How Ohio Calculates Child Support

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

Model Type

Income Shares (JFS 07768 worksheet)

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.

Sources & Verification

Core formula verified; some gaps disclosed below

Guideline effective 2019-03-28 · last checked against the primary source 2026-09-23

Primary 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)

What this calculator doesn't yet handle

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.