Guidelines

1. A parent's first and principal obligation is to support his/her minor children.
2. A parent shall pay the court-ordered child support payment as the first priority before payment of any debts owed to creditors.
3. Each parent has equal responsibility to support the child.
4. The state uniform child support guidelines considers each parent's actual income and level of responsibility for the children.
5. Courts are required to add to basic child support payments, the costs for child care related to work, reasonable and necessary education/training, and reasonable child's uninsured health care costs.
6. Courts may also include as additional child support the costs of a child's special education and visitation travel expenses.
7. The court must order health insurance be maintained by either or both parents if health insurance is available at no cost or at nominal cost.
8. Child support is determined by the income of the parties, number of children, tax filing status, and share of physical responsibility for child.
9. The court may allow income deductions for extreme financial hardship due to justifiable expenses, such as, extraordinary health expenses, uninsured catastrophic losses, minimum basic living expenses of natural or adopted children who reside with the parent. (No hardship deduction if other supported child receives AFDC).
10. Support continues until age 19 while still in high school, completion of high school and over 18, or self-supporting. A disabled adult child is entitled to child support beyond this period.

How to Open a Case

If you want to get an order for child support and you do not have an existing court case, you need to start a case.

• If you are married to the other parent, you must file an action for divorce or legal separation. By filing a divorce or legal separation, you may also request spousal support along with your request for child support. If you are married and do not want to start a dissolution or legal separation case, you may instead file a petition for custody of minor children.
• If you are not married to the other parent, you must first file an action to establish paternity. A petition to establish parental relationship may be filed by either the mother or the father. If you file a paternity action,  you may also request orders for child custody, visitation and child support.
• The Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) provides a variety of child support services to custodial and non-custodial parents at no charge for child support services in California. For more information on DCSS services, call 619-236-7600, (toll free 1-888-230-2273).

How to Calculate Child Support

Important Note:  The following guidelines are a simplified version of how the court calculates support. However, different circumstances in each case determines the amounts of child support ordered by the court. For specific information about the child support guidelines and formula, see the Statewide Uniform Guidelines for Determining Child Support listed in the California Family Code Sections 4050-4076.

Both parents are financially responsible for supporting their child(ren). The custodial parent directly supports the child(ren) by providing housing, groceries, paying for school, clothing, health care, day care, school activities and other expenses. The noncustodial parent pays child support to help cover these costs.

The amount of child support to be paid by each parent is based on the amount of time each parent spends with the child and their net income. Welfare grants are not considered income for the purposes of calculating child support. Income is money from sources including: self-employment, job wages, savings accounts, unemployment money, disability and worker's compensation, and Social Security. The judge may consider the amount of money the parent could be making, instead of the parent's actual income.

Net income is calculated by taking a person's total income and subtracting certain expenses, such as federal and state income taxes, health insurance premiums, state disability insurance, and Social Security taxes. The judge may also consider other expenses, including the cost of raising a child from another relationship, exceptional health care expenses, uninsured catastrophic losses, mandatory union dues, or retirement contributions.

Once each parent's net income is calculated, the child support guideline is used to determine the percentage of net income to be paid as child support.

The example below is a general guideline for calculating child support. The final amount of child support is carefully determined by a judge based on individual case information.

 For example, the custodial parent and noncustodial parent have ONE child. The noncustodial parent's net income is $2,000 per month resulting in a child support share of $500 per month  (25% of 2,000).  If the custodial parent's net income is $1,500 per month, the child support share is $375 per month (25% of 1,500). These percentages are adjusted according to the amount of time each parent spends with the child.

 Child support covers only ordinary living expenses for a child. It does not include childcare, medical bills not paid by insurance, travel expenses for visitation with noncustodial parent or a child's special education needs. Parents must specifically ask the judge to include these additional expenses in the child support order. If they do not, the costs may be divided so each parent pays 50 percent.

The law requires the judge to order one or both parents to provide health insurance coverage for their child(ren), including vision and dental care coverage, if it is available through a job or group insurance plan at no or reasonable cost to the parent.

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