Indiana child support calculator: estimate weekly support under the current guidelines

Indiana child support calculator

Enter each parent’s weekly gross income, the number of children, who has the children for most overnights and how many overnights a year the other parent has. The calculator works through the lines of the Child Support Obligation Worksheet and the Parenting Time Credit Worksheet, using the Guideline Schedules for Weekly Support Payments in the guidelines updated effective May 14, 2024.

Use income before taxes, by the week. If pay arrives once a month, multiply it by 12 and divide by 52. Child care and insurance costs are weekly too, so divide a yearly cost by 52.

How is child support calculated in Indiana?

Indiana uses the income shares model. The Indiana Child Support Guidelines are based on that model, which treats the children as entitled to the share of income they would have received if the family had stayed together. The two parents’ weekly adjusted incomes are added, one basic obligation is read off the schedule, and each parent carries a percentage equal to their share of the combined income.

Two terms matter here. The noncustodial parent is the parent ordered to pay. The custodial parent is presumed to meet their share by spending directly on the children, so no support order is entered against them. The worksheet then runs like this:

1. Enter each parent’s weekly gross income (line 1).
2. Take off any allowed deductions to reach weekly adjusted income (lines 1A to 1E).
3. Work out each parent’s percentage share (line 2) and add the two incomes (line 3).
4. Find the basic child support obligation on the schedule (line 4).
5. Add work-related child care and the children’s health insurance premium (lines 4A and 4B) to reach the total (line 5).
6. Multiply the total by each parent’s share (line 6).
7. Subtract credits for child care and insurance that parent already pays, and the parenting time credit (line 7).
8. The result is the recommended child support obligation (line 8).

Take the figures already in the calculator. Parent A earns $1,300 a week and Parent B $700, with two children living mostly with Parent B. Combined income is $2,000, and the schedule gives $411 for two children. Parent A’s share is 65%, or $267.15. At 98 overnights the parenting time credit is $61.77, which leaves a recommended obligation of $205.38 a week. That example is ours, for illustration, and it does not come from the guidelines.

What counts as weekly gross income?

Indiana starts from gross income, not take-home pay. Guideline 3A defines weekly gross income as actual income if a parent is employed to full capacity, potential income if unemployed or underemployed, and the value of in kind benefits. It covers income from any source unless excluded, and the list includes:

• Salaries, wages, commissions, bonuses and overtime.
• Partnership distributions, dividends, interest, trust income and capital gains.
• Severance pay, pensions and annuities.
• Social Security, worker’s compensation, unemployment and disability insurance benefits.
• Gifts, inheritance, prizes, and alimony or maintenance received.

What is left out. Means tested public assistance is excluded, including TANF, Supplemental Security Income and Food Stamps. Survivor benefits received by or for other children living in either parent’s home are excluded too. A new spouse’s income is not counted.

Potential income. A court can use what a parent could earn rather than what they do earn, and the commentary says discretion is exercised case by case. It warns that it may be inappropriate to attribute income to a custodial parent with young children at home, no significant skills and no realistic way to cover child care. If a parent has never worked and stays out of work without justification, and there is no other evidence, the federal minimum wage should be used. A court may not treat incarceration as voluntary unemployment.

Income that goes up and down. Bonuses, overtime and commissions can be hard to fit into a weekly figure. The irregular income commentary describes one approach, which is a separate lump sum payment based on the ratio of the basic obligation to combined income. This calculator does not model that, so enter a weekly average and treat the answer as a rough guide.

What comes off before the schedule?

Weekly adjusted income is the figure support is based on. Guideline 3C allows four reductions from gross income, and each must fit its own conditions.

The guidelines’ own example shows line 1A in use. A noncustodial parent with $500 of weekly gross income and two later-born children takes a $48.50 adjustment ($500 times .097). A custodial parent with $300 and one later-adopted child takes $19.50 ($300 times .065). The calculator gives both figures.

How does the schedule work?

The weekly schedule lists combined adjusted income in $10 rows from $100 to $9,200, with a column for each number of children from one to eight. At $2,000 combined, the amount is $274 for one child, $411 for two and $514 for three.

Combined income often falls between two rows. Guideline 3D says those amounts should be rounded to the nearest amount, so this calculator uses the nearest $10 row. An income exactly halfway, such as $1,455, is rounded up. The guidelines do not settle that tie, so that step is our own choice.

The schedule already assumes taxes. Its support column was adjusted using an average tax factor of 21.88 percent, and where taxes vary significantly from that assumed rate, a court may deviate if the evidence at the support hearing substantiates the variance.

The schedule itself is recent. The guidelines say a 2023 review found spending by intact families on children was significantly larger than the old schedule showed, and that beginning in 2024 the schedule was changed to reflect those estimates at all income levels. An older worksheet may give a different number, because it may use the earlier schedule.

How does the parenting time credit work?

The credit recognizes what a noncustodial parent spends during their overnights. Table PT in Guideline 6 begins at 52 overnights a year, the equivalent of alternate weekends only. Two numbers are read from the table for the parent’s overnights, and the credit worksheet runs:

1. Basic obligation (line 4) times the Total figure from the table.
2. Basic obligation times the Duplicated figure, then times the parent’s income share (line 2).
3. The first result minus the second is the parenting time credit, entered on line 7.

The calculator holds every row of the table. A few rules shape how the credit is used:

• Under 52 overnights. The table gives nothing, but a court may consider an appropriate credit where the plan is limited because the child is an infant or toddler, or because of significant distance between the parents.
• The standard schedule. A parent following the Parenting Time Guidelines without extending the weeknight period into an overnight will have approximately 96 to 100 overnights.
• What counts. The guidelines say an overnight should include the costs of feeding and transporting the child and attending to school work. Merely providing a place to sleep to obtain a credit is prohibited.
• Equal time. Parenting time is considered equally shared at 181 to 183 overnights. One parent is designated to pay the controlled expenses and the other receives the credit. Choose the designated parent as the one with most overnights in the calculator.
• When the credit is larger than the obligation. With near equal time and a custodial parent who earns significantly more, Guideline 3F says support should flow from the custodial parent to the noncustodial parent, absent grounds for a deviation. The calculator shows this as a payment in the other direction.

Our guide to counting overnights and your parenting time percentage covers how to turn a schedule into a yearly number.

Are child care and health insurance added?

Yes. Both are added to the basic obligation, shared by income, and credited back to the parent who pays them.

Child care (line 4A). Guideline 3E covers child care costs from a parent’s employment or job search. They must be reasonable and should not exceed the level required to provide quality care. Each parent’s cost is worked out on a yearly basis and divided by 52. When potential income is attributed to a parent, the court should not also attribute child care that is not actually incurred.

Health insurance (line 4B). The weekly premium for the children is added whenever either parent actually incurs it. Enter only the children’s portion, not the whole family premium. The guidelines presume insurance is available at a reasonable cost, which a parent can rebut by showing that the lowest out of pocket cost is more than 5% of the parents’ combined gross incomes.

The credit (line 7). Suppose Parent A pays $30 a week toward the children’s insurance. The $30 raises the total, Parent A carries 65% of it through line 6, and the whole $30 comes back to Parent A as a credit on line 7. Guideline 3G sets out both credits, though it says a parent should receive the insurance credit in most circumstances, not all.

Who pays uninsured health care costs?

The parents share them in proportion to their incomes. Guideline 7 defines uninsured health care expenses as any health care expenses remaining after a claim has been submitted to the child’s insurance carrier, which can include amounts applied to a deductible. The split comes from the worksheet, and the calculator shows it in its last line.

Indiana’s former 6% rule is gone. The commentary to Guideline 7 says the earlier model behind it is out of date, and that the rule often required burdensome record-keeping. Routine non-prescription items that do not travel with the child and are kept in the purchasing parent’s home, such as over-the-counter medications, bandages and vitamins, are paid by the parent exercising parenting time. The apportionment applies to expenses actually paid by the parents.

Our guide to uninsured medical expenses covers what proof to keep for these costs.

What happens at very low or very high incomes?

Under $100 combined. The schedule gives no amount, and the guidelines do not establish a minimum support obligation. The facts of the case are examined so the paying parent is not denied a means of self-support at a subsistence level. A numeric amount of support is ordered, though there are situations where a $0.00 order is appropriate. The calculator gives no figure at this level.

Over $9,200 combined. The last row of the schedule gives a percentage for income above $9,200, from 8.1% for one child to 20.4% for eight. The guidelines we read do not spell out how a court applies that row, so the calculator stops rather than guess. Speak to an Indiana family law attorney at this income level.

When can a court order a different amount?

The guideline amount is a rebuttable presumption, which means it is treated as correct until someone shows a reason it should not apply. If the court finds the amount unjust, inappropriate, or one that denies the paying parent self-support at a subsistence level, it must make a written finding giving the factual basis. The commentary says a simple finding is sufficient. A court that departs from the parenting time credit must also state its reasons in the order.

Agreed orders are not exempt. The commentary says they must also comply with the rebuttable presumption, so an agreed order must recite why it deviates from the guideline amount, and a completed worksheet is filed with the court, agreed orders included. This calculator cannot tell you whether a deviation is likely, because that turns on evidence rather than arithmetic.

Worked examples from the guidelines

The commentary to Guideline 6 prints three parenting time credits for one family. The custodial parent earns $850 a week, the noncustodial parent $600, and there are three children, so combined income is $1,450 and the basic obligation is $444. Set the calculator to those figures and each overnight count below gives the printed credit.

The guidelines use those three credits to show what happens when children spend different numbers of overnights. The three are averaged, giving $123.61, and that figure goes on line 7. The calculator takes one overnight count, so average the credits yourself in that situation.

We also checked two schedule examples from Guideline 3C. A parent with $400 of weekly income and an other parent at $0 gives $68 for one child and $88 for two, and the calculator gives the same basic obligations.

How close is this to the state calculator?

The Indiana courts offer their own child support calculator, which estimates weekly support and produces forms for use in court. Use it for anything you plan to file. It asks you to accept a user agreement before you enter figures, and we did not accept it for this guide, so we did not compare results with it directly. Our check rests on the guidelines’ printed examples above.

Three choices on this page are our own, and each can move the result by a small amount:

• We use the nearest $10 row and round an exact tie up.
• We round each parent’s share to two decimal places of a percent, which is the rounding that reproduces all three printed credits.
• We show the headline figure rounded to the nearest dollar, which Guideline 9 allows, with $50.50 rounded to $51.00 and $50.49 to $50.00. Line 8 shows the cents.

Neither tool decides a case. A judge applies the guidelines to the evidence, including evidence about income that no calculator can see.

Can Indiana child support be modified or enforced?

Modification. Under Guideline 4, an order may be modified only in one of two ways: a substantial and continuing change of circumstances that makes the present order unreasonable, or an order at least twelve months old that differs from the amount the guidelines now produce by more than 20%. A modification may only relate back to the date the petition was filed, subject to two narrow exceptions, so waiting has a cost.

When a child ages out. Indiana’s Child Support Bureau says a child who turns 19 is emancipated by operation of law. Its general information page says the exceptions need a court order before emancipation, for a child who is incapacitated or a full-time high school student. An order for two or more children is a single total, so it does not automatically drop when the oldest child turns 19, and the guidelines say parents should seek to modify it.

Enforcement. The same office lists the tools that may be used, among them intercepting tax refunds, reporting unpaid support to a credit bureau, suspending driver’s and professional licenses, and applying vehicle liens. An Income Withholding Order tells an employer or income payor to withhold support, and the payments go to the Indiana State Central Collection Unit. Our guide to keeping track of child support payments covers what to record if payments stop arriving.

What should you keep for a support case?

A support figure is only as good as the numbers that go into it. These are the records behind each line of the worksheet:

• Income. Pay stubs and tax returns, plus records of bonuses, commissions and overtime.
• Overnights. A dated note of each night the children spend with you, kept on the day. Our guide to a contemporaneous record of parenting time covers why the timing matters.
• Child care and insurance. Invoices for care and a statement showing the children’s portion of the premium. Our guide to keeping receipts covers what makes one useful.
• What support pays for. Our guide to what child support covers explains what the basic amount is meant to include.
• Your questions. Our guide to your first attorney meeting covers what to bring when you sit down with one.

What this guide does not cover

• Combined weekly adjusted income above $9,200, and the irregular income calculation for bonuses and commissions.
• Split custody, where each parent has at least one child, and children who spend different numbers of overnights. Both need more than one worksheet or a separate step.
• College and other extraordinary expenses under Guideline 8, self-employment income in detail, Social Security disability benefits paid for a child, and temporary maintenance.
• How to file a case or a petition. Speak to an Indiana family law attorney about your own case, especially if income is disputed or parenting time is changing.

Frequently asked questions

References

All sources are official publications of the State of Indiana.

• Indiana Judicial Branch. (2024). Indiana Child Support Rules and Guidelines. Retrieved from https://rules.incourts.gov/ PDF
• Indiana Judicial Branch. (2024). Guideline Schedules for Weekly Support Payments. Retrieved from https://www.in.gov/ PDF
• Indiana Judicial Branch. (2024). Child Support Obligation Worksheet. Retrieved from https://www.in.gov/ PDF
• Indiana Judicial Branch. (2024). Parenting Time Credit Worksheet. Retrieved from https://www.in.gov/ PDF
• Indiana Judicial Branch. (2026). Child support calculator. Retrieved from https://www.in.gov/
• Indiana Department of Child Services. (2026). Child support orders. Retrieved from https://www.in.gov/
• Indiana Department of Child Services. (2026). General information. Retrieved from https://www.in.gov/
• Indiana Department of Child Services. (2026). Income withholding. Retrieved from https://www.in.gov/