Georgia Child Support Calculator (2026)
Estimate monthly child support under Georgia’s official income-shares guidelines. Enter both parents’ incomes and this tool applies the Basic Child Support Obligation table (effective July 1, 2024), splits the obligation by income share, applies the statutory parenting time adjustment for court-ordered days (new formula from January 1, 2026), adds child care and health insurance costs, and checks the low-income adjustment.
Calculate Georgia Child Support
Georgia uses adjusted gross income. If either parent pays court-ordered support for other children, or pays self-employment tax, subtract those Schedule B amounts (preexisting orders actually paid, half of self-employment tax) from that parent’s gross before entering it here. Use the parent you expect to pay support, or either parent — the higher earner is treated as the paying parent.
Overnights per year written into a court order. Since January 1, 2026, Georgia adjusts the paying parent’s share by a statutory formula based on these days. No court order means no adjustment — enter 0 if there is no order or no ordered time.
Averaged monthly cost of work-related child care for these children. Enter the amount actually paid, after any federal child care tax credit, so the estimate does not run high.
Only the portion of the premium that covers these children. If that portion is not stated on the policy, Georgia’s fallback is: total premium, divided by the number of people covered, times the number of these children covered.
How to read this: the paying parent (the higher earner) owes their share of the basic obligation, adjusted for court-ordered parenting time when it applies, plus their income share of the added child care and health insurance costs. That total is the presumptive amount, and the low-income adjustment is then checked against it.
How Georgia Calculates Child Support
Georgia uses an income-shares model under O.C.G.A. 19-6-15, administered by the Georgia Child Support Commission. The guidelines estimate what parents living together would spend on their children at their combined income level, then divide that amount between the parents in proportion to income. The statutory steps (Section 19-6-15(b)) are:
- Find each parent’s monthly gross income — all income from any source, before taxes or deductions (Schedule A).
- Compute adjusted income (Schedule B): gross income minus half of self-employment taxes, preexisting child support orders actually paid, and theoretical support orders for qualified children. This calculator uses the figures you enter as adjusted gross income, so subtract any of those items first.
- Add the two adjusted incomes together to get the combined adjusted gross income.
- Look up the Basic Child Support Obligation (BCSO) in the statutory table at that combined income and number of children.
- Split the BCSO by each parent’s pro-rata percentage of the combined income.
- Apply the parenting time adjustment (Schedule C): since January 1, 2026, a statutory formula adjusts the paying parent’s share for court-ordered parenting time, as explained below.
- Add health insurance and work-related child care (Schedule D), split pro-rata, to reach the presumptive amount.
- Check the low-income adjustment: if the paying parent’s own income falls inside the Low-Income Adjustment Table, the obligation is capped at the table amount when that is lower.
Basic obligation = BCSO table amount for combined income and number of children
No court-ordered time: monthly support = payer’s share × basic obligation + payer’s share of child care and health premium
With court-ordered time: payer’s adjusted share = payer’s share amount + [(payer days^2.5 × other parent’s share amount) − (other parent days^2.5 × payer’s share amount)] ÷ (payer days^2.5 + other parent days^2.5)
Low income: final amount = the lesser of the presumptive amount or the Low-Income Adjustment Table amount
Worked Example: $6,000 and $2,000 Monthly Incomes, 2 Children
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Parent A adjusted gross income | As entered (no Schedule B deductions assumed) | $6,000.00/mo |
| Parent B adjusted gross income | As entered | $2,000.00/mo |
| Combined adjusted gross income | $6,000 + $2,000 | $8,000.00/mo |
| Basic obligation (BCSO table, 2 children) | Table row for $8,000 combined income | $1,723.00/mo |
| Parent A income share | $6,000 ÷ $8,000 | 75.00% |
| Base support | 75.00% × $1,723.00 | $1,292.25/mo |
| Added costs (payer’s share) | 75.00% × ($500 child care + $200 health premium) | $525.00/mo |
| Estimated support | $1,292.25 + $525.00 (no court-ordered parenting time entered) | $1,817.25/mo |
Georgia Basic Child Support Obligation Table (BCSO)
The statutory table (Section 19-6-15(o), effective July 1, 2024) runs in $50 income increments from $800 to $40,000 of combined monthly adjusted gross income — hundreds of rows. This page reproduces the verified rows of that table across the income range. The calculator uses these verified rows and interpolates in a straight line between them, and the statute’s own lookup rule uses the bracket most closely matched to the combined income, so results between rows are close approximations.
| Combined Monthly Adjusted Gross Income | 1 Child | 2 Children | 3 Children | 4 Children | 5 Children | 6 Children |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $800 | $170 | $259 | $313 | $349 | $384 | $417 |
| $1,000 | $211 | $322 | $389 | $434 | $477 | $519 |
| $1,500 | $302 | $460 | $557 | $621 | $683 | $742 |
| $2,000 | $390 | $594 | $719 | $802 | $882 | $958 |
| $2,500 | $475 | $725 | $878 | $978 | $1,076 | $1,170 |
| $3,000 | $562 | $857 | $1,036 | $1,155 | $1,270 | $1,381 |
| $4,000 | $733 | $1,116 | $1,349 | $1,507 | $1,657 | $1,802 |
| $5,000 | $887 | $1,341 | $1,610 | $1,799 | $1,979 | $2,151 |
| $6,000 | $1,009 | $1,523 | $1,826 | $2,039 | $2,243 | $2,438 |
| $7,000 | $1,078 | $1,620 | $1,932 | $2,158 | $2,374 | $2,581 |
| $8,000 | $1,150 | $1,723 | $2,050 | $2,290 | $2,519 | $2,738 |
| $10,000 | $1,285 | $1,906 | $2,242 | $2,505 | $2,755 | $2,995 |
| $12,000 | $1,465 | $2,176 | $2,566 | $2,867 | $3,153 | $3,428 |
| $15,000 | $1,682 | $2,471 | $2,879 | $3,216 | $3,537 | $3,845 |
| $20,000 | $2,053 | $2,998 | $3,470 | $3,876 | $4,264 | $4,634 |
| $25,000 | $2,340 | $3,456 | $4,049 | $4,523 | $4,975 | $5,408 |
| $30,000 | $2,631 | $3,891 | $4,565 | $5,099 | $5,609 | $6,097 |
| $35,000 | $2,926 | $4,313 | $5,043 | $5,634 | $6,197 | $6,736 |
| $40,000 (top of table) | $3,222 | $4,736 | $5,522 | $6,168 | $6,785 | $7,375 |
Above the top of the table, Section 19-6-15(i)(2)(A) treats the parents as high-income: the basic obligation is set at the highest amount in the table, and a court may only deviate upward from it. This calculator uses the top-row amount for combined incomes above $40,000 a month, so treat high-income results as a floor, not a cap.
The 2026 Parenting Time Adjustment: a Formula, Not a Deviation
Before 2026, Georgia handled parenting time through a discretionary deviation — a judge could lower support because the paying parent had significant time with the children, by an amount the judge chose. From January 1, 2026, Section 19-6-15(g) replaced that with a formula. Any calculator built on the old deviation approach is now out of date.
The formula works on court-ordered parenting time only — the days written into an order (including a consent judgment or an agreement the court adopted). Days are overnights, averaged over a two-year period; a regular schedule of shorter daytime periods is totalled in hours and divided by 24. If children in the same case have different schedules, the days are averaged across the children first. With no court order, there is no adjustment at all.
The statutory steps raise each parent’s days to the power of 2.5, then weight each parent’s days figure by the other parent’s dollar share of the basic obligation, and net the two against each other. The weighting is steep: algebraically, the formula’s result equals the basic obligation multiplied by the paying parent’s time weight — the paying parent’s days^2.5 divided by the sum of both parents’ days^2.5. Because minority time is weighted so heavily downward, even a standard every-other-weekend schedule (about 80 overnights a year, a time weight of roughly 4%) reduces the paying parent’s base share sharply compared with the plain income-share figure; at an exactly even split the time weight is one half. Add-on shares for child care and health insurance are not changed by the formula. This calculator implements the formula exactly as codified and shows the adjustment as its own line in the results.
Low Incomes: the Low-Income Adjustment
Georgia has no self-support reserve built into the BCSO table. Instead, Sections 19-6-15(i.1) and (p) — also converted from a discretionary deviation into a formula on January 1, 2026 — cap the obligation of a lower-earning parent using a Low-Income Adjustment Table keyed to that parent’s own monthly adjusted gross income and the number of children.
The rule is a lesser-of test: when a parent’s income is below the top of the table for that number of children, the parent’s obligation is whichever is smaller — the presumptive amount from the main calculation, or the table amount. At the bottom of the table, for a parent earning $1,500 a month or less, the table amount is a straight percentage of that parent’s income:
| Parent’s Monthly Adjusted Gross Income | 1 Child | 2 Children | 3 Children | 4 Children | 5 Children | 6 Children |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| At or below $1,500 | 19% of income | 24% of income | 25% of income | 26% of income | 27% of income | 28% of income |
Above $1,500, the statutory table gives fixed dollar amounts in $50 income steps, up to ceilings of $2,450 (1 child), $2,950 (2), $3,350 (3), $3,550 (4), $3,750 (5) and $3,950 (6). This calculator encodes the verified anchor rows of that table and interpolates between them — for example, the table amount at $1,550 of income is $295 for one child and $372 for two. When the cap applies, the results show a note with the table amount that replaced the presumptive figure.
How This Calculator Treats Adjusted Gross Income
Georgia’s worksheet starts from gross income from all sources, then adjusts it (Schedule B) by subtracting half of any self-employment taxes, child support orders for other children that are actually being paid, and theoretical support orders for qualified children living with a parent. This calculator does not ask those follow-up questions: it treats the monthly figures you enter as already adjusted. If any of those deductions apply to you, subtract them from that parent’s gross income before entering it — otherwise the estimate will run high.
Two further worksheet items are not modelled here: Social Security (Title II) benefits and VA disability benefits paid for the child are credited against the paying parent’s final amount on the official worksheet, and future uninsured health care expenses are allocated between the parents separately, outside the monthly figure. If your case includes benefits paid for the child, an official worksheet calculation will come out lower than this estimate.
One role simplification: Georgia defines the noncustodial parent mainly by where the child resides (the parent with less than half the time; at an exactly equal split, the higher earner). This calculator treats the higher earner as the paying parent throughout, which matches the usual case. If the higher earner also has the children for most overnights, a real worksheet would generally cast the other parent as the payer instead — swap which parent you think of as paying when you read the result.
