Kentucky Child Support Calculator

At $6,000 per month in combined monthly gross income, Kentucky's guidelines produce roughly $540/month for 1 child, $780/month for 2 children, $935/month for 3 children, $1,045/month for 4 children. These figures come from running Kentucky's own guideline formula, but they hold several things constant -- assumes the higher earner has 65% of the combined income shown and has 60 of 365 parenting-time days (below the 88-day shared-parenting-credit threshold, so no credit applies), no maintenance or prior child support paid, and no add-ons. Your actual number depends on both parents' incomes, your parenting-time schedule, and add-on costs like childcare and health insurance, so run the calculator for your own case.

Kentucky uses the Income Shares model. Kentucky looks up a basic support obligation from a 301-row schedule by combined gross income and number of children, then applies a shared parenting time credit -- a flat percentage of the total obligation, from a 7-tier table keyed to the paying parent's annual parenting-time days, starting at 88 days.

Kentucky's guideline runs on combined monthly gross income (no net-income conversion). That distinction matters: entering gross income into a formula built on net income (or the reverse) produces a materially wrong figure. Most states count income from essentially any regular source -- wages, self-employment, bonuses, commissions, rental and investment income, and many benefits -- not just salary.

Not necessarily. In Kentucky: a flat percentage of the total obligation (KRS 403.2122), from 15% at 88 days up to 50% at equal time — no credit at all below 88 days. Because the guideline also weighs each parent's share of income, a significantly higher earner can still owe support at an even time split.

This calculator's core formula has been verified against the primary source, with any unimplemented rules listed openly rather than hidden. It implements the guideline in effect as of 2025-07-01, and a human last checked it against the primary source on 2026-09-17. Sources: KRS 403.212 — Child Support Guidelines; Guidelines Table; KRS 403.2122 — Shared Parenting Time Credit — Determination — Adjustments; KRS 403.211 — Health Care Coverage, Child Care Cost Allocation, Extraordinary Medical Expenses. It is still an estimate, not a court order -- a judge can order a different amount, and this is not legal advice.

The Kentucky guideline this calculator implements took legal effect on 2025-07-01. States revise their guidelines periodically -- federal rules require each state to review its guidelines at least once every four years -- so a figure from an older calculator or article may reflect a superseded rule.

The 301-row guidelines table was transcribed directly from the current statute text (a plain-text rendering, not an image/PDF) and cross-checked against the official CS-71 worksheet's own excerpt for combined income $0-$1,600 — all 108 cells agree byte for byte. Fully validated for internal consistency (0 monotonicity violations across both axes), but not cross-checked cell-by-cell against a second full source the way South Carolina's schedule was. Implements KRS 403.2122's CURRENT 88-day/7-tier shared parenting time credit table, not the 73-day/8-tier table still printed on the official CS-71 worksheet PDF (Rev. 07/2023), which describes the repealed KRS 403.2121. The statute itself (KRS 403.212(5)(c)(3)) cross-references KRS 403.2122 as the operative section. No official continuous worked example was located or run against Kentucky's live online estimator (kentuckychildsupport.ky.gov/ObCalc), which is JavaScript-driven and could not be exercised during research. All test fixtures are hand-constructed against the validated schedule and statute text, not drawn from an official source. Between-row income (not an exact multiple of $100) is rounded down to the nearest $100 schedule row. KRS 403.212 gives no interpolation or rounding instruction; this is a documented judgment call. Above the $30,000/month combined-income ceiling, KRS 403.212(7) gives no formula at all (judicial discretion only). This calculator displays the $30,000-row reference amount with a discretion warning rather than an estimate. The imputed-obligation branch of the prior-born-children income deduction (KRS 403.212(3)(i)(3), a nested guideline-table lookup when a parent's other prior-born children live with them) is not implemented — only a simple 'amount currently paid under an existing order' deduction is collected. Voluntary unemployment/underemployment and imputed potential income (KRS 403.212(3)(e), seven fact-intensive factors) are not calculated, only disclosed. Self-employment gross-income reconstruction (straight-line-depreciation-only, per KRS 403.212(3)(c)) is not implemented; a single gross self-employment figure is expected to be entered as-is. The $250/year extraordinary-medical-expense threshold's scope is ambiguous in the statutory text ('for the child or children subject to the order'); this calculator applies it as a single $250/year threshold to the order as a whole, not per child. No child-care tax-credit offset is applied to work-related child care costs, unlike South Carolina's simulated credit — KRS 403.211(6) contains no analogous provision. The CS-71.1 exception worksheet (used when one parent has 100% of combined income) is not implemented as a separate branch; a $0-income parent is handled through the ordinary calculation path. Split custody (KRS 403.212(8), each parent with sole custody of at least one different child) is not implemented — the calculator collects one set of children with a single day-count split. The twelve KRS 403.211(3) deviation factors and KRS 403.2122(3)(b)'s discretionary shared-parenting override factors are not predicted, only disclosed. If any of these apply to your case, treat the estimate as a starting point and confirm the figure with an attorney, a mediator, or Kentucky's official worksheet.

Yes. The figure produced by Kentucky's Income Shares guideline is presumptive, not mandatory: a court can order a different amount when applying the guideline would be unjust or inappropriate for the specific case, and generally must state its reason on the record. Common grounds include extraordinary medical or educational expenses, a child's special needs, or costs the formula does not capture. Kentucky's guideline is set out in KRS 403.212 — Child Support Guidelines; Guidelines Table.

You have to file for a modification -- a change in your circumstances does not change what you owe on its own. Kentucky, like most states, requires a substantial change in circumstances: a significant involuntary income change, a change in the parenting schedule, or a material change in the child's needs. Until a court or the state child support agency issues a new order, the existing amount stays fully enforceable and arrears keep accruing, and a modification is generally not applied retroactively before the date you filed -- so filing promptly matters. In Kentucky, modifications are handled through KY Dept. of Child Support Services — Office of the Attorney General.

Kentucky publishes it directly: "Kentucky Child Support Interactive". This site's calculator is a fast estimate built on the same published guideline, not a replacement for the official form -- a court filing generally requires the state's own worksheet. The link is in the Kentucky Resources section on this page.