Spousal Maintenance in Germany: Trennungsunterhalt and Nachehelicher Unterhalt

German law does not treat spousal maintenance as one claim. It splits into two separate phases governed by different rules, and mixing them up is the single most common mistake people make when trying to work out what applies to them.

Trennungsunterhalt runs from the day a couple separates until the divorce becomes final. Nachehelicher Unterhalt, maintenance after the divorce, is a different and stricter claim that starts from a presumption that each spouse now supports themselves. This page works through both, the 45 percent guideline that courts use as a starting point, the § 1609 BGB ranking that decides who actually gets paid when money is tight, and the grounds that can reduce or end a claim.

Information last verified on 19 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Two claims, not one: why the phase matters

The most important structural fact about German spousal maintenance is that it is not a single continuous entitlement that simply starts at separation and continues past the divorce. It is two legally distinct claims with different tests, and a rule that applies to one does not automatically carry over to the other.

Trennungsunterhalt, maintenance during separation, is governed by § 1361 BGB. It applies from the point the spouses actually separate, in the sense used on the divorce page, through to the day the divorce becomes legally final. The marriage still exists during this period, and the law reflects that: the standard is comparatively generous, and § 1361 Abs. 4 BGB makes clear that a spouse cannot waive Trennungsunterhalt for the future.

Nachehelicher Unterhalt, post-marital maintenance, only begins once the divorce is final. From that point § 1569 BGB flips the starting assumption: each spouse is now expected to look after themselves, the principle of Eigenverantwortung. A claim only exists if it fits one of the specific grounds the law sets out, discussed below, and it can be reduced or time-limited far more readily than Trennungsunterhalt.

Because these are different claims with different rules, a spouse can be entitled to a solid Trennungsunterhalt claim during a lengthy separation and then find their post-divorce claim is smaller, time-limited, or does not exist at all, once the divorce is final and § 1569 BGB takes over. Planning for the maintenance question means asking which phase applies, not assuming one figure carries through.

Trennungsunterhalt: maintenance during separation

§ 1361 Abs. 1 BGB gives a spouse living apart from the other a right to demand maintenance appropriate to the standard of living during the marriage, from the other spouse's income and assets, to the extent that spouse cannot reasonably be expected to support themselves from their own income and assets. The reference point is the marital standard of living the couple actually had, not a subsistence minimum.

A distinctive feature of Trennungsunterhalt is how little it expects a non-working spouse to change their situation immediately. § 1361 Abs. 2 BGB states that a non-working spouse can only be pointed toward earning their own living through employment if that can be expected of them, taking into account their personal circumstances, in particular any prior employment and the length of the marriage, and the economic circumstances of both spouses.

In practice this means a spouse who was not working during a long marriage is not automatically expected to take a job the month after separation. Family courts commonly apply a rule of thumb that full employment cannot be demanded during roughly the first year of separation, though this is a guideline drawn from practice rather than a fixed statutory deadline, and the actual expectation always depends on the circumstances § 1361 Abs. 2 BGB names.

Worked example. A couple separates after a 12-year marriage in which one spouse worked full time and the other did not work outside the home while raising two school-age children. In the months immediately after separation, the non-working spouse is not expected to take up full employment given the length of the marriage and the prior arrangement, and can claim Trennungsunterhalt calculated from the working spouse's income. As the separation continues and the children get older, the court may expect at least part-time work at some point, but that expectation builds gradually rather than applying from day one.

Nachehelicher Unterhalt: the enumerated grounds after divorce

Once the divorce is final, § 1569 BGB sets the baseline: each spouse provides for themselves, and a maintenance claim against the other exists only where a spouse cannot do so and one of the following grounds applies.

Child care, § 1570 BGB. A spouse caring for a shared child can claim maintenance for at least three years from the child's birth. The claim can extend beyond three years where equity requires it, considering the child's welfare, available childcare, and how the couple organised childcare and employment during the marriage.

Age, § 1571 BGB. A spouse can claim maintenance where, at the time of the divorce, the end of child care or training, or the end of another maintenance ground, their age means they cannot reasonably be expected to take up work.

Illness, § 1572 BGB. A spouse can claim maintenance for as long as illness or another physical or mental impairment means employment cannot reasonably be expected of them, from the same trigger points as the age ground.

Unemployment and Aufstockungsunterhalt, § 1573 BGB. A spouse who cannot find appropriate work after the divorce can claim maintenance under § 1573 Abs. 1 BGB. Where that spouse does find suitable work but its income does not cover the full maintenance need, § 1573 Abs. 2 BGB lets them claim the difference, known as Aufstockungsunterhalt, a top-up rather than full replacement income.

Education, training or retraining, § 1575 BGB. A spouse can claim maintenance while completing or resuming education, training or a course of retraining that was interrupted or made necessary because of the marriage, provided a successful outcome can reasonably be expected, and the claim runs for the ordinary length of that course of study or training.

A claim can also arise on other equity grounds under § 1576 BGB, a narrower catch-all for serious hardship not covered by the named grounds above. None of these claims are automatic simply because a marriage ended; the burden is on the spouse claiming maintenance to show the specific ground applies to them.

The 45 percent guideline, and the outdated older split to avoid

Once a maintenance claim exists in principle, whether Trennungsunterhalt or nachehelicher Unterhalt, family courts need a way to translate two incomes into a figure. The most widely used starting benchmark, drawn from the Düsseldorfer Tabelle and the accompanying OLG Leitlinien rather than from the BGB itself, is a quota of the difference between the spouses' relevant net incomes.

Against an obligor who is employed, that guideline quota is 45 percent of the income difference. Against an obligor who is not employed, for example a retired spouse living on a pension, the guideline quota is 50 percent, since there is no working spouse's employment costs and effort to offset with a bonus.

The 45 percent figure is not an arbitrary round number. It reflects a working spouse's Erwerbstätigenbonus, an allowance recognising that earning income itself carries cost and effort that a non-working spouse's income does not. That bonus was standardised nationwide at one tenth of earned income with effect from 1 January 2022. The mechanism is worth stating precisely, because it is often described loosely: the Bundesgerichtshof supplied the reasoning in a 2019 decision, and the Oberlandesgerichte then adopted the 1/10 figure in a coordination meeting led by the OLG Düsseldorf in November 2021. It was not a single ruling that changed the number everywhere. Run through the arithmetic of splitting an income difference with a 1/10 bonus for the working party, and 45 percent of the difference is the result.

An older regional convention used a different, smaller working spouse's bonus of one seventh of earned income, which produced a different split than today's guideline. That older convention is now obsolete and should not be used. It predates the BGH's 2022 standardisation and no longer reflects the calculation family courts actually run.

It is worth repeating what this figure is and is not. It is a guideline used as a starting point by the Düsseldorfer Tabelle and the OLG Leitlinien, documents that organise practice but carry no legislative force. The family court in an individual case decides the maintenance actually owed, and can and does depart from the 45 percent starting point where the facts warrant it.

Worked example. After separation, one spouse has net income of EUR 3,200 a month and the other has none. Applying the 45 percent guideline to the full EUR 3,200 difference gives a starting benchmark of roughly EUR 1,440 a month in Trennungsunterhalt, before checking that figure against the paying spouse's Selbstbehalt. This is an illustration of how the guideline arithmetic works, not a prediction of what any individual case would actually be awarded, since real calculations also adjust each spouse's income for debt, work-related costs, child support already owed, and other deductions before the quota is applied.

§ 1609 BGB: who gets paid first when money is short

A maintenance claim only matters in practice once it is measured against what the paying spouse can actually afford, and Germany answers that question with a strict statutory ranking rather than dividing scarce income proportionally among everyone who has a claim.

§ 1609 BGB sets out that ranking. Minor unmarried children, and certain adult children still in school or an equivalent situation living in a parent's household, rank first. Second come parents who are entitled to maintenance because they are caring for a child, together with spouses and ex-spouses of a long marriage. Third come spouses and ex-spouses who do not fall into the second rank. Lower ranks cover other children, grandchildren, parents and more distant relatives.

The practical effect is significant. If a paying spouse's income, after deducting their own Selbstbehalt, is not enough to fully cover both their child support obligations and a spousal maintenance claim, the children's claims under rank one are satisfied first. The spouse's claim, whether Trennungsunterhalt or nachehelicher Unterhalt, is only paid from what remains, and can be reduced accordingly. See the Düsseldorfer Tabelle child support tables and child support for how the children's claims themselves are calculated, since that calculation runs first and shapes what is left for a spouse.

A spouse caring for a young child, or a spouse from a long marriage, sits in rank two rather than rank three, which is a meaningfully stronger position than a spouse from a shorter marriage with no children to care for, who competes for maintenance in the lower, third rank alongside other ex-spouses in the same situation.

The Selbstbehalt: what the paying spouse keeps

A family court will not award maintenance that would push the paying spouse below a protected minimum income, the Selbstbehalt (also called the notwendiger Eigenbedarf or angemessener Eigenbedarf depending on context). This figure is set by the same OLG Leitlinien that publish the Düsseldorfer Tabelle, and it changes when the Leitlinien are updated.

Against a separated or divorced spouse, the current guideline Selbstbehalt is EUR 1,600 a month for an obligor who is employed, and EUR 1,475 a month for one who is not. These figures are lower priority protections than the Selbstbehalt that applies against a minor child's claim, which is set higher under § 1609 BGB's ranking logic precisely because children come first.

Because the Selbstbehalt changes on the same cadence as the Düsseldorfer Tabelle, generally reviewed each January, always check the current OLG Leitlinien figure rather than relying on an older number, particularly in a case being calculated close to a year end.

Reducing or ending the claim: § 1578b and § 1579 BGB

Even where a nachehelicher Unterhalt claim clearly exists under one of the named grounds, two further provisions can cut it back, and this is where most contested post-divorce maintenance cases are actually decided.

§ 1578b BGB, reduction and time-limiting. A court can reduce a post-divorce maintenance claim to what is appropriate, or limit how long it runs, where an open-ended award at the full marital standard of living would be inequitable. The central concept here is ehebedingte Nachteile, disadvantages the marriage itself caused to a spouse's ability to support themselves, for example years out of the workforce raising children or supporting the other spouse's career. Where those disadvantages have been offset, for instance once the children are older and the spouse has rebuilt their earning capacity, or where they never existed to a significant degree, a court can reduce the award or set an end date. Any shared child still being cared for is protected in this analysis; § 1578b BGB explicitly requires the court to safeguard that child's interests before cutting back the paying parent's contribution to the household through the other spouse.

§ 1579 BGB, refusal or reduction for gross inequity. Separately, a court can refuse, reduce or limit maintenance where paying it in full would be grossly inequitable, on a defined list of grounds. These include a marriage of short duration, the claiming spouse living in a verfestigte Lebensgemeinschaft, a new, settled relationship functioning like a marriage even without remarriage, serious criminal conduct by the claiming spouse against the paying spouse, the claiming spouse deliberately causing their own need, and a catch-all for other conduct of comparable severity.

These two provisions do different jobs. § 1578b BGB asks whether the level and duration of maintenance still fits the disadvantages the marriage caused. § 1579 BGB asks whether the claiming spouse's own conduct or situation makes it grossly unfair to hold the other spouse to the ordinary rules at all. Both can apply to the same case, and both are argued heavily in contested proceedings, since this is where the gap between the ministry-level formula and an individual outcome is largest.

Tax: the Realsplitting option

German tax law offers a specific incentive that can make continuing maintenance payments more efficient for both former spouses if they cooperate. Under § 10 Abs. 1a Nr. 1 EStG, a paying spouse can deduct maintenance paid to a divorced or permanently separated spouse as a special expense (Sonderausgabe), up to EUR 13,805 in a calendar year, plus any amount paid for that spouse's health and long-term care insurance.

The deduction, known as begrenztes Realsplitting, requires the recipient's consent, since the recipient must then declare the same amount as taxable income (this is what "splitting" the income between the two former spouses for tax purposes means). Consent can matter to the recipient's own tax position, so it is a negotiated element rather than something the paying spouse can simply claim unilaterally.

This is an overview only. Whether Realsplitting helps a particular pair of former spouses depends on both spouses' marginal tax rates, other income, and whether the recipient's cooperation is available, and is a question to work through with a tax adviser or family law specialist rather than to assume from the general rule.

What this page does not do

This page explains the framework: which claim applies, the guideline quota courts start from, the ranking that decides who is paid first, and the grounds that can cut a claim back. It does not, and cannot, tell an individual reader what they will receive or must pay. The 45 percent figure and the Selbstbehalt amounts are guidelines a family court uses as a starting point, adjusted heavily by each spouse's actual income, debts, other maintenance obligations and the specific facts of the marriage. Only the family court handling an individual case decides the amount actually owed.

For the underlying divorce process and timeline, see divorce in Germany. For how a couple's property, rather than income, is divided, see equalisation of gains. For how child maintenance itself is calculated, which is decided ahead of any spousal claim under the § 1609 ranking above, see the Düsseldorfer Tabelle child support tables and child support.

Frequently asked questions