Child support amounts by state (2026)

The scenarios

Each scenario is one family, entered in every state’s calculation in exactly the same way:

• Parent A is the paying parent and Parent B is the receiving parent. Incomes are gross yearly wages: $40,000 and $30,000; $60,000 and $40,000; $100,000 and $60,000.
• 1 child or 2 children in the case, living mostly with Parent B. Parent A has 52 overnights a year, about one night a week.
• No child care, health insurance, extraordinary medical costs, other children, earlier orders or spousal support, so each figure is the basic guideline amount alone.
• Amounts are monthly. Guidelines written per week or per year are converted to a monthly figure the same way the calculators convert them.

Across the states

The data

Select a column heading to sort the table.

How to read these amounts

Each amount is the guideline amount the state’s formula gives for that family: an estimate, not a court order and not a prediction of one. Courts can deviate from the guidelines when applying them would be unjust or inappropriate, and the incomes a court accepts can differ from the figures used here.

A higher or lower amount is not a judgment on a state. States build their guidelines from different economic studies, update them in different years and treat the receiving parent’s income differently, so the order of states changes with income and the number of children. 20 of the jurisdictions start from net income; for those, the calculation uses this site’s estimate of income and payroll taxes, which can differ from the figures a court uses. Low-income rules such as self-support reserves and minimum orders matter most at the lowest income pair.

An amount can also fall as both incomes rise. In Idaho, for example, the parent with the larger tax benefit from the children is assigned the dependency exemption and the other parent receives their income share of it, added to or credited against support (Idaho Rule of Family Law Procedure 120). When the higher incomes move that benefit from one parent to the other, the guideline amount can drop.

The methodology explains how each state’s rules are applied, and every state page links to that state’s official worksheet or calculator and its child support agency. For a family that differs from these scenarios, the child support calculator estimates the guideline amount under your state’s current rules.

How this data was collected

Each row is computed at build time by running the scenarios through the state’s current rules file, the same file the state’s calculator uses. Rules files are built only from official sources: state statutes and court rules, the state judiciary and child support agency, and official state calculators, which we also use to cross-check the engine’s results. We don’t use commercial calculators, law-firm summaries or secondary compilations. “Rules effective” is the date the state’s current guidelines took effect, and “Verified” the date the rules were last checked against the official sources. The CSV gives amounts in dollars and cents and adds a link to each state’s page.

Laws and guidelines change, and courts can deviate from the guidelines in individual cases, so treat this table as a research starting point, not legal advice. See the methodology for each state and theeditorial policy.