Belgian Spousal Maintenance After Divorce: Article 301 Explained (2026)

A Belgian divorce can produce a separate claim for spousal maintenance, onderhoudsgeld na echtscheiding in Dutch, pension après divorce in French, governed by article 301 of the old Burgerlijk Wetboek, the Code civil first enacted in 1804 and amended many times since. It is a distinct claim from child support: it exists for a former spouse rather than a child, it is capped in a way child support is not, and it follows its own separate fault rules.

This page covers what article 301 actually caps, how it is indexed, and the three separate ways fault can reduce or bar a claim, a distinction the article draws sharply and that is easy to blur into a single rule. For the divorce procedure itself, see the divorce page; for child support, which runs under a completely different framework with no binding scale at all, see the child support page.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What article 301 actually caps

Article 301 sets firm outer limits rather than a formula for arriving at a figure inside them. Paragraph 3 caps the amount at one third of the paying spouse's income. Paragraph 4 caps the duration at the length of the marriage itself, though where the recipient remains in genuine need through no fault of their own once that period ends, an exceptional-circumstances extension is available.

Two further rules apply throughout. Paragraph 6 indexes the amount to the consumer price index, with an adjustment every twelve months. And paragraph 3 also allows a court to make the maintenance degressive, meaning it decreases on a set schedule over time rather than staying flat for the whole period it runs.

None of this amounts to a formula that produces a specific number. A court decides the actual amount, within the one-third ceiling, on the facts of the marriage and the parties' means; article 301 does not entitle a former spouse to any particular figure.

Three separate fault rules, not one

Article 301 treats fault through three distinct mechanisms, and collapsing them into a single blended test misstates the article.

First, paragraph 2 lets a court refuse maintenance entirely where the claimant committed a serious fault, a faute grave, that made continued cohabitation with the other spouse impossible. Refusal on this ground requires that specific finding; it is not triggered by ordinary marital fault generally.

Second, and separately, paragraph 2 also imposes an absolute bar on maintenance where the claimant was convicted of certain Penal Code offences committed against the paying spouse. This is a distinct, narrower ground from the first, resting on a criminal conviction rather than a civil finding of fault.

Third, paragraph 5 allows a court to refuse or reduce maintenance, on different grounds again, where the claimant's own need resulted from a unilateral and unjustified choice on their part, rather than from anything connected to the marriage's breakdown.

These three mechanisms operate independently of each other. A claim can fail under one and succeed under another, and a source that treats them as a single combined fault standard is not describing article 301 correctly.

How this differs from child support

Spousal maintenance and child support are frequently discussed together, but they run under entirely separate frameworks. Article 301 caps spousal maintenance at one third of income and at the length of the marriage, with indexation and a degressive option. Child support under articles 203 and 203bis of the same code has no equivalent cap, no official barème, and no royal decree has ever fixed a binding calculation method for it. A source that applies article 301's one-third logic to child support, or a child-support percentage to spousal maintenance, has the two frameworks mixed up. The full picture on child support, including why no calculator appears on this site for it, is on the child support page.

Cohabitants: no equivalent claim

Article 301 applies to former spouses. It has no counterpart for either kind of unmarried couple Belgian law recognises.

A legal cohabitant, someone who made a formal declaration of legal cohabitation, wettelijke samenwoning, at the commune, ends that cohabitation by a simple unilateral or joint written declaration under article 1476 paragraph 2, with no court needed. Article 1477 then lists the entire default set of rights and obligations between legal cohabitants, and a post-separation maintenance claim of the kind article 301 gives a divorced spouse is not on that list. Article 1478 lets legal cohabitants agree their own terms by a notarial convention, so the statutory default is nothing beyond article 1477 unless the couple opted into something more.

A de facto cohabitant, meaning a couple who never made that declaration, has no statutory framework at all. Titre Vbis of the old Civil Code regulates legal cohabitation only; living together for years, sharing a household, or sharing children creates no separation maintenance entitlement by itself.

Which court hears a maintenance claim

A spousal maintenance claim under article 301 is heard by the familierechtbank, the tribunal de la famille, a specialised section within the rechtbank van eerste aanleg, the tribunal de première instance, established under article 76 paragraph 1 of the Gerechtelijk Wetboek, the Code judiciaire. It has operated in every judicial district since 1 September 2014 and handles the maintenance claim alongside the divorce itself rather than in a separate court.

This page provides general information about a foreign legal system and does not constitute legal advice for an individual case. Spousal maintenance depends on the specific facts of each marriage, a court is not bound by any figure suggested here, and the underlying law changes from time to time. Check the current text on ejustice.just.fgov.be and justice.belgium.be, or consult a lawyer, before acting on anything on this page.