The compensatory pension after divorce in Spain: who gets it, for how long and how it ends

One of them built a career during the marriage and the other left a job to raise the children and keep the house running. Thirty years on they divorce, and the question that neither a pay slip nor a property deed answers is what the second one is owed. Spanish law does not call it alimony and does not use a formula. It calls it a compensatory pension, and it attaches it to one fact: the imbalance that the divorce leaves between the two. This note explains who is entitled to it, what a judge weighs, how much and for how long, the separate compensation that exists for couples married under separation of property, how the pension changes and how it ends, with three recent Supreme Court judgments read in full.

What it is, and what it is not

The Civil Code gives the right in one sentence: El cónyuge al que la separación o el divorcio produzca un desequilibrio económico en relación con la posición del otro, que implique un empeoramiento en su situación anterior en el matrimonio, tendrá derecho a una compensación, the spouse for whom the separation or divorce produces an economic imbalance in relation to the other's position, one that means a worsening of their situation during the marriage, is entitled to a compensation (article 97). It can take the form of una pensión temporal o por tiempo indefinido, o en una prestación única, a pension for a time or for an indefinite time, or a single payment.

The Supreme Court adds what the right is not. It does not follow from one spouse simply earning more: la simple desigualdad económica no determina de modo automático un derecho de compensación, mere economic inequality does not by itself give a right to compensation. The court has said that la pensión compensatoria no es un instrumento puramente indemnizatorio, the compensatory pension is not a purely indemnifying instrument, that it does not exist to level two incomes or two estates, and that it is not strictly a maintenance payment (judgment 1634/2025, of 13 November). Maintenance for children is a different obligation with different rules, explained in our note on child maintenance.

What it does is place the spouse who lost out en una situación de potencial igualdad de oportunidades laborales y económicas respecto de las que habría tenido de no mediar el vínculo matrimonial, in a position of potential equality of working and economic opportunities with those they would have had but for the marriage. The loss the court looks for is concrete: economic rights or legitimate expectations given up because one spouse devoted more of their time to the family.

The imbalance is measured on one day. In the court's words, el desequilibrio que da lugar a la pensión compensatoria debe existir en el momento de la separación o del divorcio, the imbalance that gives rise to the compensatory pension must exist at the moment of the separation or the divorce, and what happens later cannot create a pension that was not due then. That is why a couple who have lived apart for years with separate finances are presumed to have no imbalance left, and why the presumption fails when one of them went on supporting the other all that time.

What the judge weighs

Where the spouses do not agree, the judge fixes the amount by looking at nine circumstances that article 97 lists. The court uses the same nine to decide whether there is an imbalance at all, how much it is worth and whether the pension should have an end date. The 2025 judgment applies them one by one to a real couple, and its reasoning is the clearest guide to how they work.

The first court had given her 1,000 euros a month for one year and the appeal court 2,000 euros a month for an indefinite time. The Supreme Court set 1,400 euros a month with no time limit.

How much

There is no official table and no percentage of income. The Code lists circumstances, the courts weigh them, and the Supreme Court does not review the amount fixed on appeal unless the reasoning is illogical. Two recent amounts show the range of what the same method produces, and neither is a tariff: the 1,400 euros a month of the 2025 case, and 600 euros a month in a case of 2024 where the wife also received 100,000 euros under another rule, explained below (judgment 229/2024, of 21 February).

What the judgment or the agreement must fix is in the Code too: la periodicidad, la forma de pago, las bases para actualizar la pensión, la duración o el momento de cese y las garantías para su efectividad, how often it is paid, how, the basis for updating it, how long it lasts or when it stops, and the guarantees that secure it.

The division of the couple's property counts. If they were married under gananciales, the liquidation puede suponer la atribución de bienes productivos que hagan desaparecer la situación de desequilibrio, may mean that each receives productive assets that make the imbalance disappear, and courts have reduced or ended pensions for that reason. In the 2025 case the sale of the family home was expected to leave each spouse about 195,250 euros, and the court counted it among its reasons for the amount it set.

For how long

A pension with an end date is a possibility, not the rule, and since 2005 the Code names it expressly. To set one, a court has to be able to say when the imbalance will be overcome, and the Supreme Court is strict about that forecast: Tal juicio prospectivo o de futuro deberá llevarse a efecto con prudencia, ponderación y con criterios de potencialidad real, determinada por consistentes índices de probabilidad, such a prospective judgement must be made with prudence and balance and on criteria of real potential, backed by consistent signs of probability. A guess is not enough.

Age weighs heavily. In the cases the court lists as examples of pensions without a time limit, the recipients were women of 53 to 61, or with marriages of twenty-five years and more behind them, long out of paid work and several with a recognised disability. Of one woman of 61 it said that la edad que tiene no juega a su favor, sino en su contra, her age does not work for her but against her: what matters is not whether she could do a job, but whether she could find one. And it is for the spouse who alleges that the other has made no effort to find work to prove it.

Indefinite does not mean for life. La fijación de una pensión, como indefinida en el tiempo, no impide se deje sin efecto o que sea revisable por alteración de fortuna y circunstancias, fixing a pension as indefinite in time does not prevent it from being ended or revised if fortunes and circumstances change.

Separation of property: the compensation for work in the home

Couples married under separation of property, in the case below by capitulaciones signed days before the wedding, have a second rule. Each spouse keeps what they earn, both must contribute to the household, and the Code adds: El trabajo para la casa será computado como contribución a las cargas y dará derecho a obtener una compensación que el Juez señalará, a falta de acuerdo, a la extinción del régimen de separación, work for the home counts as a contribution to the household's costs and gives a right to a compensation that the judge will set, failing agreement, when the separation regime ends (article 1438).

The 2024 judgment shows how it works. The wife had left an administrative job when she was expecting their daughter and ran the home alone for more than sixteen years while her husband earned and bought property in his own name. The court confirmed 100,000 euros and repeated three points of its doctrine. The spouse who paid need not have become richer: no se exige un incremento patrimonial del deudor, an increase in the debtor's wealth is not required. A period of paid work at the start of the marriage does not remove the right; it counts when the amount is set. And to put a figure on work that has no price, a court puede partirse de un índice objetivo, entre los que se encuentran el salario mínimo interprofesional, may start from an objective index, the minimum wage among them.

The two rights can be claimed together, and one affects the other. Because the 100,000 euros increased her means and reduced his, the court lowered the compensatory pension from 950 to 600 euros a month, still with no time limit.

Changing it, replacing it, agreeing it

Once fixed in a judgment, the pension sólo podrá ser modificada por alteraciones en la fortuna de uno u otro cónyuge que así lo aconsejen, can be modified only for changes in the fortune of one spouse or the other that make it advisable (article 100). And at any time the two can agree to replace it with la constitución de una renta vitalicia, el usufructo de determinados bienes o la entrega de un capital en bienes o en dinero, a life annuity, the usufruct of certain assets or the handing over of a capital sum in assets or money (article 99).

Agreement comes first in the Code's own list, and the court describes the right as one incardinable dentro de la esfera dispositiva de los cónyuges, that falls within the spouses' power of disposition. The limits are in the Code as well: a judge approves the spouses' agreement unless it is harmful to the children or seriously prejudicial to one of the spouses (article 90), and capitulaciones may not contain a term that is contrary to law or that limits the equal rights of either spouse (article 1328). Whether a waiver signed years before a divorce will hold is decided case by case, and it is a question to put to a lawyer before relying on one.

How it ends

The Code gives three causes: the right ends por el cese de la causa que lo motivó, por contraer el acreedor nuevo matrimonio o por vivir maritalmente con otra persona, when the cause that gave rise to it ceases, when the creditor remarries or when the creditor lives maritally with another person (article 101). It does not end with the death of the person who pays: El derecho a la pensión no se extingue por el solo hecho de la muerte del deudor, although the heirs can ask a judge to reduce or remove it if the estate cannot meet it or it cuts into their reserved share.

The date from which it ends depends on the cause, and a judgment of June 2026 sets the two rules side by side (judgment 1038/2026, of 29 June). Remarriage, and life as a couple with another person, belong to the first: the court recalls a plenary judgment of 2018, given in a case of stable life with a new partner, which held that the cause consisting of remarrying produce su efecto desde que ese hecho tiene lugar, con independencia de la fecha en que es conocida esa situación o de cuándo se interponga la demanda, takes effect from the moment the fact occurs, whenever it becomes known and whenever the claim is filed; and a judgment of 2019 that treated as undue everything paid after the first decision declaring the pension extinguished. A change in the creditor's finances belongs to the second. In the 2026 case a former wife had found a stable job; a first court kept her pension and an appeal court ended it two years later, and the former husband sued for the 17,400 euros he had paid in between. He lost: in the court's words, cada resolución produce efectos desde que se dicta, each decision takes effect from the day it is given, so what he paid under the earlier judgment was owed and is not returned.

The practical lesson is the same in both cases: the pension is ended by a court, at the request of the one who pays, and until a judgment says otherwise the obligation stands.

Tax, in one sentence

For income tax, a compensatory pension paid under a court decision can reduce the payer's taxable base and is income from work for the one who receives it (Ley 35/2006, articles 55 and 17); how that plays out in a particular return is a question for a tax adviser.

Couples with more than one country

When the spouses live in different countries, two instruments decide where the claim is heard and which law governs it. The European regulation on maintenance gives jurisdiction to the courts of the place where the defendant or the creditor habitually lives, or to the court that is hearing the divorce when the claim is made with it (Regulation (EC) 4/2009, article 3). The applicable law comes from the Hague Protocol of 2007: as a rule the law of the country where the creditor habitually lives, with a special rule between spouses that lets either of them object when another law, in particular that of their last common residence, is more closely connected with the marriage, and with room for the two to choose the law in writing (articles 3, 5 and 8). Whether a Spanish compensatory pension is maintenance in that European sense is the first thing to settle, because the regulation says the term is to be read autonomously, with a European meaning of its own. Jurisdiction and applicable law for the divorce itself are covered in our guide to divorce in Spain.

What our family team does

Our family practice handles divorce, custody and maintenance, including families with two countries involved: we advise on which country's courts and law apply, negotiate agreements wherever possible and litigate in the Spanish courts when necessary. The work is described on our family law page. If you write to us about a compensatory pension, send the marriage certificate, the capitulaciones if there are any, the last tax returns of both spouses and, if the divorce is already decided, the judgment or the agreement.

Common questions

My husband earns three times what I do. Am I entitled to a compensatory pension?

Not for that reason alone. The difference in income has to come with a worsening of your position caused by the divorce, typically because you gave up work or prospects for the family. A judge weighs the nine circumstances of article 97, and the difference in earnings is only one of them.

For how long is it paid?

For the time the agreement or the judgment says. A court can set an end date only if it can reasonably foresee when the imbalance will be overcome; when it cannot, as with a spouse near sixty who has been out of work for decades, it fixes the pension without a limit, and it can still be revised later.

My former wife now lives with a new partner. Can I stop paying?

Living maritally with another person ends the right, but it is a court that declares it. Ask for the extinction as soon as you can prove it, and keep paying until there is a decision: the Supreme Court has held that this cause takes effect from the fact itself, and in one case it treated as undue what was paid after the first judgment that declared the pension extinguished.

We were married under separation of property and I stayed at home. Do I get anything?

Possibly two things. Work for the home gives a right to a compensation when the regime ends, whether or not your spouse grew richer, and if the divorce also leaves you worse off you can ask for a compensatory pension. The first is taken into account in fixing the second.

Can we agree a lump sum instead of a monthly payment?

Yes. Article 97 itself allows a single payment, and a pension already fixed can be replaced at any time, by agreement, with a life annuity, the usufruct of assets or a capital sum.

General information on the law as it stands in October 2026 (Civil Code, articles 90, 97, 99, 100, 101, 1328 and 1438; Ley 35/2006, articles 17 and 55; Regulation (EC) 4/2009, article 3, and the Hague Protocol of 2007, articles 3, 5 and 8; the Supreme Court's judgments 229/2024, 1634/2025 and 1038/2026, read in full). It is not advice on a particular case: the marriage regime, the length of the marriage, what each spouse gave up and what each one has decide what can be claimed.