New Jersey Child Support Calculator

New Jersey child support depends on both parents’ incomes after taxes, the number of children, and how many overnights the children spend with each parent. For example, a parent earning $1,000 a week before taxes, whose children live with the other parent earning $3,000 a month, pays about $890 a month for one child and $998 for two.

We take taxes out of each parent’s pay with the guidelines’ own withholding method, as the calculator above does. Overnights with the paying parent lower these amounts; the calculator above shows how much. In the $250 and $500 rows, the paying parent has less than $460 a week after taxes. The other parent, after covering their own share, also has less than $460, so the low-income rule doesn’t lower support (see below). New Jersey’s schedule, in weekly amounts for both parents’ combined income after taxes, is Appendix IX-F of the New Jersey Court Rules.

New Jersey uses an income shares formula: it adds both parents’ weekly net incomes, looks up the schedule amount for that total, and splits it by each parent’s share of the income. The paying parent’s overnights with the children then lower it.

The steps are in Appendix IX-B of the New Jersey Court Rules:

1. Find each parent’s weekly net income: gross income minus income taxes, Social Security and Medicare, required retirement contributions, union dues, and child support already paid for other children. To turn a monthly amount into a weekly one, divide it by 4.3.
2. Add the two net incomes.
3. Look up the schedule amount for that total and the number of children. The rows go up in $10 steps, so use the nearest row.
4. Split it by income share.
5. Add child care and health costs, split the same way.
6. Lower it for parenting time, and check that both homes keep enough income to live on.

Example

One parent has net income of $1,200 a week and the other $800, so their combined net income is $2,000 a week. The schedule amount for one child is $425 a week. The higher earner has 60% of the income, so with no overnights they pay $255 a week, or about $1,097 a month.

Yes, and the change starts well before 50/50. Each overnight the paying parent has lowers support a little. Once they have about two overnights a week (103 or more a year), a shared-parenting formula lowers it more. With weekly net incomes of $1,200 and $800 and one child, the higher earner pays about $1,097 a month with no overnights, $1,002 with 52 a year, $753 with 103, and $593 with 150.

• Fewer than 103 overnights: support goes down to cover the food and transportation the paying parent provides during their time. The credit is 37% of the schedule amount times their share of the overnights.
• 103 or more: the shared-parenting formula also counts housing costs in both homes. It needs a parenting plan filed with or ordered by the court and a place for the children to stay in the second home. Vacations and holidays don’t count toward the 103.
• Exactly 50/50: the parent whose home the children live in for school counts as the main parent. In the example, the higher earner pays about $477 a month if the children go to school from the other parent’s home, or $26 if they go from the higher earner’s home.
• Low income in the main home: New Jersey adds up the main home’s income after taxes (the parent’s pay, any cash assistance, and other adults’ income) plus child support. If the total is under twice the poverty line ($832 a week for a parent and one child in 2026), the shared formula isn’t used unless the parents agree, and a judge decides whether to give any credit for overnights.

See Appendix IX-A, paragraphs 13 and 14, of the New Jersey Court Rules and the 2026 updates to the guidelines. The calculator above assumes the main home is one parent and the children, with no other income.

Child care a parent pays so they can work or look for work is added to the support amount and split by each parent’s share of income. Since June 1, 2026, it counts for children under 13, or older with a special need. The parent who pays the provider gets credit for it.

Only the cost after the federal and New Jersey child care tax credits counts, up to what quality licensed care would cost. See the 2026 updates to Appendix IX-B and Appendix IX-B of the New Jersey Court Rules.

Every order must cover the children’s health care, including health insurance when a parent can get it at a reasonable cost. The children’s share of the premium is added to the support amount and split by income share, and the parent who pays it gets credit. The schedule already covers the first $250 a year per child of medical bills insurance doesn’t pay.

• Reasonable cost: coverage through work or a group plan is reasonable if paying for it leaves the paying parent at least $460 a week and the main home at least 150% of the poverty guideline. Paying child support comes before paying for the insurance.
• Medical bills over $250 a year per child: regular, expected costs are added to the support amount; unexpected ones are split by income share as they come up.
• Medicaid (NJ FamilyCare): if the children are on it, the other parent is ordered to add them to a health plan when one is available at a reasonable cost.

See Appendix IX-A, paragraphs 9, 26, and 27, of the New Jersey Court Rules.

If you get Work First New Jersey (WFNJ) cash assistance, you have to help the state get child support from the other parent (for example, by naming them and going to paternity tests and court dates), unless you have a good reason, such as a risk of violence. You get up to $100 a month of the support collected for one child, or $200 for two or more, without losing any cash benefit; the state keeps the rest. Food stamps (SNAP) don’t require this in New Jersey.

• WFNJ cash assistance: you can be denied or cut off if you don’t help without a good reason, under N.J.A.C. 10:110-1.4. The $100 and $200 amounts are on New Jersey Child Support’s guide and in N.J.A.C. 10:90-3.8.
• Food stamps (SNAP): USDA lists New Jersey as a state that doesn’t take away SNAP for not helping with child support.

If helping could put you or your children in danger, ask to be excused for “good cause.” The New Jersey child support guide covers how the program works.

In 2026, the paying parent keeps at least $460 a week of net income (pay after taxes) to live on. If support would leave them less, support drops to what they have above $460. That only happens when the other parent, after covering their own share of the children’s costs, still has more than $460 a week. If they don’t, the regular amount stands. When the paying parent would have less than $5 a week to pay, or both parents together have under $180 a week, a judge looks at the paying parent’s living expenses and sets an amount of at least $5 a week.

• Example: a parent with net income of $500 a week, whose children’s other parent has $1,000, pays $40 a week (about $172 a month).
• Both parents low: when the other parent would also keep $460 a week or less, the $460 rule doesn’t lower support. With net incomes of $300 a week each and one child, the paying parent pays about $434 a month.
• Very low incomes: when the $460 rule leaves less than $5 a week, or combined net income is under $180 a week, a judge reviews the paying parent’s living expenses and sets an amount from $5 a week up to the schedule’s lowest amount.
• Earning less by choice: a judge can count the income a parent could earn instead.

See Appendix IX-A, paragraphs 7(h), 12, and 20, of the New Jersey Court Rules and the 2026 updates, which set the $460 figure (150% of the poverty guideline for one person).

No. The schedule ends at $3,600 a week ($187,200 a year) in combined net income. Above that, support is at least the amount in the schedule’s top row, and a judge adds more based on the income above $3,600 a week.

At the top row, the schedule amount is $717 a week for one child, $719 for two, and $917 for three. The judge bases the added amount on the extra income and the factors in New Jersey’s support law, under Appendix IX-A, paragraph 20(b), of the New Jersey Court Rules.

Yes. A judge can order a different amount when the guideline amount would be unfair or doesn’t fit the family. The judge must write down the reason and what the guideline amount would have been.

Reasons the guidelines list include private school tuition, a gifted or disabled child’s special needs, a parent’s own medical bills, a property settlement, fixed payments like a mortgage, and more than six children in one home. Separately, if the first order is made when a child is 12 or older, it and every later order go up by 14.6%. See Appendix IX-A, paragraphs 2, 3, 17, and 21, of the New Jersey Court Rules.

File a motion in the Family Division of Superior Court showing that your situation has changed since the order, such as a big change in income. Orders paid through New Jersey Child Support also get a cost-of-living adjustment every two years and a review notice every three years. Keep following the current order until a judge changes it.

• When: after a change in your situation. New guidelines alone aren’t a reason, under Appendix IX-A, paragraph 23.
• Through the court: the court’s guide to asking for a change has form packets for divorced and never-married parents.
• Through New Jersey Child Support: both parents can ask for a review when the three-year notice comes, and cases on cash assistance are reviewed automatically. The cost-of-living adjustment raises support as local prices rise. A paying parent whose income hasn’t risen as much can challenge it. See New Jersey Child Support’s guide.

The New Jersey child support guide walks through each step.

Yes. New Jersey Child Support’s QuickCalc (its Child Support Guidelines Calculator) estimates support from each parent’s weekly gross taxable income, with or without shared parenting.

QuickCalc also starts from gross pay and works out taxes with the guidelines’ withholding method, as the calculator above does. A judge uses the full worksheet in Appendix IX-B, which also adds child care, health costs, and other children.