What's in a retirement and pension division answer
Each state page explains how that state treats a pension or retirement account in divorce: the method used to find the marital share, the date on which the marital share stops growing, and how military and federal pensions are handled. The calculator then estimates the marital share of a pension from the dates and amounts you enter. Every legal figure is tied to a cited source; see our methodology for how we verify each one. A state page appears only when we can cite a primary state source for its rule, and we do not fill a gap with a guess.
The federal rules every state works within
- Employer plans. A qualified domestic relations order is a court order, made under a state's domestic relations law, that creates or recognizes the right of an alternate payee to receive all or part of the benefits payable to a plan participant, and it must meet the requirements of the tax code (26 U.S.C. 414(p)) and of the federal pension law (29 U.S.C. 1056(d)(3)).
- Military retired pay. The total amount of disposable retired pay payable under all court orders may not exceed 50 percent of it, and direct payment by the military to a former spouse is not available to the extent the order divides retired pay as property unless the spouses were married for 10 years or more during which the member performed at least 10 years of creditable service (10 U.S.C. 1408(e)(1) and (d)(2)).
Everything else is a matter of state law: whether the marital share is found with a fraction based on months of marriage and months of service, a present-value method or a flat percentage, and whether it stops at separation, filing or the decree. Each state page cites its own rule.