What Is a Military Spouse Entitled to After Divorce?

What a military spouse is entitled to after divorce depends on three things: how long the marriage lasted, how much of it overlapped with the service member’s military career, and what the divorce decree actually orders. Federal law sets the rules for military-specific benefits like retirement pay division, TRICARE, and the Survivor Benefit Plan. State law controls property division formulas, alimony, and child support. Depending on where those two layers land in your case, you may walk away with a share of the pension, healthcare, a survivor annuity, commissary access, support payments, or none of the above.

A Share of Military Retirement Pay

The Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act lets state courts treat military retired pay as marital property that can be divided in a divorce. The law does not guarantee you any specific percentage. It gives the state court the power to divide the pension under whatever equitable distribution or community property rules apply where you divorce.¹

The 10/10 Rule

The “10/10 rule” controls whether the Defense Finance and Accounting Service will send your share directly to you each month. To qualify, the marriage must have lasted at least 10 years, and those 10 years must overlap at least 10 years of creditable military service.¹ If you fall short, a court can still award you part of the pension, but collecting it becomes a private matter between you and your ex.

Direct payment requires a completed DD Form 2293 and a certified copy of the divorce decree submitted to DFAS.²

The 50 Percent Cap

Regardless of what a state judge awards, DFAS will not send a former spouse more than 50 percent of the member’s disposable retired pay for property division.³ Disposable retired pay is not the same as gross retired pay. It is the monthly retirement benefit minus deductions like VA disability waivers and Survivor Benefit Plan premiums.⁴ That distinction matters. See the VA disability section below.

The Frozen Benefit Rule

For divorces finalized after December 23, 2016 where the member is not yet retired, your share is calculated using the member’s pay grade and years of service on the date of the divorce, not at retirement. The dollar figure is adjusted upward for cost-of-living increases between then and retirement, but you do not benefit from later promotions or additional years the member serves.⁵

Because of this rule, the divorce decree itself must state the member’s pay grade and years of creditable service at the time of divorce. An order missing those details will be delayed or rejected by DFAS.⁵

The VA Disability Trap

This is the biggest financial risk most former spouses do not see coming. VA disability compensation cannot be divided as marital property. The Supreme Court decided this in Mansell v. Mansell (1989), which held that retirement pay a member waives to receive VA disability is excluded from what can be divided.

When a service member with a non-combat disability rating below 50 percent retires, they must waive a dollar-for-dollar amount of retired pay to receive VA disability. That waiver shrinks the disposable retired pay pool, which directly shrinks your check.⁴ If you were awarded 40 percent of a $3,000 monthly pension, you expect $1,200. If a later VA rating drops disposable retired pay to $2,000, your check drops to $800.

Some state courts tried to fix this by ordering the member to reimburse the former spouse for the loss. In Howell v. Howell (2017), the Supreme Court held those indemnification orders unenforceable, calling them an end-run around the federal ban on dividing disability pay. There is no reliable legal remedy once the waiver happens, so this risk has to be addressed in the settlement itself.

Thrift Savings Plan Division

If your ex participated in the Thrift Savings Plan, that account is separate from the military pension and can also be divided. Dividing it requires a Retirement Benefits Court Order that meets specific federal requirements. A generic divorce decree will not work.⁶

The order must name the account as the “Thrift Savings Plan” exactly. Variations like “thrift savings account” or “federal retirement benefits” get rejected. It also has to specify the dollar amount or percentage, an entitlement date for calculating the balance, and the last four digits of the participant’s Social Security number.⁶

The participant pays a $600 processing fee when TSP receives the order, unless the order allocates it differently. Your share goes into a temporary transfer account. If you want to roll it into your own IRA, submit that request promptly. Otherwise TSP issues a check and withholds 20 percent for federal income tax on the taxable portion.⁶

TRICARE and Healthcare

Whether you keep TRICARE after divorce depends entirely on how long the marriage overlapped with military service. Two federal rules apply, and the difference between them is large.

The 20/20/20 Rule

You qualify for full TRICARE benefits when all three conditions are met: the marriage lasted at least 20 years, the member completed at least 20 years of creditable service, and all 20 years of marriage overlapped with those 20 years of service. If you meet this standard, you get the same TRICARE options as any retired military family member, including TRICARE Prime, TRICARE Select, and TRICARE For Life once you are eligible for Medicare.⁷

The 20/20/15 Rule

If the overlap between marriage and service is 15 to 19 years (with the marriage and service each still at least 20 years), you get one year of transitional TRICARE from the date of divorce. When that year ends, you can buy coverage through the Continued Health Care Benefit Program for up to 36 months. Enrollment requires a written election within 60 days of losing TRICARE eligibility.⁸ Miss that 60-day window and you lose CHCBP.

CHCBP premiums for 2026 are $2,103 per quarter for an individual plan and $5,339 per quarter for a family plan.⁹ Those numbers are steep, so plan for what happens when the transitional year ends.

Remarriage Ends TRICARE

Under both the 20/20/20 and 20/20/15 rules, TRICARE eligibility ends permanently if you remarry. If the new marriage later ends by divorce or death, eligibility does not come back unless you have coverage through the new spouse’s benefits.⁷

Survivor Benefit Plan

The Survivor Benefit Plan pays a monthly annuity of up to 55 percent of the member’s retired pay base amount to a designated beneficiary after the member dies. A former spouse can be that beneficiary.¹⁰ SBP is separate from the division of retired pay. Without it, your share of the pension stops the day your ex dies, even if you were counting on that income for decades.

The member can voluntarily elect former spouse SBP coverage, or the court can order it. If the court orders coverage and the member fails to make the election, you can file a “deemed election” directly with DFAS using DD Form 2656-10. That request must be submitted within one year of the date the court order was issued.¹¹ There is no late-filing exception.

Remarriage affects SBP differently than TRICARE. If you remarry before age 55, payments stop, but if that marriage later ends for any reason, eligibility is reinstated on the first day of the month the marriage ends.¹² If you remarry at 55 or older, the annuity continues without interruption.

Commissary and Exchange Access

If you meet the 20/20/20 rule, you keep access to military commissaries and exchanges. The eligibility criteria match full TRICARE: 20 years of marriage, 20 years of creditable service, and a full 20-year overlap.⁷ Below that threshold, these privileges end at divorce.

Child Support and Alimony

Child support and alimony in military divorces are set by state law, the same as in civilian cases. What surprises many former spouses is how the income figure is built. Military compensation includes more than base pay, and the Basic Allowance for Housing and Basic Allowance for Subsistence both count as income for support calculations, even though those allowances are tax-free to the member. In a high-cost duty station, BAH alone can add thousands of dollars a month to the number used to set support.

Military regulations also require members to provide financial support to their families before any court order is entered. Each branch has its own interim support policy, and failure to comply can result in administrative discipline through the chain of command.

Garnishment Limits

Federal law caps how much of a service member’s pay can be garnished for support. Under the Consumer Credit Protection Act, the limit is 50 percent of disposable earnings if the member is supporting another spouse or dependent child, and 60 percent if not. Another 5 percent can be added when payments are more than 12 weeks overdue.¹³

When a former spouse receives both a property division of retired pay under the USFSPA and a separate garnishment for child support or alimony, the combined total cannot exceed 65 percent of disposable earnings.¹⁴ The 10/10 rule does not apply to support garnishments, only to property division of retired pay. A former spouse married less than 10 years can still enforce child support and alimony orders through DFAS.¹

Taxes on What You Receive

A share of military retired pay is taxable income to you, not to your ex. DFAS issues you a Form 1099-R each year, and federal income tax is withheld from each monthly payment.³

SBP annuity payments are also taxable to the former spouse.¹⁵ Child support is not taxable to the recipient and not deductible by the payer. Alimony from divorces finalized after 2018 follows the same rule under current federal tax law: not taxable to the recipient, not deductible by the payer.

For TSP distributions received through a court order, you can avoid an immediate tax hit by rolling the funds into an IRA or other qualifying retirement account. Take a direct payout and TSP withholds 20 percent for federal income tax on the taxable portion, with the full amount included in that year’s taxable income.⁶

1
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Legal Overview
2
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Apply for Former Spouse Payments
3
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Frequently Asked Questions
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 US Code 1408 – Payment of Retired or Retainer Pay in Compliance With Court Orders
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Defense Finance and Accounting Service. NDAA-17 Court Order Requirements
6
Thrift Savings Plan. Court Orders and Powers of Attorney
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TRICARE. Former Spouses
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eCFR. 32 CFR 199.20 – Continued Health Care Benefit Program
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TRICARE. How Much Is the Premium, Deductible, and Catastrophic Cap for the Continued Health Care Benefit Program
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Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Understanding SBP, DIC and SSIA
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Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Former Spouse SBP Deemed Election
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Defense Finance and Accounting Service. How Remarriage Before Age 55 Affects SBP Eligibility
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
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Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Maximum Payment Amount
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Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Who Pays SBP and Who Pays DIC