Tasmania's Chief Justice has described a man's attempt to hire a hit man to kill his wife as chilling.

Darryl Scott Donohue, 41, has been sentenced to four years in jail for stalking and inciting to murder his estranged wife.

Last September, he approached a man he had never met and offered him $10,000 to kill the woman he had separated from five months earlier.

The man refused and contacted police.

Donohue then made a similar offer to an undercover police officer posing as a hit man.

He also stalked her for several months, on one occasion damaging her car and causing her to flee the state out of fear.

Chief Justice Ewan Crawford told the Supreme Court in Launceston, Donohue hated his wife because she was in the way of him having custody of his two children.

Justice Crawford said the crime was chilling and premeditated and no remorse had been shown.

Donohue will not be eligible for parole for two years.