Child Support Calculator – Guideline Estimates for Texas, New York, Wisconsin and More
There is no national child support formula — each state writes its own, and the differences are real money. This calculator runs the guideline the way the state itself wrote it: Texas percentages of net resources with the $11,700 cap and low-income table, New York’s combined-income CSSA method with your pro-rata share, and Wisconsin’s percentage-of-gross table — so the estimate you get follows an actual rule, not a guess dressed up as one.
Pick your state, then your numbers
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Your guideline estimate
The standard Texas table, straight up
With net resources of $6,000.00 a month and 2 children, the standard percentages apply and nothing is trimmed: 25% of $6,000.00 is $1,500.00 a month. That is the number a Texas court starts from before either side asks for a deviation.
An estimate, not an order: this is the guideline figure only. A court can order more or less — parenting time, children in another household, special needs and the child’s best interests all move real orders. It is not legal advice.
- There is no national formula — Texas, New York and Wisconsin each write their own, and the same family gets three different numbers.
- The income definition matters more than the percentage: Texas net resources, New York combined gross, Wisconsin payer gross, each capped differently ($11,700 TX; $193,000 NY).
- “Other states” here is openly a Wisconsin-table ballpark, not any real state’s rule.
- One estimate, three formulas
- How a guideline amount is worked out
- The formulas, and the published examples priced by hand
- Two things that change the number most
- The same family, three guideline numbers — honestly compared
- Why the income definition matters more than the percentage
- What happens above the caps and outside the standard case
- Checks before you rely on any estimate
- Child support questions, answered
One estimate, three formulas
Every state answers the same question — what should a child cost the parent they do not live with? — with a different rulebook. This strip holds the three formulas side by side, so you can see why the same family gets three very different numbers.
Texas: net resources
The paying parent’s monthly net resources, times 20/25/30/35/40% by number of children — but the percentage only ever touches the first $11,700. Below $1,000 of net resources, a gentler low-income table (15 to 35%) takes over.
New York: combined income
Both parents’ gross incomes are added together, the CSSA percentage (17/25/29/31/35%) is applied up to $193,000 of combined income, and the paying parent covers their income share of the result, plus the same share of childcare and health add-ons.
Wisconsin: gross income
The simplest of the three: the paying parent’s gross monthly income times 17/25/29/31/34% (DCF 150). No cap, no second income — the placement schedule does the adjusting instead, in shared-placement cases.
How a guideline amount is worked out
Name the income the state counts
Texas counts the paying parent’s net resources — gross income minus a short, specific list of deductions. New York counts both parents’ gross incomes combined. Wisconsin counts the paying parent’s gross income alone. Getting this figure right matters more than anything else on the page.
Apply the percentage, inside its limits
Each state pairs a percentage with the number of children, and two of the three cap the income it can touch: Texas applies its table only to the first $11,700 of monthly net resources, and New York only to the first $193,000 of combined income. Above those lines, the guideline percentage stops and judicial discretion begins.
Split it, then add the add-ons
In New York the paying parent owes their income share of the basic amount — $72,000 of a $120,000 combined income is 60%, so 60% of the obligation — and the same share of mandatory add-ons like childcare and health insurance. Texas and Wisconsin fold most costs into the single percentage figure instead.
The formulas, and the published examples priced by hand
New York publishes this example through its child support program: two parents with a combined income of $120,000 and one child. The CSSA percentage for one child is 17%, so the basic obligation is 17% of $120,000 = $20,400 a year. The non-custodial parent earns $72,000 of that combined income — a 60% share — so they owe 60% of $20,400 = $12,240 a year, or $1,020 a month. Add $550 a month of childcare and health costs and the same 60% share adds $330, for a total of $1,350 a month. The calculator above starts on the Texas defaults; switch it to New York and it lands on exactly these figures.
Texas at its extremes: at the $11,700 cap, one child takes 20% — the published maximum of $2,340 a month, no matter how far past the cap the income runs. At the other end, a parent with $900 of monthly net resources is on the low-income table, where one child is 15%: $135 a month. The same child, the same state, a sixteen-fold difference — because the guideline is a percentage of resources, not a price tag on the child.
Two things that change the number most
It is tempting to type in the deposit that lands in your bank account. Texas means something more specific. Net resources start from almost everything that comes in — wages, salary, overtime, commissions, tips, bonuses, self-employment income, net rental income, retirement and disability benefits, interest, dividends and capital gains — and subtract only what Family Code section 154.062 lists: Social Security taxes or the mandatory equivalent, federal income tax computed at the single rate with one personal exemption and the standard deduction, state income tax, union dues, and the cost of the children’s health and dental insurance. Child support already being paid for another child is handled separately, as a multi-family adjustment.
The Texas Attorney General publishes tax charts that do this conversion from gross pay for common pay schedules. If your number came from a pay stub’s take-home line, it is probably close but not exact — voluntary 401(k) contributions, garnishments and extra withholding are not on the statutory subtraction list, so they do not reduce net resources.
The caps in Texas and New York are not caps on child support itself — they are caps on how far the percentage table reaches. A Texas court can order support above the $2,340 guideline maximum for one child if the child’s proven needs call for it, starting from the guideline amount on the first $11,700 and then weighing needs against resources. In New York, once combined income passes $193,000, the court chooses whether to keep applying the percentage to the excess or to work from the statutory factors instead — and must say why on the record.
That is why this page shows the cap note instead of quietly extending the percentage: past the cap, there is no formula left to estimate with, only factors a judge weighs case by case. Any tool that gives you one confident number for income far above the cap is inventing precision the law does not have.
The same family, three guideline numbers — honestly compared
Scope first, because this page’s most important statement is a limitation. Child support guidelines are state law, and no formula on this page is universal. This calculator publishes exactly three states’ formulas — Texas, New York and Wisconsin — plus an “other states” mode that is openly a Wisconsin-table ballpark, not any real state’s rule. Every figure below uses only those published formulas, and every row uses the income definition its own formula requires: Texas counts monthly net resources, New York counts combined gross income, Wisconsin counts the payer’s gross income. Rows that used one income figure for all three formulas would look cleaner and be wrong, because the formulas do not measure the same thing — so the table below states each formula’s own default inputs beside its result, and the comparison that matters is the structure, not a single number.
| Formula (page default) | Inputs on the page | Result | What the number means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas, 2 children | $6,000/mo net resources | $1,500.00/mo ($18,000/yr) | 25% of net resources, standard table |
| Texas, 3 children | $6,000/mo net resources | $1,800.00/mo | 30% of net resources, standard table |
| New York, 1 child (page example) | $120,000/yr combined gross | $1,020.00/mo basic share | 17% of combined income, payer’s 60% share |
| Wisconsin, 2 children | $5,000/mo payer gross | $1,250.00/mo | 25% of payer gross, no cap |
| Wisconsin, 3 children | $5,000/mo payer gross | $1,450.00/mo | 29% of payer gross, no cap |
Read the structure, not the ranking. Texas is a payer-side formula: one parent’s net resources, one percentage, one answer — 20% for one child, 25% for two, 30% for three, 35% for four, 40% for five or more. New York is an income-shares formula: both parents’ incomes are combined, the combined income is multiplied by the percentage for the child count (17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three, 31% for four, 35% or more for five), and the payer pays their pro-rata share of that total — which is why the page’s New York example works in two steps, $120,000 × 17% = $20,400 a year of basic support, then the payer’s 60% share = $12,240 a year, or $1,020 a month, before the payer’s share of childcare and health add-ons (60% of $550 a month = $330, for a $1,350 monthly total). Wisconsin looks like Texas — one parent’s gross income, one percentage — but the percentages differ (17%, 25%, 29%, 31%, 34%) and there is no cap at all, while Texas caps its standard table at the first $11,700 of net resources. Three states, three different answers to the same question, “what counts, and whose income counts” — and that question is the whole game.
The caps show the difference most sharply. Texas’s standard table stops at $11,700 of monthly net resources, a cap effective 2025-09-01: one child at the cap is 20% × $11,700 = $2,340 a month from the table, and income above the cap is not automatically supported at the same percentage — a court may award more based on the child’s proven needs, but the table itself stops. New York caps the combined income it multiplies at $193,000, effective 2026-03-01, and above that line the court chooses an amount and must state its reasons. Wisconsin has no cap: a payer at any income pays the percentage on the whole gross income, which is why Wisconsin’s uncapped rows keep growing where the other two states’ tables stop. A high earner’s estimate therefore depends on which state’s machinery is running — and a Texas number past the cap, or a New York number past its cap, is not a formula answer at all but a court decision the formula cannot predict.
Why the income definition matters more than the percentage
The percentages get the attention; the income definitions do the damage. Texas starts from monthly net resources, which is gross income minus a specific list: Social Security taxes, federal income tax computed at the single rate with one exemption, state income tax, union dues, and the children’s health insurance costs. Everything else stays in. Voluntary 401(k) contributions do not reduce net resources. Garnishments do not. Extra voluntary withholding does not. A parent who voluntarily increases a 401(k) contribution to lower their support has changed their savings, not their net resources, and a court applying the Texas definition will compute support on the income the definition counts, not the income the parent chose to show.
New York and Wisconsin count gross income, and the difference between “gross” and “net resources” is why the same parent’s two states’ numbers cannot be compared dollar for dollar. A Texas parent with $6,000 of monthly net resources might have $7,500 or more of gross income behind it, depending on the deductions the definition allows; a Wisconsin parent with $5,000 of gross income is being measured on the whole $5,000. When this page’s “other states” mode applies the Wisconsin table as a rough stand-in, it is applying a gross-income percentage to whatever income you enter — and the page’s own warning stands: the result is a ballpark for a state whose real guideline may use a different income definition, different percentages, a cap, or an entirely different model. A ballpark that is honestly labelled is useful for planning a conversation; a ballpark mistaken for your state’s number is a settlement built on the wrong state’s law.
The low-income end of the Texas table shows the same principle from below. Below $1,000 of monthly net resources, Texas switches to a lower percentage table — 15% for one child instead of 20%, 20% for two instead of 25%, 25% for three, 30% for four, 35% for five or more — so the page’s example of $900 of net resources with one child gives 15% × $900 = $135 a month. The table does not simply scale down: it changes percentage at the threshold, because the guideline recognises that a parent at $900 a month cannot pay the standard share and still live. That recognition is built into the formula, not left to a judge’s discretion — and it is exactly the kind of rule a generic “percentage of income” summary would miss, because the generic summary has only one percentage where the statute has two tables.
What happens above the caps and outside the standard case
Standard cases are the minority of hard cases, and the page is honest about where its formulas stop. Above the Texas cap, the court may award additional support based on the child’s proven needs — proven, not assumed, which means the needs must be shown with evidence, and the award is the court’s, not the table’s. Above New York’s $193,000 cap, the court chooses an amount for the excess and must state its reasons on the record. In Wisconsin, shared placement changes the formula itself: when the payer has the children for at least 25% of overnights, a blended shared-placement calculation applies, and the page states plainly that the fuller worksheet is needed rather than inventing a blended figure here. The Texas multi-family adjustment — where the payer also supports children in another household — is likewise not applied by this page, and a payer in that position needs the full guideline, not the standard table.
Deviation factors sit behind all three formulas. Courts can depart from the guideline amount where the standard result would be unjust or inappropriate — for the child’s special needs, the parents’ relative resources, the time each parent actually spends with the child, or other factors the statute lists — but deviation is a reasoned departure from a known number, not a free choice of a preferred number. The guideline gives the starting point; the evidence gives the reason to move; the order gives the final figure. That order of operations is why this page’s results are labelled estimates everywhere: the formula produces the starting point, and the court produces the obligation.
Two tax facts from the page complete the picture, because they are routinely misunderstood. Child support is tax-neutral in both directions: the payer cannot deduct it, and the recipient does not report it as income. Dependency and child-related tax credits are decided by custody and by the order or agreement, not by the amount of support paid — paying more does not buy a credit, and paying less does not lose one, unless the order says otherwise. A settlement that trades support dollars for tax benefits has traded a real obligation for a benefit the tax code may not recognise, and that trade deserves a professional’s eye before it is signed.
Checks before you rely on any estimate
1. Is this your state’s formula? Only Texas, New York and Wisconsin are published on this page. If you live anywhere else, the “other states” number is a Wisconsin-table ballpark, not your state’s guideline — find your state’s official calculator or guideline worksheet before relying on any figure.
2. Is the income the definition’s income? Texas net resources, New York combined gross, Wisconsin payer gross — each formula measures something different, and entering the wrong income concept into the right formula produces a confident wrong answer. Check the definition before the percentage.
3. Is the case standard? Income above a cap, shared placement at or above 25% of overnights in Wisconsin, children in another household, or special needs all take the case outside the standard table. Standard answers do not fit non-standard cases, and the court — not the calculator — decides those.
4. Is this an order, or an estimate? This page produces an estimate from three states’ published formulas. It is not legal advice and it is not an order. Only a court or an agency order creates an obligation, and only a family law attorney or your state’s official calculator can tell you what yours will be. Use this page to plan the conversation; use the court to settle the obligation.
Income that is hard to measure: self-employment and irregular pay
Guideline percentages are simple; incomes often are not. For a self-employed parent, the guideline income is generally the business income after legitimate business expenses, not the gross receipts and not the amount drawn as salary, and courts commonly look at tax returns, bank records and a run of years rather than a single good or bad month. Averaging over time is the usual answer to a lumpy income, and a parent who controls their own pay cannot simply set it low: courts in all three states covered on this page can impute income, treating a parent as earning what they are capable of earning, when the evidence shows voluntary underemployment or hidden earnings.
Overtime, bonuses and commissions sit in the same difficult category. Regular, recurring overtime is usually counted as income; occasional or one-off payments may be treated separately or averaged. The honest approach for planning is to run the estimate twice, once with the irregular pay included and once without, and to treat the gap between the two results as the range the court will argue over. The state guides linked from the companion articles show which treatment each state’s worksheet applies, because the worksheet, not this page, decides the case.
Other children, and the costs added on top
A parent who already supports children in another household does not start from zero in any of the three systems. Texas law provides a specific reduction for a parent with a legal duty to support other children, applied before the percentage table, so the guideline amount falls as the number of other children rises. New York and Wisconsin handle the same situation through their own adjustments: New York’s pro-rata framework accounts for the other household in the income picture, and Wisconsin’s serial-family provisions adjust the percentage when children live in more than one household. The details differ, but the direction is the same everywhere: existing obligations reduce, and never erase, the new amount.
Separate from the basic amount, the add-on costs are shared on top: childcare needed for work, the child’s share of health insurance, unreimbursed medical costs and, in New York, educational expenses. These are usually split in proportion to income, which is why the pro-rata share matters as much as the percentage. Budget for the add-ons as a second line, not as part of the guideline figure, or the estimate will understate the real monthly obligation by exactly the costs that cause the most argument.
Child support questions, answered
How is child support calculated in Texas?
Texas applies a set percentage to the paying parent’s monthly net resources: 20% for one child, 25% for two, 30% for three, 35% for four and 40% for five or more. The percentage is only applied to the first $11,700 of monthly net resources (the cap in effect since September 1, 2025), so the most the guideline table itself produces for one child is $2,340 a month. If net resources are below $1,000 a month, a low-income table replaces the standard one: 15%, 20%, 25%, 30% and 35%. Net resources is a defined term — gross income from nearly all sources, minus Social Security taxes, federal income tax at the single rate, state income tax, union dues and the children’s health insurance costs. The rules live in Texas Family Code chapter 154.
How does New York’s CSSA formula work?
New York’s Child Support Standards Act adds both parents’ gross incomes together, then multiplies the combined figure by a percentage: 17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three, 31% for four and at least 35% for five or more. The percentage is applied to combined income up to $193,000 (the cap in effect from March 1, 2026). The result is the children’s basic support obligation, and it is split between the parents in proportion to income — the non-custodial parent pays their share of it. Mandatory add-ons, chiefly work-related childcare and the children’s share of health insurance, are split by the same share and added on top. The state’s own example: combined income of $120,000, one child, and a non-custodial parent earning $72,000 produces a $20,400 obligation, of which the non-custodial parent’s 60% share is $12,240 a year — $1,020 a month.
What percentages does Wisconsin use?
Wisconsin’s Percentage of Income Standard, set by the Department of Children and Families in DCF 150, applies a fixed percentage of the paying parent’s gross income: 17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three, 31% for four and 34% for five or more. Unlike Texas and New York, the standard table has no income cap. What adjusts the real-world amount instead is placement: when each parent has the children for at least 25% of overnights, a shared-placement formula blends both incomes and the overnight counts, and separate rules exist for low-income payers, high-income payers and split placement. This calculator runs the standard primary-placement table; shared-placement cases need the fuller worksheet.
Why do other states give such different answers?
Because the models disagree about what matters. Percentage-of-income states like Wisconsin look only at the paying parent’s income. Income-shares states — the majority — estimate what the child would have received in an intact household, then split that amount between both parents by income. Melson-formula states protect a self-support reserve for each parent first. The same two incomes can produce obligations hundreds of dollars a month apart across these models, before custody time is even counted. That is why this page labels its fourth mode plainly: the Wisconsin table is a stand-in for a first estimate, not your state’s rule, and your state’s official calculator or court self-help center is the place to confirm it.
Can a court order a different amount than the guideline?
Yes — in every state, the guideline is the starting point, not the finish line. Courts can deviate when the formula outcome would be unjust or inappropriate on the facts: a child with significant medical or educational needs, a parent supporting children in another household, very high income above a cap, substantial parenting time, or a parent who is deliberately underemployed (in which case income can be imputed at what they could earn). Deviations usually have to be explained in writing and tied to statutory factors. A negotiated agreement between the parents can also differ, subject to court approval. Nothing on this page predicts how a particular judge will weigh those factors.
Does child support change how I file my taxes?
For federal income tax, child support is neutral on both sides: the parent who pays it cannot deduct it, and the parent who receives it does not report it as income. That sets it apart from older alimony agreements, which once had their own rules. What support does interact with is everything around it — who claims the child as a dependent, who files as head of household, and who receives the child tax credit are decided by the custody facts and the divorce or support order’s terms, not by the support amount itself. If money is genuinely tight on either side, a tax preparer and a family-law attorney split these questions between them; this page is an estimator, not a substitute for either.
What if the parents live in different states?
Generally, the order is issued under one state’s law — the issuing state’s law — and that state’s guideline governs the amount, even when the parents live in different states, while enforcement can cross state lines through the uniform interstate family support framework. Which state issues the order depends on where the case is filed and where jurisdiction lies, and an existing order from one state is generally enforced, not recalculated, in another. That is why the “other states” ballpark on this page is doubly dangerous in an interstate case: it may apply the wrong state’s formula to a case whose issuing state is not yet settled. If the parents live in different states, get advice in the issuing state before relying on any estimate — the guideline that matters is the issuing state’s, and no other state’s table substitutes for it.
How does parenting time change the amount?
It depends on the state’s machinery. In Wisconsin, parenting time changes the formula itself: when the payer has the children for at least 25% of overnights, a blended shared-placement calculation applies, and this page states that the fuller worksheet is needed rather than inventing a blended figure. In Texas and New York, parenting time enters differently — as a factor a court can consider when deciding whether to depart from the guideline amount, rather than as a percentage adjustment built into the table. The page publishes no invented parenting-time percentages for Texas or New York, and this section adds none: the effect of time in those states is a court decision on the evidence, not a dial on the calculator. Enter the formula’s standard case, then raise parenting time with the court or your attorney as a deviation argument, not as a number you can compute here.
What if the payer’s income changes?
The estimate changes immediately; the obligation changes only through the court or the agency. Child support orders are modified on a showing of changed circumstances — a job loss, a substantial raise, a change in custody or in the children’s needs — through a modification proceeding in the issuing state, not by either parent recalculating alone. A parent who starts paying a new amount without an order, or stops paying the old amount because income fell, is either overpaying voluntarily or in arrears, and arrears do not forgive themselves. If income has changed materially, file for modification promptly and keep paying the existing order until the new order issues: the gap between the change and the modification is the period arrears accumulate, and prompt filing is the only thing that shortens it.
Is the “other states” number my state’s number?
No — and the page says so in terms. The “other states” mode applies the Wisconsin percentage table as a rough stand-in ballpark, because Wisconsin’s table is a clean payer-percentage model that illustrates the shape of a guideline without pretending to be any particular state’s law. Your state’s real guideline may use a different income definition, different percentages, a cap, an income-shares model that combines both parents’ incomes, or adjustments this page does not contain. Treat the ballpark as a planning figure for a first conversation, and find your state’s official calculator or guideline worksheet before you negotiate, settle or file on any number from this page.
How is a self-employed parent’s income worked out?
Courts generally start from business income after legitimate expenses, evidenced by tax returns and bank records over a run of years, not from gross receipts or from the salary the parent chooses to draw. A parent who sets their own pay low can have income imputed at what they are capable of earning. Bring several years of records, because a single year rarely settles the question.
Do both parents’ incomes count in every state?
No. New York and Wisconsin both combine the parents’ incomes and split the result in proportion to each share. Texas applies its percentage to the paying parent’s net resources only, and the other parent’s income enters only through the deviation factors a court may consider. The same family can therefore get very different answers depending on which state’s rules apply.
What happens when a parent already supports children in another household?
All three systems reduce the amount, through different mechanisms: Texas applies a statutory reduction for the legal duty to other children, New York accounts for the other household in its income framework, and Wisconsin adjusts its percentage for serial families. The reduction is never a complete offset, and the other children’s needs are weighed alongside, not ahead of, the child in the current case.
Are health insurance and childcare costs part of the guideline amount?
Usually they are added on top, not inside it. The child’s share of health insurance premiums, work-related childcare and unreimbursed medical costs are typically split between the parents in proportion to income, in addition to the basic guideline amount. In New York, educational expenses can be added the same way. Plan for them as a separate monthly line.
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👨👩👧How Is Child Support Calculated?
The percentage-of-income method, state by state.
⚖️Child Support with 50/50 Custody
How shared placement changes the calculation.
A guideline estimate — not legal advice, and not a court order.
This calculator applies the published guideline formulas: Texas Family Code chapter 154 percentages of net resources (standard table, the $11,700 monthly cap effective September 1, 2025, and the low-income table below $1,000), the New York Child Support Standards Act (combined-income percentages on the first $193,000, effective March 1, 2026, split pro rata, with childcare and health-insurance add-ons), and Wisconsin’s Percentage of Income Standard under DCF 150. Real orders regularly differ: courts can deviate for the child’s needs, parenting time, children in other households, imputed income, high income above the caps, and other statutory factors, and several states recalculate differently for shared placement or split custody. Texas multi-family adjustments and New York’s treatment of income above the cap are real parts of those systems that a single estimator cannot fold in. For a figure you can rely on, use your state’s official child support calculator or enforcement agency, and for an order with real money riding on it, a family-law attorney in your state. Nothing here is legal advice.
Three states, three rulebooks — now you can see the number each one actually starts from.
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