Rhode Island Child Support Calculator

It depends on both parents’ monthly income before taxes and the number of children. If you earn $1,000 a week, your one child lives with the other parent, and that parent earns $3,000 a month, you would pay about $665 a month, or $1,013 for two children. Child care costs and any cash medical support are added on top.

To build the table, we convert weekly pay to monthly pay (× 52 ÷ 12). The amounts assume neither parent pays support for other children or the children’s health insurance premiums. Time with the paying parent doesn’t change them unless each parent has the children about half the time. Rhode Island’s schedule, which lists support for both parents together, is in Family Court Administrative Order 2023-02.

Rhode Island uses an income shares formula, so both parents’ incomes count. It adds the parents’ incomes before taxes, after a few deductions, and looks up the schedule amount. It then adds child care costs. The parent the children don’t live with pays their share of the total.

R.I. Gen. Laws § 15-5-16.2 requires the Family Court’s formula. The Child Support Guideline Worksheet (FC-78) has these steps:

1. Start with each parent’s monthly gross income from all sources.
2. Subtract the deductions: support paid for other children, the children’s health insurance premiums, an amount for other children under 18 living with the parent, and the parent’s share of child care.
3. Add the two incomes and round up to the next $50.
4. Look up the schedule amount and add child care, minus the federal tax credit.
5. Split it by each parent’s share of the income, rounded to whole percents.
6. The parent the children don’t live with pays their share, plus any cash medical support.

Example

One parent earns $4,000 a month and the other $2,000, so their combined income is $6,000. The schedule amount for one child is $1,035 for both parents together. The higher earner has 67% of the income, so with the child living with the other parent, they pay about $693 a month. Orders are often set weekly, by dividing the monthly amount by 4.3.

Only when each parent has the children at least 49% of the time (about 179 nights a year). Below that, time with each parent doesn’t change the amount. With one child and gross pay of $4,000 and $2,000 a month, the higher earner pays $693 a month when they have less than 49% of the time and about $352 when each parent has 49% to 51%.

The schedule already assumes the paying parent has the children for at least 20% of the nights. When each parent has at least 49%, the worksheet figures out what each parent owes, and the parent who owes more pays the difference. Parents with equal incomes and equal time pay each other $0. See the shared placement example (Exhibit 8) in Administrative Order 2023-02.

Child care a parent pays so they can work is added to the schedule amount, after subtracting the federal child care tax credit. The parents split the total by their shares of the combined income.

For example, if child care costs $600 a month after the credit and you have two thirds of the combined income, your share is $400. The worksheet subtracts each parent’s share of child care from their income and adds the full cost to the schedule amount, as in Exhibit 6 of Administrative Order 2023-02.

Every Rhode Island order covers the children’s health care. If a parent can get insurance through work that costs no more than 5% of their income before taxes, they must add the children to it, and the premium is subtracted from that parent’s income. Otherwise the court can order cash medical support (a monthly payment toward medical costs) of up to 5% of the paying parent’s income before taxes.

• Reasonable cost: 5% or less of the parent’s income before taxes, under the Office of Child Support Services rules (218-RICR-30-00-1).
• Cash medical support: if the children are on RIte Care (Rhode Island’s Medicaid), the state keeps this payment to repay Medicaid. Otherwise it goes to the parent who provides coverage.
• Uncovered bills: the schedule already includes $250 a child each year for routine medical costs. For larger bills, follow your order.

If the children live with you and you get RI Works (Rhode Island’s cash assistance), you have to help the Office of Child Support Services get support from the other parent unless you have a good reason, such as a risk of violence. Most support collected repays the state, but since July 1, 2026 your family gets up to $100 a month for one child, or $200 for two or more. Food stamps (SNAP) don’t come with that requirement.

• RI Works: if you refuse to help without a good reason, your family’s assistance goes down, under the RI Works rules.
• What your family keeps: the Office of Child Support Services says the $100 or $200 doesn’t lower your RI Works grant.
• Food stamps (SNAP): the USDA SNAP State Options Report lists Rhode Island as a state that doesn’t require help with child support.

If helping could put you or your children in danger, you can ask to be excused (“good cause”). The Rhode Island child support guide covers how this works.

The schedule’s amounts already protect $1,333 a month of the paying parent’s income for their own living costs. This is called the self-support reserve. The lowest amount on the schedule is $50 a month, for parents whose combined income is $1,350 a month or less.

• Amount protected for living costs: the $1,333 is already built into the schedule’s amounts, so don’t subtract it again, under Administrative Order 2023-02.
• Earning less by choice: a judge can count the income a parent could earn, after looking at their job history, skills, health, and the jobs available nearby. Time in jail or prison doesn’t count as choosing not to work, under § 15-5-16.2.

No. The schedule stops at $40,000 a month in combined income. Above that, the Family Court’s High Wage Earner Guideline raises the $40,000 amount by the same percentage that the family’s income is over $40,000.

At $40,000 combined, the schedule amount for both parents together is $3,281 a month for one child, $4,819 for two, and $5,614 for three. For example, $41,250 combined is 103% of $40,000, so one child’s amount is $3,379, split by each parent’s share of the income. See Exhibit 9 of Administrative Order 2023-02; the calculator above applies this rule.

Yes. If the formula amount would be unfair to the child or either parent, a judge can order a different amount. The judge has to explain the reasons in writing.

Reasons the statute lists include the child’s and each parent’s finances, the child’s physical, emotional, and educational needs, and the standard of living the child would have had. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 15-5-16.2.

Ask the Office of Child Support Services to review your order, or file a motion in Family Court. You can ask any time your situation changes a lot. Every three years, you can ask without showing any change. Keep paying the current order until it changes.

• Through the Office of Child Support Services: the office brings a review to Family Court when new income would change the order by 15% or more, or when 36 months have passed since the order or the last review, under 218-RICR-30-00-1 and § 15-5-16.7.
• Through the court: file a Motion for Review and Adjustment or a motion to modify. A new amount can start no earlier than the date the other parent was notified of the motion, under § 15-5-16.2.

The Rhode Island child support guide walks through each step.

No. Rhode Island uses the Family Court’s Child Support Guideline Worksheet (Form FC-78) with the 2023 schedule, which follows the same steps as this page.

Fill in the Child Support Guideline Worksheet (FC-78) with the schedule and worked examples in Administrative Order 2023-02. It is filed with every divorce, support complaint, and modification.