Guideline Calculator
This is a New York child support guideline calculator built on the Child Support Standards Act (CSSA). Enter both parents’ annual incomes and the number of children: the tool applies the CSSA percentage (17% to 35% or more), splits the total pro rata by income share, flags the $193,000 combined-income cap, and shows the result weekly, biweekly, monthly and bimonthly. Despite the short name, this page has nothing to do with insurance: the similarly named guideline premium test is a life insurance tax rule, covered by its own separate calculator.
Estimate only, not legal advice. Combined-income cap $193,000 (effective March 1, 2026). Childcare, health, and education add-ons are pro-rated separately and not included.
Quick Answer
For a noncustodial income of $80,000, a custodial income of $40,000 and 2 children, combined income is $120,000, the basic obligation is 25% of that, $30,000 a year, and the noncustodial parent’s 66.7% share is $20,000 a year: $1,666.67 a month, $769.23 biweekly or $384.62 a week. The calculator is pre-filled with this exact case.
Key takeaways
- New York support is a percentage of both incomes combined, not a percentage of the payer’s income alone.
- The $193,000 cap (March 1, 2026) limits the automatic formula, not the court’s power: above it, judges decide with discretion.
- Childcare, health insurance and education costs sit on top of this number, split the same pro-rata way.
- Enter CSSA income, meaning gross income minus deductions like FICA and New York City or Yonkers tax, not take-home pay.
$193,000
Combined-income cap for the automatic percentages, effective March 1, 2026
$21,546
Self-support reserve for 2026, the floor protected for a low-income payer
Age 21
New York support generally runs until the child turns 21, not 18
- Quick Answer
- How to use the guideline calculator
- How the NY CSSA formula works
- Worked example, checked against this exact tool
- The $193,000 cap and what happens above it
- Add-ons, deviations and low-income payers
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the guideline calculator
Enter the two incomes the way the court defines them, pick the number of children, and read the monthly figure first: the yearly total and the other frequencies sit directly under it.
- Noncustodial parent income: the paying parent’s annual CSSA income. It must be above zero; the tool stops with an error otherwise.
- Custodial parent income: the receiving parent’s annual CSSA income. Zero is allowed and simply means the noncustodial share becomes 100%.
- Number of children: the children the order covers. The percentage steps up with each child, from 17% to at least 35%.
- Read the badge: green means the case sits within the $193,000 cap and the figure is the full guideline amount; amber means combined income is above the cap and the figure is only the guideline portion.
- Before the court date: pair this estimate with the parenting-time picture from the custody calculator, since where the children actually live drives who counts as custodial in the first place.
How the NY CSSA formula works
The formula has three moves: combine, apply the percentage, split pro rata. It comes from the Child Support Standards Act, codified at Domestic Relations Law section 240(1-b) for divorce cases and Family Court Act section 413 for family court cases.
Add both parents’ adjusted gross incomes.
Multiply combined income (up to the $193,000 cap) by 17% to 35%+.
Each parent owes the share matching their slice of combined income.
Childcare, health and education shares are ordered on top.
The table below fixes combined income at $120,000 and a 66.7% noncustodial share, so you can see what each child count does on its own. Every cell is a run of this tool.
| Children | CSSA percentage | Total obligation on $120,000 | Noncustodial pays (66.7%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 child | 17% | $20,400.00 | $13,600.00 |
| 2 children (worked example) | 25% | $30,000.00 | $20,000.00 |
| 3 children | 29% | $34,800.00 | $23,200.00 |
| 4 children | 31% | $37,200.00 | $24,800.00 |
| 5 or more children | at least 35% | $42,000.00 | $28,000.00 |
Two features of the table deserve attention. First, the steps shrink as family size grows: going from one child to two adds 8 points, while four to five adds at least 4, reflecting that later children cost less at the margin. Second, the 35% figure is a floor, not a fixed rate: for five or more children the statute says no less than 35%, and a court can set more.
Worked example, checked against this exact tool
Noncustodial income $80,000, custodial income $40,000, 2 children. Combined income $120,000 (under the cap) × 25% = $30,000 total annual obligation. Noncustodial share: 80,000 ÷ 120,000 = 66.7%, so $20,000/year: $1,666.67/month, $769.23 biweekly, $384.62/week and $833.33 bimonthly.
Now push the incomes above the cap: noncustodial $150,000 and custodial $100,000, still 2 children. Combined income is $250,000, but the 25% applies only to the first $193,000, giving a basic obligation of $48,250. The noncustodial parent earns 60.0% of combined income, so the guideline portion is $28,950/year, or $2,412.50/month. That is the figure the tool shows, with the amber above-cap badge, because anything ordered on the $57,000 above the cap is the court’s call, not the formula’s.
The $193,000 cap and what happens above it
The guideline percentages apply automatically only to combined income up to $193,000, effective March 1, 2026. The cap is adjusted every two years for inflation; it was $183,000 before this adjustment, as the New York Courts notice of the March 1, 2026 statutory adjustments records.
Above the cap, the court has discretion: it may apply the same percentages to the excess, weigh the statutory factors (the child’s needs and standard of living, the parents’ resources, health and education costs), or do both, and it must state its reasons. So treat an above-cap result from this tool as the floor of the argument, not the order. The tool deliberately does not guess the above-cap portion, because any number it invented would look like law when it is really discretion.
Add-ons, deviations and low-income payers
The guideline amount is the basic obligation only. Three categories sit on top, each split pro rata by the same income shares this calculator computes.
- Mandatory add-ons: work-related childcare and the children’s health insurance plus unreimbursed medical costs. The court must allocate these; they are not optional extras.
- Discretionary add-ons: education expenses, from private school to a college contribution, where the court weighs the family’s circumstances and history. Families comparing states will notice the contrast: California folds support into a statewide guideline formula driven heavily by timeshare, as the California divorce calculator shows.
- Deviation: the CSSA lists statutory reasons a court can order more or less than the guideline, including special needs, tax consequences, a gross disparity in resources and support paid for other children. A deviation must be explained in the order.
- Self-support reserve: if the formula would leave a low-income payer below $21,546 in 2026 (135% of the federal poverty guideline of $15,960), the order is cut back, often to a $50-per-month minimum, and below the poverty line a $25-per-month poverty order can apply. Those floors are published with the NYC child support calculator from the Human Resources Administration, which also explains why its own tool is an estimate rather than a true guidelines worksheet.
One naming warning before the FAQs: this page is only about child support. If you arrived looking for the life insurance guideline premium test, that is a federal tax test for insurance contracts and it lives on the separate guideline premium test calculator.
What competing calculators miss
New York has no shortage of child support calculators, but most of them simplify the statute in ways that move the number.
- NYC’s official OCSS calculator: trustworthy and free, but by its own admission it is not a true guidelines calculator: it works from a narrower income picture and skips parts of the CSSA deduction structure.
- Weinrieb Law’s CSSA calculator: the strongest private rival, statute-cited and current on the 2026 cap. Its gap is presentation: the pro-rata mechanics sit inside a law-firm page framed around consultations, and the four payment frequencies are not the headline output.
- Underwood Law’s NY calculator: unusually complete on FICA and self-support detail, but its published figures still carry the older framework in places and the interface assumes a lawyer is reading it.
- Calculator.city’s New York tool: a clean three-step walk-through that still applies the old $183,000 cap in its formula text, which understates the basic obligation for every family between the two caps.
- Generic 50-state calculators: several treat New York like an income-shares state with a single percentage of the payer’s income, which is simply not the CSSA method and produces numbers no New York court would recognize.
- The gap this page fills: the real two-income method in one screen, combined income, CSSA percentage, pro-rata share, a visible cap warning when the case crosses $193,000, and all four payment frequencies in the same result.
Frequently asked questions
Combined parental income times the CSSA percentage, split pro rata by income share, with childcare, health and education add-ons pro-rated on top. The noncustodial parent pays their share to the custodial parent.
17 percent for 1 child, 25 percent for 2, 29 percent for 3, 31 percent for 4, and at least 35 percent for 5 or more children. The percentages are set by the Child Support Standards Act and apply to combined income up to the cap.
$193,000 of combined parental income, effective March 1, 2026. The percentages apply automatically up to the cap; above it, the court has discretion and may apply the percentages, weigh the statutory factors, or do both.
Typically the noncustodial parent pays their pro-rata share to the custodial parent. The custodial parent’s share is treated as spent directly on the children in that household, so it is not transferred.
Divide the annual amount by 52 for weekly, by 26 for biweekly, by 12 for monthly, or by 24 for bimonthly payments. This calculator shows all four conversions in every result.
No. Each parent’s share of childcare, health insurance, unreimbursed medical and education costs is ordered in addition to the guideline amount and split pro rata by income.
Yes. The CSSA lists statutory reasons to deviate, including the child’s special needs, tax consequences, a disparity in the parents’ resources and the noncustodial parent’s other support obligations. Above the income cap the court always has discretion.
Adjusted gross income: gross income from wages, self-employment, bonuses, investment and rental income and many benefits, minus deductions such as FICA and New York City or Yonkers income taxes. A court can also impute income to a parent who is voluntarily underemployed.
Yes. The self-support reserve protects a floor for the payer’s own basic needs: $21,546 in 2026. If the guideline amount would push the payer below the reserve, a minimum order, often $50 per month, may apply instead.
No. It is an estimate of the guideline amount from the figures you enter, before add-ons, deviations and above-cap decisions. For an order that binds you, consult a New York family-law attorney or your county support collection unit.
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References
- New York State Senate. Domestic Relations Law Section 240: Custody and Child Support (CSSA). Accessed October 21, 2026.
- New York State Senate. Family Court Act Section 413: Parents’ Duty to Support Child. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- New York State Unified Court System. Maintenance and Child Support Tools. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- New York State Unified Court System, Matrimonial Practice Advisory and Rules Committee. What’s New in Matrimonial Legislation, Court Rules, and Forms (March 1, 2026 cap adjustment). Accessed October 21, 2026.
- New York City Human Resources Administration, Office of Child Support Services. OCSS Child Support Calculator. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. Division of Child Support Services. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, Division of Child Support Services. Child Support Services. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ASPE. Poverty Guidelines. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 751: Social Security and Medicare Withholding Rates (FICA). Accessed October 21, 2026.
- New York State Unified Court System. Divorce Resources. Accessed October 21, 2026.