Texas child support is calculated as a set percentage of the paying parent’s monthly net resources: 20 percent for one child, rising with each additional child. The percentages stop at $11,700 of net resources a month, so one child at the cap is $2,340 (§154.125).
Calculate from net resources, not gross pay
The percentage is never applied to a salary or a tax return line. The parent who pays (the Texas Family Code says obligor) has resources added up, then a short list of deductions taken off. What’s left is monthly net resources (§154.062). Whichever side of the order you are on, that is the number everything else runs from.
Resources are wider than a paycheck: all wages and salary including overtime, commissions, tips and bonuses, plus self-employment income, interest and dividends, rental income after expenses and mortgage payments, pensions, social security and disability benefits (but not SSI), unemployment benefits, gifts, and any spousal maintenance received. Public assistance and a return of capital are left out.
The deductions include Social Security tax, federal and state income tax, union dues, and the court-ordered cost of the child’s health and dental coverage. Federal income tax is worked out as if the paying parent were single, claiming one personal exemption and the standard deduction, whatever the real return says. To see how that figure fits into a full order, read the firm’s child support page.
The guideline percentages
The Family Code schedule then applies to net resources (§154.125(b)). The court applies it presumptively: it is the starting point, and the judge needs a stated reason to leave it. Count only the children covered by this order.
- One child: 20 percent of net resources
- Two children: 25 percent
- Three children: 30 percent
- Four children: 35 percent
- Five children: 40 percent
- Six or more: not less than the amount for five
Worked at the top of the range: a paying parent with $11,700 in monthly net resources and one child pays 20 percent of $11,700, which is $2,340 a month, the highest guideline figure for one child.
What happens above the $11,700 cap
Past the cap, the argument turns on the child’s proven needs and the parents’ income, not on a percentage. The percentages reach only the first $11,700 of monthly net resources, a cap the Texas Attorney General’s office publishes and adjusts for inflation every six years (§154.125). Above it, the court may order more, but only on the income of the parties and the proven needs of the child, never by running the percentage over the extra income (§154.126).
The low-income schedule
If the paying parent’s net resources are under $1,000 a month, a lower schedule applies (§154.125(c)): 15 percent for one child, 20 for two, 25 for three, 30 for four, 35 for five, and not less than the five-child amount for six or more. At $1,000 and above, the standard schedule applies in full.
Children in another household
If the paying parent also has a legal duty to support children in another household, the percentages step down. A separate Family Code table sets the reduction by how many children are before the court and how many the parent supports elsewhere. Bring proof of the other children and any order for them.
Medical and dental support are ordered alongside
The monthly percentage is not the whole order. The court also orders medical and dental support, deciding who carries the child’s health and dental coverage and how its cost is shared. Where the paying parent carries it, that cost is one of the deductions above.
Parents can agree to a different number
The guideline figure is presumptive, not mandatory. In the mediations I run, it is usually where the conversation starts, not where it ends. Parents agree a higher figure for private school or therapy costs, or a lower one because the possession schedule is close to equal. Courts sign agreed figures regularly, and the decree explains the departure. Agree with care, though. An agreed order that departs from the guidelines can later be changed only on a material and substantial change in circumstances, not on the three-year rule below (§156.401(a-1)).
The number is not fixed forever
A child support order can be modified on two grounds (§156.401). The first is a material and substantial change in the circumstances of the child or a parent since the order, or since the mediated agreement it rests on: a lost job, a large raise. The second needs no change at all. Three years after the order was signed or last modified, either parent can ask for a new figure if the current amount differs from the guideline amount by 20 percent or $100 a month.
What to gather before you run the numbers
Collect the paying parent’s recent pay stubs, the latest tax return, any self-employment or rental records, and the monthly cost of the child’s health and dental coverage. List every child that parent has a legal duty to support and where each lives, then calculate the figure in order: resources, deductions, the cap, the percentage, any step-down. Take that sheet into mediation. A figure both parents have seen worked from the same documents, in mediation or in a first conversation with a lawyer, is the one that gets signed.
