North Carolina Child Support Calculator

It depends on both parents’ monthly income before taxes, the number of children, and how many nights the children spend with each parent. For example, if you earn $4,000 a month, the other parent earns $2,000, and your one child lives mainly with the other parent, you pay about $673 a month. Child care and health insurance costs are added on top.

Each row turns weekly pay into monthly pay (× 52 ÷ 12). The table assumes neither parent supports other children. Below 123 nights a year, the paying parent’s nights with the children don’t change the amount. If you want to see the totals before they are split between the parents, the full schedule runs to $40,000 a month and six children.

New guidelines on January 1, 2027: cases heard on or after that date use the 2027 North Carolina Child Support Guidelines, with a new schedule. For one child, with parents earning $4,000 and $2,000 a month, support would be about $716 a month instead of $673. The new guidelines also raise the minimum to $100 and extend the schedule to $50,000 a month. This page and the calculator use the 2023 guidelines until then.

North Carolina uses an income shares formula. It adds both parents’ monthly incomes before taxes and looks up the total support for that income in the state’s schedule. Each parent then pays a share that matches their share of the income.

The rules are in the North Carolina Child Support Guidelines, under G.S. 50-13.4:

1. Find each parent’s monthly income before taxes from all sources, including self-employment profit, Social Security, unemployment, and disability benefits. Leave out Work First, SSI, food stamps, and a new spouse’s income.
2. Subtract support for other children: child support the parent actually pays for other children, and the schedule amount for other children of theirs living with them.
3. Add the two incomes and look up the schedule amount for that income and the number of children.
4. Split it by income share. A parent with 60% of the combined income owes 60%.
5. Add child care, health insurance, special school costs, and travel between homes, split the same way.
6. Use the shared custody formula if the children live with each parent at least 123 nights a year.

Example

One parent earns $4,000 a month before taxes and the other $2,000, so their combined income is $6,000. The schedule amount for one child is $1,010. The higher earner has two thirds of the income, so with the child living mainly with the other parent, they pay about $673 a month.

Yes, starting once the children spend at least 123 nights a year (about a third of the time) with each parent. With one child and incomes of $4,000 and $2,000 a month, the higher earner pays $673 a month if they have the child fewer than 123 nights a year, about $499 at 123 nights, about $404 at 146 (40%), and about $253 at 50/50.

The shared formula (Worksheet B) applies when the children live with each parent at least 123 nights a year and each parent pays the children’s costs while they’re there. Only the nights count, whatever the custody order calls it. Because raising children in two homes costs more, the schedule amount goes up by half. Each parent owes their income share of that amount for the nights the children spend with the other parent, and the parent who owes more pays the difference. That can make the higher earner the paying parent even with more nights. See the Child Support Guidelines, “Child Support Worksheets”.

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. The parent who pays the provider gets credit for what they already pay.

For example, if child care costs $300 a month and you have two thirds of the combined income, your share is $200. Child care while a parent is in school, and child care tax credits, can be reasons for a judge to order a different amount. When the paying parent’s income is low enough that the schedule counts only their income (see below), child care isn’t added. See the Child Support Guidelines, “Child Care Costs”.

The cost of the children’s health insurance is added to the support amount and split by income share, and the parent who pays it gets credit. A judge must order a parent to cover the children when it costs that parent no more than 5% of their income before taxes.

• What counts as the cost: what the parent pays to add the children, or for child-only coverage, or the difference between self-only and family coverage, under G.S. 50-13.11.
• Medical bills insurance doesn’t pay: the support amount already includes $250 per child per year. A judge can split medical, dental, vision, and counseling costs above that between the parents, under the Child Support Guidelines.
• Medicaid: counts as health coverage for the order.

If the children live with you and you get Work First (North Carolina’s cash assistance), you have to help Child Support Services get support from the other parent, and the support collected pays the state back instead of coming to you. Food stamps (SNAP) don’t come with that requirement.

• Work First: you give Child Support Services information about the other parent, and the state keeps the support collected while you get Work First. Once Work First ends, the support is paid to you, according to the NCDHHS child support FAQ.
• Food stamps (Food and Nutrition Services): the USDA’s state options report shows North Carolina doesn’t require any help with child support to get them.

If helping could put you or your children at risk of harm, ask your Work First caseworker to excuse you (they call this “good cause”). The North Carolina child support guide has more.

A paying parent who earns under $1,150 a month before taxes usually owes $50 a month. A paying parent who earns a little more (up to $1,750 a month with one child) pays an amount based on their own income only, even if the other parent earns much more. This is meant to leave them at least $1,133 a month to live on.

• Paying parent’s income alone: a paying parent earning $1,750 pays $343 for one child even when the other parent earns $10,000. With two children this applies through $2,150. Child care and insurance aren’t added, and it doesn’t apply with shared custody.
• Earning less on purpose: if a parent stays out of work or takes lower pay to avoid support, a judge can use the income they could earn, at least minimum wage for 35 hours a week if they have no recent work history or job training. This doesn’t apply to a parent who can’t work because of a disability or who is in prison.
• From January 1, 2027: the minimum rises to $100 for a paying parent under $1,600 a month, and the amount kept to live on rises to $1,330, under the 2027 guidelines.

See the Child Support Guidelines, “Self-Support Reserve”.

No. The schedule stops at $40,000 a month in combined income. Above that, a judge sets support from the children’s reasonable needs and the parents’ income, assets, and standard of living.

At $40,000, the schedule shows $3,246 for one child and $4,768 for two, which a judge can use as a starting minimum. See the Child Support Guidelines, “High Combined Income”. For cases heard on or after January 1, 2027, the schedule runs to $50,000 a month, under the 2027 guidelines.

Yes, when the guideline amount would be too little or too much for the children’s reasonable needs, or would be unfair. The judge must explain why in writing and state what the guideline amount would have been.

Reasons the guidelines mention include one parent paying all of the support and the insurance premium, a parent supporting more than one family, alimony a parent pays, and child care while a parent is in school. See G.S. 50-13.4(c) and the Child Support Guidelines.

Ask Child Support Services to review your order, or file a motion in district court. Keep paying the current order until it changes. For an order at least three years old, a new amount that is 15% or more higher or lower usually counts as enough reason to change it.

• When: after a big change, like a change in income or custody, under G.S. 50-13.7. Existing orders don’t change on their own when the 2027 guidelines take effect; a parent has to ask.
• Through Child Support Services: if your case is with them, either parent can ask for a review every three years, or sooner after a big change, according to the NCDHHS child support FAQ.
• Through the court: file a Motion and Notice of Hearing for Modification of Child Support Order (AOC-CV-600) with the clerk in the county where the order was entered.

The North Carolina child support guide walks through each step.

Yes. NCDHHS Child Support Services has online versions of the court worksheets: Worksheet A when the children live mainly with one parent, Worksheet B for shared custody, and Worksheet C when each parent has at least one child living mainly with them.

The NCDHHS child support guidelines page links all three worksheets. They add child care, insurance, and other costs, and as of November 2026 still use the 2023 schedule.