Assegno di Mantenimento: Spousal and Child Maintenance During an Italian Separation

Assegno di mantenimento is one of the most searched, and most misunderstood, phrases in Italian family law, because it is used for two entirely different obligations that often exist side by side after the same separation: money paid to a spouse, and money paid for a couple's children.

This page separates the two clearly, works through each one's own legal test, and then looks at what happens to each once a couple moves from separation toward divorce. For the post-divorce assegno divorzile, a third, distinct right, see our dedicated page.

Information verified on 21 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice for an individual situation.

Two assegni, one confusing name

When a couple separates, up to two different periodic payments can be ordered at once: an assegno for the financially dependent spouse, and an assegno for any children. Both are commonly shortened in everyday speech to just "l'assegno di mantenimento," which is exactly why the two get conflated, on official-looking pages as often as anywhere else.

They rest on different articles of the codice civile, apply to different people, and answer different questions. Keeping them apart is the point of this page.

The spousal assegno: art. 156 c.c.

Art. 156 c.c. lets the tribunale, when pronouncing a separation, order the spouse not at fault for the separation's breakdown to receive a periodic payment from the other, where that spouse lacks adequate income of their own. The amount is set against the circumstances of the case and the paying spouse's own income, not a fixed share or formula, and a spouse found at fault (addebito, discussed on our legal separation page) loses this right even if their income would otherwise be inadequate.

A 2023 procedural reform (D.Lgs. 149/2022, in force from 28 February 2023) repealed several commi of art. 156 c.c. dealing with enforcement mechanisms, such as sequestro of assets or direct orders to third parties who owe the paying spouse money. Those tools were relocated into the unified family-proceedings rules of the code of civil procedure, not eliminated, so the underlying substantive right to a spousal assegno during separation remains fully in force; only some of the machinery for enforcing it moved to a different part of the law.

Importantly, this right is specific to the period of separation. Once a divorce becomes final, art. 156 c.c. no longer applies, and any further maintenance depends on a fresh application for an assegno divorzile, assessed under an entirely different test explained on our assegno divorzile page.

The child assegno: art. 337-ter c.c.

Art. 337-ter c.c. governs maintenance for the couple's children, and it operates on a completely different basis from the spousal assegno. It applies regardless of which parent, if either, was at fault for the separation, and it is set by weighing five specific factors: the child's current needs, the standard of living the child enjoyed while both parents lived together, the time the child spends with each parent, each parent's own economic resources, and, explicitly, the monetary value of the domestic and caregiving tasks each parent actually carries out.

That last factor matters more than it might first appear. A parent who takes on most of the day to day caregiving, cooking, school runs, medical appointments, homework, is not expected to have that unpaid work treated as worthless simply because no salary attaches to it; the statute directs the court to give it a monetary value alongside the more obvious income figures.

The child assegno adjusts automatically to ISTAT inflation indices unless the parents or the court fix a different mechanism, which keeps a periodic child-support figure from quietly losing value over years of payments. Where the financial information either parent discloses is not adequately documented, the court can order an investigation by the polizia tributaria into that parent's real income and assets, including assets formally held in someone else's name.

Why conflating the two is the commonest mistake

The spousal assegno asks whether one spouse, personally, lacks adequate means and was not at fault for the separation. The child assegno asks what a child needs and what each parent can realistically contribute, entirely independent of either parent's own financial adequacy or conduct. A parent who is denied a spousal assegno because they are found at fault for the separation can still be entitled, as a parent, to receive the child assegno on the children's behalf; the two questions do not depend on each other.

They also end on different timelines. The spousal assegno stops when a divorce is finalized, at which point any continuing spousal support depends on a fresh assegno divorzile claim under a different statute. The child assegno keeps running through and beyond the divorce, tied to the child's needs rather than the parents' marital status, and it is reassessed only if circumstances genuinely change, not automatically because the divorce happened.

Three situations

A separating couple with one minor child, where one parent earns considerably more than the other. The lower earning parent may receive a spousal assegno under art. 156 c.c. during the separation if their own income is genuinely inadequate and they are not found at fault. Separately, and regardless of that outcome, the child assegno under art. 337-ter c.c. is set against the child's needs, the prior standard of living, and each parent's resources, reflecting the income gap in its own right.

A separating couple with no children, similar professional incomes, where one spouse reduced their hours by personal choice rather than necessity. A spousal assegno is unlikely here: art. 156 c.c. requires inadequate income, and a court is less likely to find that condition met where the reduction in earnings was a voluntary choice rather than a genuine inability to earn more, particularly with no addebito finding against either spouse.

A parent who has done the bulk of the unpaid caregiving for two children while the other parent's career and income grew substantially during the marriage. Under art. 337-ter c.c., the value of that caregiving work is an explicit factor in setting the child assegno, which can meaningfully raise the figure beyond what a pure income-based split would produce. That same parent may also separately qualify for a spousal assegno under art. 156 c.c. during the separation if their own income remains inadequate, a question assessed on its own terms.