Spousal maintenance in NSW is financial support one former partner pays the other after separation, either ordered under the Family Law Act 1975 or agreed and formalised between you. You can claim it if you can’t meet your own reasonable expenses and your former spouse or de facto partner can afford to help once their own are covered. The time limits are strict. Married couples have 12 months from the date the divorce order takes effect, and de facto couples have two years from the date the relationship ended. Past those dates, you need the court’s permission to apply.

Most people who sit down with us after a separation already know about property settlement and child support. Far fewer have been told maintenance carries its own deadline, and some spend the first year on an informal arrangement while that deadline quietly runs down.

Key takeaways

• Two questions decide a claim: can you adequately support yourself, and can your former partner afford to help after meeting their own reasonable needs?
• An income gap alone isn’t a claim.
• Spousal maintenance time limits: 12 months after a divorce order takes effect for married couples, two years after separation for de facto couples. If you are separated but not yet divorced, no deadline has started.
• Centrelink payments you receive are disregarded when the court assesses your need. Fault plays no part.
• Most orders run for a fixed period, often until retraining finishes or the youngest child starts school.

Who can claim spousal maintenance in NSW?

Any former spouse or de facto partner can claim, same-sex couples included, when two things are true at once: you can’t adequately support yourself, and your former partner is reasonably able to pay. Sections 72 and 90SF of the Family Law Act set that test. Neither half works without the other.

Does earning less than my ex mean I can claim?

No. An income gap on its own gets you nothing. A former partner on three times your salary owes no maintenance if your income covers your reasonable expenses, measured against a standard of living the court considers reasonable in the circumstances. The lifestyle you shared during the relationship feeds into that assessment, though with less weight than people expect.

What counts as being unable to support yourself?

The Act points to caring for a child of the relationship who is under 18, your age or physical or mental health, and any other adequate reason. The third ground is broader than it sounds. A parent who has been out of the workforce for a decade and needs time to retrain can qualify. So can a parent in regional NSW with no childcare place available and no school-hours work within reach. Illness and disability are only part of the picture.

Earning capacity matters as much as current income. The court looks at what you could earn, so someone qualified and able to work who has decided not to will find that counted against the claim.

Since 10 June 2025, the court must also consider the effect of any family violence on the applicant’s current and future circumstances (section 75(2)(aa)), along with the need to house any children appropriately. Economic abuse is now expressly recognised as family violence under the Act. Where one partner held every account and the other had to ask for grocery money, the court can weigh what that did to the applicant’s position.

Successful claims usually go back to a decision the couple made together, years earlier, about who would stay home with the children. A career paused for that long seldom restarts at the old salary. Maintenance covers the shortfall while it rebuilds, and no further.

Two arguments come up repeatedly from the paying side. One is that the other person can go on Parenting Payment (Single). Section 75(3) directs the court to disregard income-tested Centrelink payments when it assesses need, so that argument goes nowhere. The other concerns an affair, or who walked out. Neither has any bearing on the claim.

De facto maintenance: the extra threshold

NSW referred its powers over de facto relationships to the Commonwealth, so de facto maintenance in NSW runs under the same Family Law Act provisions as a marriage. Before the court looks at need and capacity, the relationship has to qualify under section 90SB by meeting one of these:

• you lived together as a couple for at least two years in total
• you have a child together
• you made substantial contributions, and refusing an order would cause serious injustice
• the relationship was registered on the NSW Relationships Register

These are the same gateways that apply to a de facto property settlement. In practice the two claims are usually run together.

How is spousal maintenance calculated?

There is no formula and no percentage. The court sets two budgets side by side. The first is your reasonable weekly expenses against your income, which shows your shortfall. The second is your former partner’s income against their own reasonable expenses, which shows what they can spare. The order covers your shortfall, up to the limit of what they can afford.

Child support runs on a statutory formula, so people often assume maintenance does as well. It doesn’t. Where the shortfall is modest, and the other side’s surplus is large, the order covers the shortfall and stops there. Nobody is entitled to a share of the difference.

The figures come from real spending. Both of you file a Financial Statement on the court’s form, and since June 2025 full and frank disclosure has been a duty under the Family Law Act itself. You will be asked for the bank statements and tax returns behind your numbers.

Ballpark figures don’t survive long in front of a registrar, so build your budget from twelve months of bank statements. A former partner who claims to have nothing spare each week, while their account shows regular takeaway and a steady run of online orders, will be asked to explain those entries.

Spousal maintenance vs property settlement: what’s the difference?

Property settlement is a one-off split of the property pool, super included. Maintenance looks forward, at whether one of you can meet weekly costs after that split. Plenty of people finish with a property settlement and no maintenance at all. Child support is a third system again.

Property is normally resolved first, through the four-step process for property settlement, because what each person walks away with changes both budgets. Someone who keeps the house unencumbered may have no shortfall left to claim.

Child support is assessed by Services Australia under the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989. A parent can receive child support and spousal maintenance at the same time, and neither replaces the other. Child support the payer already contributes is counted among their commitments, which affects how much they can afford.

Weekly payments keep two people financially tied for years after separation. For that reason, a lump sum or a larger share of the property pool is often the better result for both sides, because it gives each of you a clean break. Agreed lump sums are normally recorded in consent orders, and section 77A requires those orders to state how much of the payment is maintenance.

What are the spousal maintenance time limits in NSW?

Married couples must apply within 12 months of the divorce order taking effect. De facto couples must apply within two years of the date the relationship ended. After either deadline, an application needs the court’s leave under section 44 of the Family Law Act.

Spousal maintenance time limits catch people because nothing about the first year after separation feels like a legal process. One partner keeps covering the mortgage, a rough arrangement settles in, and the divorce goes through on its own track. The 12 months runs from that divorce whether or not anyone has mentioned money.

Married couples who separated years ago and never divorced can still apply. The divorce application is what starts their clock, so raise any maintenance claim before you file for divorce, or alongside it.

Leave to apply late is not a formality. The court will only grant it in two situations. One is where refusing would cause hardship to you or a child. The other is where, at the time the deadline passed, you could not have supported yourself without an income-tested Centrelink payment. It also wants a reason for the delay, and some sign the claim would succeed. Late applications for spousal maintenance after divorce are routinely opposed on the delay alone, before the merits are argued.

Can I get urgent or interim spousal maintenance?

Yes. If you have been cut off from joint accounts or left without money for basic costs, you don’t have to wait for the property settlement. Section 77 (section 90SG for de facto couples) allows the court to order urgent maintenance where a person needs immediate financial help and the full picture can’t yet be worked out.

Interim spousal maintenance holds the position until a final hearing. The usual pre-action steps, such as attempting dispute resolution first, don’t apply when a matter is urgent. At this stage, the court works from rough budgets. The detailed scrutiny comes later.

How do you apply for spousal maintenance?

Ask first, in writing. The other side can refuse. If they do, you apply for spousal maintenance in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia by filing an Initiating Application with your Financial Statement attached. From then on, the onus is on you.

Everything is lodged online through the Commonwealth Courts Portal. Sydney matters go to the Sydney or Parramatta registry. Before filing, the court’s pre-action procedures for financial cases expect you to have attempted dispute resolution and exchanged financial documents with the other party.

If you’re already paying your former partner’s rent or mortgage, you are paying maintenance, just informally. Put an end date on it and get it documented. Left open, it drifts. Twelve months on, a court can read those payments as proof you could afford them.

Run the numbers on the dispute itself. A contested application over a shortfall that will only last a year or two can cost more in fees than it brings in. We generally push for a figure agreed at mediation and written into consent orders or a binding financial agreement, keeping court for the former partner who won’t engage at all.

How long does spousal maintenance last?

Most orders run for a fixed term and end on a specific event: a nursing degree finished, say, or the youngest child starting Kindergarten. Open-ended orders are uncommon. When they are made, the applicant is usually older, with no realistic prospect of work, or seriously unwell.

An order ends automatically when either party dies. It also ends when the person receiving it remarries, unless the court finds special circumstances (sections 82 and 90SJ).

A new de facto relationship works differently. It does not end the order on its own. The paying party can apply to vary the order under section 83 (section 90SI for de facto orders), relying on the new household’s finances. Check your own orders as well, because consent orders sometimes contain a re-partnering clause the Act itself doesn’t have.

Unpaid amounts from before the order ended can still be chased.

Speak to a family lawyer about your position

Before anything else, find the date your divorce order took effect, or the date your de facto relationship ended, and work out how much of the deadline is left. Then gather your bank statements. Book a confidential consultation with our Sydney team and bring both.