 60 percent of the marriage, and only if the marriage lasted at least 3 years.
• long-term marriage: no more than 75 percent of the marriage, and only if the marriage lasted at least 3 years.

For the worked example on this page - $6,000 against $2,000 a month, after 14 years of marriage - the durational ceiling is a percentage of the income difference ($1,400 a month, $16,800 a year) running for 8 years 5 months. Nobody should confuse that bundle of numbers with the two time-capped kinds above: bridge-the-gap and rehabilitative alimony give you a duration and stop, while durational alimony gives you both a duration and a dollar. The tool prints all of them on one screen so the three shapes sit side by side instead of running together in memory.

Where these numbers come from

• Florida Statutes s. 61.08, served by the state's own legislature site. The 2-year bridge-the-gap cap is in (6), the 5-year rehabilitative cap in (7)(c), the 3-year minimum and the marriage-share percentages (50, 60 and 75) in (8), and the durational amount ceiling in (8)(c). We keep a copy of the text those figures were read from, and every release checks each one against it again - the same official text this page and the calculator both rely on.
• Amounts for the two time-capped kinds are not here because the statute does not print a formula for them. Where the state's text has no number, this page prints none either - it gives a length and says plainly that the money is the court's to fix.

What this guide does not cover

Not covered: the dollar amount of either time-capped kind, which no statute formula exists to compute; which kind a judge actually orders, which turns on need and the evidence and is never a number this site can derive; how the three kinds interact or are combined on the same marriage; modification and enforcement once an order exists; taxes - the federal treatment of alimony changed in 2019 and this page takes no position; and every other state.

Most states print no alimony formula at all, and the site names them without inventing a figure - a state whose law leaves the amount to the judge is answered with the refusal, not with a made-up ceiling.

Enter your own two incomes and the length of the marriage in the Alimony Calculator, where the three kinds print side by side, or start from the other side of the same family of rules with the Child Support Calculator - decided from a different statute, which is exactly why one page cannot answer both.

An estimate of statutory ceilings only - not legal, tax or financial advice, and not a prediction of what a court will order. Read the full disclaimer.