Ohio Child Support Calculator

At $6,000 per month in combined monthly gross income, Ohio's guidelines produce roughly $491/month for 1 child, $672/month for 2 children, $672/month for 3 children, $672/month for 4 children. These figures come from running Ohio's own guideline formula, but they hold several things constant -- assumes the higher earner has 65% of the combined income shown and is the parent ordered to pay because the children live mainly with the other parent (105 of 365 overnights — above the 90-overnight line, so the 10% parenting-time reduction applies), with no other children, health insurance, spousal support, or child care entered. Ohio orders only the non-residential parent's obligation (ORC § 3119.07(A)), and charges them the lesser of the schedule amount for their own income alone or their proportional share of the combined obligation (JFS 07768 line 18d), so the lower rows are held up by that self-sufficiency floor rather than by the income share. The $4,000 row is flat across every child count and is correct: the paying parent's income lands where ORC § 3119.021(B)(2)(c)(i)'s "30% of income above the self-sufficiency reserve" figure governs, and that figure does not vary with the number of children. 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.

Ohio uses the Income Shares model. Ohio computes the basic obligation with the § 3119.021(B)(1) piecewise percentage formula over combined gross income, floored by a self-sufficiency reserve, and splits it by income share. Only the parent the children do not primarily live with is ordered to pay — the residential parent is presumed to spend their share directly (§ 3119.07(A)). That parent is charged the lesser of their proportional share or the schedule amount for their own income alone, then reduced 10% if they have 90 or more court-ordered overnights per year.

Ohio's guideline runs on gross income (both parents). 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 Ohio: income shares formula, not a flat lookup table (Ohio Rev. Code § 3119.021), worked through the JFS 07768 Sole/Shared worksheet. 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 2019-03-28, and a human last checked it against the primary source on 2026-09-23. Sources: Ohio Rev. Code § 3119.021 (basic child support schedule); Ohio Rev. Code § 3119.05 (computation; self-sufficiency reserve); Ohio Rev. Code § 3119.07 (whose obligation becomes part of the order); Ohio Rev. Code § 3119.051 (parenting time reduction); Ohio Rev. Code § 3119.06 (minimum support order); Ohio Admin. Code 5101:12-1-17 (guideline schedule and worksheets; JFS 07768 rev. 3/2019). It is still an estimate, not a court order -- a judge can order a different amount, and this is not legal advice.

The Ohio guideline this calculator implements took legal effect on 2019-03-28. 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.

Whose column becomes the order is decided here by the overnight split, but Ohio's actual test is the legal "residential parent and legal custodian" designation, which a calculator cannot observe. Where parenting time is within one night of even, neither parent is residential in any meaningful sense; ORC § 3119.24 tells the court to order the worksheet amount for a shared parenting order but does not say whose column, so this calculator follows § 3119.07(B)'s split-parenting rule by analogy and charges the larger of the two obligations. That analogy is a judgment call, not a directive that reaches the shared-parenting case. Child care is allocated at line 21 from a single annual figure. The per-child, age-banded maximum allowable cost (line 21c, from table 2 of the JFS 07766 guideline manual) and the federal/state dependent-care tax credits (line 21g) are not applied, because neither the children's ages nor the credits are collected. Derivative benefits (line 20 — non-means-tested benefits the children receive on a parent's record) and cash medical support (lines 23/27, from table 3 of the JFS 07766) are not calculated. The result is basic child support only. Deviations under ORC §§ 3119.22–3119.24 are not predicted, including the § 3119.231 deviation the court must consider whenever parenting time exceeds 90 overnights and must explain declining at 147+. Pending verification: §3119.021(C) requires the guideline-income breakpoints and the self-sufficiency reserve (116% of the federal poverty level) to be updated every 4 years for CPI-U/FPL changes. This calculator uses the 2016/2019 baseline figures as published in the statute text. OAC 5101:12-1-99 confirms the operative schedule form is JFS 07767 rev. 6/2023 — a revision later than the statutory text transcribed here — so the current table may differ and has not been compared cell by cell. The self-sufficiency-reserve dollar figure ($16,912) used above the $8,400 minimum threshold is a secondary-source estimate, not confirmed against a primary HHS/ODJFS publication. 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 Ohio's official worksheet.

Yes. The figure produced by Ohio'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. Ohio's guideline is set out in Ohio Rev. Code § 3119.021 (basic child support schedule).

You have to file for a modification -- a change in your circumstances does not change what you owe on its own. Ohio, 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.