Limited real splitting: maintenance to a former spouse as a special expense

Since January, Jörg Albers has transferred 1,300 € a month in maintenance to his divorced wife, 15,600 € over the year, and he also pays her health insurance at 150 € a month. So far none of this money has appeared in his tax return. With an application, his former wife's signature and her tax identification number, he could deduct a large part of it — not all of it, and not without consequences for her.

Why maintenance normally brings no relief

Paying maintenance to someone you are legally obliged to support is the discharge of a private duty. The Income Tax Act therefore assigns such payments to private living costs. § 12 no. 2 EStG expressly names gifts to a person legally entitled to maintenance and bars their deduction, whether they rest on statute or on an agreement.

That bar applies only where the Act provides nothing else. The opening sentence of § 12 lists the exceptions itself, and one of them is § 10(1a) no. 1. It is precisely this provision that allows maintenance paid to a former spouse to be deducted as a special expense from the total amount of income.

Where the deduction takes effect follows from § 2(4) EStG. The total amount of income, reduced by special expenses and extraordinary burdens, is the income. Maintenance therefore reduces no particular category of income but the sum of all of them, whether the payer earns wages, business profit or rent.

In practice this route is called limited real splitting, begrenztes Realsplitting. The name describes the effect: part of the income is shifted for tax purposes from the payer to the recipient. It is limited because the deduction is subject to a fixed annual ceiling, and it is real because money actually paid is split, not a notional amount.

It pays off above all when the two sides face different tax rates. The payer saves tax at his marginal rate, while the recipient pays tax at his or her own, often lower rate. If the recipient's income including the maintenance stays below the basic tax-free allowance, there may be no income tax at all on that side.

The procedure is voluntary for both sides. Nobody has to file the application, and the tax office asks nobody to do so. Whoever does not use it can relieve maintenance to a former spouse only as an extraordinary burden, which the second module presents together with its limits.

Who is covered

The provision covers payments to a divorced or permanently separated spouse. The recipient must also have unlimited income tax liability, which as a rule means a residence or habitual abode in Germany. A special rule applies to recipients in another EU or EEA member state, and the second module deals with it.

The Act does not require a subsisting marriage. Divorce therefore does not end the deduction; on the contrary, it is its most common occasion. Maintenance to a former partner who was never married to the payer, by contrast, is outside no. 1, because the Act ties the rule to a marriage, not to cohabitation.

Two extensions are written into the Act itself. Under § 2(8) EStG, all rules on spouses and marriages also apply to civil partners and civil partnerships. And sentence 6 of no. 1 extends sentences 1 to 5 to cases where a marriage was declared void or annulled.

Permanent separation is the decisive point. As long as spouses do not live permanently apart, § 26 EStG lets them choose between separate and joint assessment. That choice also exists for the year of separation if the conditions were met at the start of the year or arose during it.

For the year of separation, the first question is therefore which form of assessment is chosen. How tax classes and assessment change after a separation is shown in the course on tax classes. Real splitting usually becomes relevant only in the following years, when separate assessment is the only option left.

What is covered is maintenance, and the Act demands no particular legal basis. Whether it rests on a judgment, a settlement or a voluntary agreement is not addressed by the wording. What matters is that payments flow to the former spouse and that the remaining conditions of subsection 1a are met.

The ceiling and the health insurance contributions

The text of § 10(1a) no. 1 sentence 1 EStG, as we read it on 23 September 2026, allows maintenance to be deducted up to 13,805 € per calendar year. Anything above that has no effect as a special expense for the payer. The Act does not reduce the amount month by month; it states a single annual figure.

Sentence 2 raises this ceiling. It adds the contributions spent in the same assessment period on covering the former spouse under subsection 1 no. 3, namely contributions to basic health insurance and to statutory long-term care insurance. Whoever pays the other person's insurance can thus deduct more than the fixed amount.

The increase only reaches the contributions actually paid. If someone pays 150 € a month towards his former wife's health insurance, the ceiling grows by 1,800 € a year. If no contributions are taken over, the fixed amount stays, even when the cash maintenance is correspondingly higher.

Subsection 1 no. 3 sentence 4 settles to whom these contributions belong. Although the payer makes them, they count as the former spouse's own contributions. How that affects the recipient's pension and insurance deductions is explained in the course on provident expenses; here it is enough that they work for the payer through real splitting.

The ceiling is not an allowance granted without proof. Only payments actually made are deductible, and at most up to the limit. Someone who pays 9,000 € of maintenance in a year therefore deducts 9,000 €, not the ceiling.

For the part above the ceiling, no. 1 provides no deduction. § 10(1a) opens no route to claim that remainder elsewhere. Anyone who counts on such a further deduction should have it checked by a tax adviser beforehand.

Application and consent: two declarations, two rules

The deduction is not granted automatically. The payer has to apply for it, and for that he needs the recipient's consent. The two declarations follow different rules, and confusing them either costs the deduction or binds a person for longer than intended.

Under sentence 3, the payer's application only ever covers one calendar year. It has to be filed again year after year, usually with the income tax return. Once filed, it cannot be withdrawn for that year, even if it later turns out to bring less than expected.

This irrevocability has a flip side for the recipient. As soon as the application is filed and the consent exists, it is settled that the payments of that year are taxed in the recipient's hands. The payer cannot withdraw the application afterwards to spare the other the tax, and the recipient can no longer undo the consent for that year.

The recipient's consent is built differently. Under sentence 4 it stays effective until revoked, so it also covers the following years without having to be given anew each time. Whoever consents once is in principle consenting for all future years, until he or she expressly revokes.

Revocation is tied to a deadline. Under sentence 5 it must be declared before the start of the calendar year for which the consent is no longer to apply, and it must be declared to the tax office. A revocation during the current year therefore only takes effect for the next one.

The addressee of the revocation is the tax office, not the former spouse. A letter to the payer is not enough under the wording. Anyone who wants to end the consent for the coming year should therefore lodge the revocation with the tax office in December at the latest and be able to prove its receipt.

The wording knows no automatic end of the consent. Neither a new marriage of the recipient, nor a move, nor a change in the maintenance amount is named in the Act as a reason for the consent to lapse. Whoever no longer wants it to apply must therefore revoke it expressly and in time.

Sentence 4 names one exception to the lasting character of consent. A consent that is deemed given under § 894 of the Code of Civil Procedure does not run until revoked. § 894 ZPO provides that a declaration of intent counts as made once a judgment ordering the debtor to make it has become final.

If the recipient refuses consent, the payer can therefore sue for it before the civil courts. Consent replaced by a judgment then reaches only as far as the judgment itself; it does not extend into later years on its own. Whether such a claim exists is decided by family law, not by tax law.

The maintained person's tax identification number

The Act also requires a formality. Under sentence 7, the deduction depends on the payer stating the maintained person's tax identification number in his tax return, provided that person has unlimited or limited tax liability. Without that entry the deduction fails, even if every other condition is met.

The number links the two assessments. The recipient's tax office is meant to learn that special expenses were deducted on the payer's side, so that the same amounts are recorded as income on the recipient's side. Without that link, an amount could be deducted on one side and never taxed on the other.

Sentence 8 obliges the maintained person to give the payer his or her identification number. If that person fails to do so, sentence 9 allows the payer to ask his own tax office for the number. A dispute over the number therefore does not block the deduction for good.

Sentence 7 ties the requirement to the maintained person's tax liability. The number must be stated if that person has unlimited or limited liability. If neither applies, the wording does not require it. For recipients in another EU or EEA state, § 1a additionally demands a foreign certificate, which the second module explains.

Passing on the number does not replace consent. Whoever hands over his or her identification number has not thereby agreed to real splitting, and whoever consents must still have the number stated. The two requirements stand side by side, and both must be met for the year concerned.

In practice it makes sense to obtain consent and identification number together, preferably in writing and dated. Because consent runs on for years, the payer should also keep a record of when and to whom it was given. Without that record, it is hard to show later that it still applied in a given year.

• the payer's application for the calendar year, usually with the tax return
• the recipient's consent, which runs on until revoked
• the maintained person's identification number in the payer's return
• a recipient with unlimited tax liability, or the special rule for EU and EEA states
• proof of the amounts actually paid, at most up to the ceiling

Before the first application, a quick test is worthwhile. How much tax the payer saves depends on his marginal rate; the income tax scale calculator shows the tax with and without the deduction. The same sum should be done for the recipient, because that is where the price of the procedure arises.