How Kentucky Calculates Child Support

Kentucky uses the Income Shares model to determine child support obligations. This page explains the guidelines, formula, and key factors.

Model Type

Income Shares (KRS 403.212, KRS 403.2122)

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.

Sources & Verification

Core formula verified; some gaps disclosed below

Guideline effective 2025-07-01 · last checked against the primary source 2026-09-17

Primary 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

What this calculator doesn't yet handle

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not the 73-day/8-tier table still printed on the official CS-71 worksheet PDF (Rev. 07/2023), which describes the repealed KRS 403.2121.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.