Massachusetts Child Support Calculator

It depends on both parents’ income and the number of children. The parent the children don’t mainly live with pays. For example, if you earn $1,000 a week before taxes, the other parent earns $700, and the children live mainly with the other parent, you would pay about $215 a week for one child or $301 for two.

The table assumes neither parent pays health insurance premiums or support for other children, which would lower their income. A paying parent who earns $391 a week or less pays the low-income amount, $15 to $33 a week. The 2025 guidelines took effect December 1, 2025, and are the ones that apply in 2026, per the Probate and Family Court’s guidelines page. The 2025 guidelines chart shows the amounts for one child.

Massachusetts uses an income shares formula. It adds both parents’ weekly incomes, finds the support for one child at that income, and raises it for more children. The paying parent pays a share based on their part of the income.

The rules are in the 2025 Child Support Guidelines:

1. Find each parent’s income: weekly income before taxes from all sources, minus the health, dental, and vision insurance premiums they pay and support they pay for other children. Cash assistance (TAFDC), food stamps (SNAP), and SSI don’t count. Massachusetts calls the result available income.
2. Add the two incomes, up to $8,654 a week.
3. Find the support for one child in Table A, then raise it for more children with Table B. Table C lowers it for children 18 or older.
4. Split it by each parent’s share of the income. The parent the children don’t mainly live with pays their share.
5. Add child care, split the same way.

Example

One parent earns $1,000 a week and the other $500, so their combined income is $1,500. Table A gives $325 a week for one child. With the child living mostly with the lower earner, the higher earner pays their 67% share of that, about $218 a week.

The formula changes only when parents share time and expenses about equally. Otherwise, it assumes the parent with less time has the children about a third of the time. A judge can lower support when that parent has well over a third. With one child and pay before taxes of $1,000 and $500 a week, the higher earner pays $218 a week with less than half the time, even at 40%, and about $111 at equal time.

• The usual formula assumes the children live mainly with one parent and spend about a third of the time with the other, under Section II.D of the guidelines.
• Shared time and expenses: when parents share both about equally, the worksheet works out what each owes the other and subtracts the smaller amount from the larger. With equal incomes and equal time, neither parent pays.
• Well over or under a third: a judge can lower support when the parent with less time has well over a third, and raise it when that parent has well under a third, under Sections II.D and IV.B.

The guidelines set no exact percentage for “about equally.” The calculator above uses the shared formula at exactly half the time.

Child care a parent pays so they can work is split by each parent’s share of the income. Up to $430 a week per child counts, after any discounts or subsidies.

Child care for job training or school can also count, and a judge can order a different amount when child care costs are unusually high, under Section II.E of the guidelines.

The court orders a parent to insure the children when insurance is available at a reasonable cost. Before support is worked out, each parent subtracts the health, dental, and vision insurance premiums they pay from their income.

• Reasonable cost: insurance counts as reasonable if it costs the parent no more than 5% of their income before taxes. Children on MassHealth stay on it, and a judge can also order private insurance.
• Uninsured bills: the parent receiving support pays the first $250 a year of costs insurance doesn’t pay, for all the children together. The court splits costs above that.

See Sections II.H to II.J of the guidelines.

If you get TAFDC (Massachusetts’s cash assistance), you have to help the state collect child support from the other parent. The support goes to the state, except the first $50 a month, which your family keeps on top of TAFDC. Food stamps (SNAP) have no child support requirement in Massachusetts.

• TAFDC: you tell DOR what you know about the other parent and send DOR any support they pay you directly. Not helping can lower or end your TAFDC. The $50 a month is per family, no matter how many children you have. See the Department of Transitional Assistance’s child support flyer.
• Food stamps (SNAP): USDA lists Massachusetts as a state that doesn’t require you to work with child support to get SNAP.

If helping could put you or your children in danger, you can ask to be excused (DTA calls this “good cause”). The Massachusetts child support guide has more on cash assistance and child support.

If the paying parent earns $301 a week or less before taxes, the guidelines set support at no more than $15 a week. If they earn $302 to $391 a week, it is no more than $33. A judge can order less, even $0.

• Low-income chart: from $302 to $391 a week, support is $15 a week plus 20% of the paying parent’s income above $301, under Section II.C of the guidelines and the 2025 guidelines chart.
• Receiving parent earns much more: the worksheet can lower the order, but not below the chart amount.
• 40% of income: an order that takes 40% or more of the paying parent’s income is treated as too hard to pay, which gives a judge a reason to lower it, under Section IV.C.
• Earning less than they could: a judge can base support on what a parent could earn with reasonable effort. Being in prison doesn’t count as choosing not to work, under Section I.E.

No. The guidelines cover combined income up to $450,000 a year ($8,654 a week). When the parents earn more than that together, the amount for $450,000 is the usual minimum, and a judge decides how much more to order.

On income above $450,000, any added support should be less than 10% of that income (the rate at the top of the table), under Section II.C.2 of the guidelines.

Yes. A judge can order more or less, even $0. The judge must find in writing that the guideline amount would be unfair and that the different amount is best for the child.

Reasons listed include a fair agreement between the parents, a child’s or parent’s special needs, unusually high health care, travel, or child care costs, parenting time well above or below a third, and a parent left unable to support themselves. See Section IV of the guidelines.

Ask the Department of Revenue Child Support Services (DOR) to review your order, or ask the Probate and Family Court to change it (this is called a complaint for modification). An order can change whenever it differs from what the current guidelines give. Keep following the current order until it changes.

• When: the order differs from what the guidelines now give, health coverage changes, or your situation changes a lot, under Section III of the guidelines.
• Through DOR: in DOR cases, either parent can ask for a review every three years, with no minimum difference required, under M.G.L. c. 119A, §3B.

The Massachusetts child support guide walks through each step.

Yes. The Probate and Family Court’s Child Support Guidelines Worksheet (CJD 304) works out the guideline amount. The court also has an online version you can fill in and save as a PDF.

Use the CJD 304 worksheet or the court’s online version of it. They handle children 18 or older, child care, insurance, and Social Security benefits.