North Carolina Child Support Calculator (2026)
Estimate monthly child support under North Carolina’s official income-shares guidelines. Enter both parents’ incomes, overnights and costs, and this tool applies the correct worksheet — A for primary custody, B for shared custody, C for split custody — using the official Schedule of Basic Support Obligations (AOC-A-162, Rev. 1/23).
Calculate North Carolina Child Support
Gross income from all sources, before taxes and withholding. North Carolina uses gross income, adjusted as described below.
Both parents’ incomes are used on every North Carolina worksheet.
Parent B automatically has the rest of the year. 243 or more nights with one parent means primary custody (Worksheet A). If each parent has at least 123 nights, shared custody (Worksheet B) applies.
Reasonable child care paid so a parent can work or look for work. Added to the obligation and split by income share.
Only the children’s share of the premium. If the split is unknown, use the total premium divided by the number of people covered, times the number of children in the case.
Income adjustments (optional — these produce “adjusted gross income”)
Payments under an existing order or agreement for children not in this case. Arrearage payments do not count.
The guidelines deduct the basic obligation for those children, read from the schedule using Parent A’s income alone.
How to read this: on Worksheet A, only the non-primary parent is ordered to pay, even though an obligation is calculated for both parents. On Worksheets B and C, the two obligations are offset and the parent with the higher obligation pays only the difference.
How North Carolina Calculates Child Support
North Carolina uses an income-shares model, stated expressly in its guidelines (effective January 1, 2023, prescribed under N.C.G.S. 50-13.4). The idea is that a child should receive the same proportion of parental income the child would have received if the parents lived together. Both parents’ incomes are used in every case — there is no percentage-of-the-payer-only formula. The steps are:
- Find each parent’s monthly adjusted gross income. Start with gross income from all sources, then subtract child support actually paid for other children and the parent’s responsibility for other children living in their home (worked out from the schedule on that parent’s income alone). Alimony paid is not subtracted.
- Add the two adjusted incomes together to get the combined monthly adjusted gross income.
- Look up the basic child support obligation on the Schedule of Basic Support Obligations for that combined income and the number of children. The guidelines say amounts falling between schedule rows should be interpolated, and this calculator does that.
- Add work-related child care and the children’s health insurance premium, then split the total between the parents in proportion to income.
- Apply the correct worksheet — A, B or C — based on the custody pattern, as explained below. On Worksheets B and C the two parents’ obligations are offset against each other.
Basic obligation = 2023 schedule amount for combined income and number of children (interpolated)
Worksheet A: monthly support = payer’s income share × (basic obligation + child care + health premium)
Worksheet B: total = (basic obligation × 1.5) + child care + health premium; each parent owes their income share × the other parent’s share of overnights; the higher obligation pays the difference
Worksheet C: each parent owes their income share of the schedule amount for the children living with the other parent, plus their share of added costs; the higher obligation pays the difference
Worked Example: $5,000 and $3,000 Gross Monthly Incomes, 2 Children
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Combined adjusted gross income | $5,000 + $3,000 (no adjustments) | $8,000/mo |
| Basic obligation (schedule, 2 children) | Schedule row for $8,000 combined income | $1,727/mo |
| Parent B income share | $3,000 ÷ $8,000 | 37.50% |
| Worksheet | Children live with Parent A 300 nights a year (243 or more), so Parent A has primary custody | Worksheet A |
| Parent B base support | 37.50% × $1,727 | $647.63/mo |
| Added costs (Parent B’s share) | 37.50% × ($600 child care + $250 health premium) | $318.75/mo |
| Estimated support | $647.63 + $318.75, paid by Parent B to Parent A | $966.38/mo |
North Carolina Schedule of Basic Support Obligations (2023)
These are the rows verified from the official Schedule of Basic Support Obligations (AOC-A-162, Rev. 1/23), published by North Carolina Child Support Services and effective January 1, 2023. The full official schedule runs in $50 increments of combined monthly adjusted gross income; for incomes between the rows shown, the guidelines call for interpolation, which this calculator applies in a straight line between the rows.
| Combined Monthly Adjusted Gross Income | 1 Child | 2 Children | 3 Children | 4 Children | 5 Children | 6 Children |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,300 | $50 | $50 | $50 | $50 | $50 | $50 |
| $1,500 | $170 | $171 | $173 | $175 | $177 | $179 |
| $2,000 | $393 | $522 | $528 | $533 | $539 | $545 |
| $3,000 | $566 | $863 | $1,043 | $1,165 | $1,246 | $1,260 |
| $4,000 | $740 | $1,122 | $1,354 | $1,513 | $1,664 | $1,809 |
| $5,000 | $896 | $1,349 | $1,619 | $1,808 | $1,989 | $2,162 |
| $6,000 | $1,010 | $1,524 | $1,826 | $2,040 | $2,244 | $2,439 |
| $8,000 | $1,152 | $1,727 | $2,055 | $2,295 | $2,525 | $2,745 |
| $10,000 | $1,292 | $1,913 | $2,247 | $2,510 | $2,761 | $3,001 |
| $15,000 | $1,680 | $2,463 | $2,864 | $3,199 | $3,519 | $3,825 |
| $20,000 | $2,048 | $2,980 | $3,436 | $3,838 | $4,222 | $4,590 |
| $24,000 | $2,289 | $3,358 | $3,905 | $4,362 | $4,799 | $5,216 |
| $26,000 | $2,404 | $3,555 | $4,172 | $4,660 | $5,126 | $5,572 |
| $30,000 | $2,642 | $3,903 | $4,574 | $5,109 | $5,620 | $6,109 |
| $35,000 | $2,941 | $4,330 | $5,057 | $5,649 | $6,214 | $6,754 |
| $40,000 (top) | $3,246 | $4,768 | $5,554 | $6,204 | $6,824 | $7,418 |
The schedule amounts cover average spending on children from birth to 18, excluding child care, health insurance, and health care costs over $250 per child per year — the first $250 of each child’s uninsured medical and dental costs is already built into the amounts above. Above $40,000 of combined monthly income, the schedule does not set the obligation at all: the court decides support based on the child’s reasonable needs, using the schedule only as a minimum guide.
Worksheets A, B and C: Which One Applies?
North Carolina runs the same income-shares engine through three worksheets, chosen by how the children actually live:
- Worksheet A — primary custody. One parent (or a third party) has primary physical custody of all the children, meaning the children live with that parent for 243 nights or more per year. An obligation is calculated for both parents, but only the non-primary parent is ordered to pay.
- Worksheet B — shared custody. The children live with each parent for at least 123 nights per year, and each parent carries the children’s expenses during their own time. Because two fuller households cost more, the basic obligation is first increased by 50%. Each parent’s share is then weighted by the time the children spend with the other parent, and the parent with the higher obligation pays the difference. The self-support reserve is not applied on Worksheet B.
- Worksheet C — split custody. Primary custody of the children is split — for example, one child lives mainly with Parent A and another mainly with Parent B. Each parent’s obligation covers the children living with the other parent, the obligations are offset, and the higher one pays the difference. If any child is shared (123 or more nights with each parent), Worksheet B is used instead. The self-support reserve is not applied on Worksheet C either.
This calculator picks Worksheet A or B automatically from the overnights you enter, and offers Worksheet C through the custody arrangement selector.
Shared Custody: the 123-Nights Rule on Worksheet B
The 123-nights line (roughly one-third of the year with each parent) is where North Carolina’s formula changes character. Cross it, and the basic obligation grows by half before it is split — recognizing that the children need real bedrooms, clothes and food in both homes — but each parent’s share is then discounted by the other parent’s time. In the common case the payment drops sharply compared with Worksheet A, and where incomes and overnights are both close to equal it can approach zero. Just below 123 overnights, none of this applies: Worksheet A charges the non-primary parent their full income share regardless of how close they are to the line.
The Self-Support Reserve and the $50 Minimum
North Carolina builds a self-support reserve into its guidelines so a paying parent keeps enough to maintain a minimum standard of living. The reserve is based on the 2022 federal poverty level for one person: $1,133 per month. Two rules follow from it:
- Adjusted gross income under $1,150 per month: a minimum support order of $50 per month must be established, unless the court deviates. This calculator applies that $50 floor on Worksheet A.
- The shaded area: for somewhat higher low incomes, the printed schedule shades a range in which Worksheet A obligations are recomputed using only the paying parent’s income — with child care and health insurance left out entirely. The exact boundary of that shaded range is a visual feature of the printed schedule (AOC-A-162) and is not published in the state’s online table, so this calculator does not apply the shaded-area adjustment. Instead it warns you when a result would leave the paying parent below the $1,133 reserve, since a court applying the shaded area could set a lower amount.
What Counts as Income in North Carolina?
Gross income means income from almost any source: wages, commissions and bonuses, self-employment and business income (gross receipts minus ordinary and necessary expenses), rent, pensions, interest, capital gains, Social Security benefits, workers’ compensation, unemployment and disability benefits, gifts, prizes, and alimony received from someone other than the other parent. It is measured before taxes and withholding.
Some amounts never count: means-tested public assistance (such as TANF, SSI and food and nutrition benefits), adoption assistance, child support received for a different child, and a new partner’s income. If a court finds a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed through bad faith or deliberate suppression of income, it can use potential (imputed) income instead — but never for a parent who is physically or mentally incapacitated, and incarceration alone is not treated as voluntary unemployment.
