How Florida calculates child support
Florida uses the income shares model. The guideline is in Fla. Stat. §61.30, which contains the whole schedule, and the court worksheet (Family Law Form 12.902(e)) walks through it line by line. The calculator above follows those lines. The schedule has not changed since January 1, 2011. The guideline amount is presumed correct: a court can order up to 5% more or less after looking at the children's needs and the parents' finances, and a bigger change needs a written finding that the guideline amount would be unjust or inappropriate (§61.30(1)(a)).
Each parent's net income
Florida works from monthly net income. Gross income includes wages, overtime, bonuses and tips, business income after ordinary expenses, disability and unemployment benefits, pensions, Social Security, interest, dividends, net rental income and spousal support received (§61.30(2)). Public assistance is excluded. From that, each parent deducts income taxes based on actual filing status, Social Security and Medicare or self-employment tax, mandatory union dues and retirement payments, health insurance except the children's coverage, court-ordered support for other children that is actually paid, and spousal support paid under a court order (§61.30(3)). Voluntary payments for other children are not on that list. The statute does not provide a tax table, so the calculator asks for net income directly. If a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, the court can impute income (§61.30(2)(b)).
Find the basic obligation
The two net incomes are added, and the schedule in §61.30(6) gives a basic monthly obligation for that combined income and one to six children. It lists incomes from $800 to $10,000 in $50 steps. The statute does not say what to do with an income between two rows, so the calculator uses the row at or below the income and says so in the result. Above $10,000, the obligation is the top row plus a percentage of the income over $10,000:
| Children | Percentage of income above $10,000 |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5% |
| 2 | 7.5% |
| 3 | 9.5% |
| 4 | 11% |
| 5 | 12% |
| 6 | 12.5% |
Add child care and health costs, then split by income
Child care needed for work, a job search, or education expected to lead to a job or raise income from the current job, up to the cost of quality care from a licensed provider, is added to the basic obligation, and so are the children's health insurance premiums and their uncovered medical, dental and prescription costs, unless the court orders those split by percentage as they arise (§61.30(7) and (8)). Each parent's share is his or her net income divided by the combined net income (§61.30(9)). The paying parent owes that share of the total, minus what he or she already pays toward those costs. The parent who has the children fewer overnights pays.
Substantial time-sharing
When each parent has the children at least 20% of the overnights of the year (73 nights), the court must use a different method (§61.30(11)(b)). The basic obligation is multiplied by 1.5 and allocated in proportion to each parent's share of combined net income. Each parent's amount is then multiplied by the other parent's percentage of overnights. Each parent's share of child care and health costs, minus what that parent pays, is added, with a negative result counted as zero. The parent who owes more pays the difference. The court can still deviate, for example if the schedule is not actually followed. Below 73 nights there is no formula, but significant time can be a reason to deviate (§61.30(11)(a)10).
Low income
If the paying parent's net income is below the schedule, the parent should be ordered to pay an amount set case by case to establish the principle of payment, and the payment is the lesser of the parent's share and 90% of the parent's net income above the federal poverty guideline for one person, which is $1,330 a month in 2026 (§61.30(6)(a)). For a paying parent below $800, the first row, the calculator shows the share, the 90% figure and the lesser of the two. Because the poverty guideline is higher than $800, the 90% figure is negative at those incomes. The calculator counts it as zero and says so: the statute does not say what a negative figure means, while it also says the parent should pay something to establish the principle of payment. Two more points are open. The statute does not define exactly which income level triggers the rule, so for a parent above $800 whose 90% figure is lower than the guideline amount, the calculator shows both amounts: the guideline amount if the rule reaches only incomes below the first row, and the 90% figure if it reaches higher incomes. When the combined income is below the schedule there is no share to compute, and the calculator shows only the 90% ceiling.
Social Security benefits paid to the children
Social Security benefits a child receives because of a parent's retirement or disability count as that parent's income (§61.30(2)(d)). The same parent then gets a credit for benefits paid directly to the child or the child's caregiver: if they equal or exceed that parent's share of the monthly support, the share counts as paid in full for each month they are paid, and if they are lower, the parent owes the difference. Any excess belongs to the child and cannot be credited to arrears or retroactive support from before the benefits began (§61.30(10)(b)1). The calculator has a field for these benefits for each parent: it adds them to that parent's income and credits them against that parent's payment. With substantial time-sharing the statute does not say how the credit fits the formula, so the calculator subtracts it from the final amount and says so. On an existing order, the credit is requested by motion or in a petition to modify, or in a Title IV-D case it can be applied by the department after notice and an opportunity for a hearing (§61.30(10)(b)2).
Rounding and what the calculator leaves out
The statute and worksheet give no rounding rule. The calculator rounds each dollar line to the cent and does not round the income or overnight percentages. It does not apply the deviation factors in §61.30(11)(a), such as extraordinary expenses or a child's independent income, or more than six children, which the schedule does not cover. Subsequent children of a paying parent matter only in limited cases on an upward modification (§61.30(12)).