North Dakota child support calculator

North Dakota is not an income-shares state. Instead of combining both parents’ incomes, it applies a single published schedule to the paying parent’s monthly net income and the number of children. You round net income to the nearest $100 and read the basic support amount straight from the table — the 2023 schedule runs from $800 up to $25,000 of monthly net income.

The schedule is read against net, not gross, income. Net income is gross income from nearly all sources — wages, self-employment, benefits — less a defined list of deductions: a hypothetical federal income tax for a single person, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), state income tax, required union dues and certain retirement contributions, and support already ordered and paid for other children. Because those are set by the guideline, this calculator asks you to enter net income directly.

The schedule amount is the basic obligation. On top of it, the guideline addresses the children’s health-insurance premium, work-related child care, and extraordinary medical expenses, which are allocated between the parents in proportion to their incomes. Those add-ons are case-specific, so this calculator shows the basic schedule amount and notes them separately.

When each parent keeps the children for a roughly equal share of the year, North Dakota uses a special offset method: each parent’s schedule amount is computed, multiplied by 1.5, and the larger figure is reduced by the smaller so one parent pays the difference. Because that needs both parents’ net incomes and the exact time split, this calculator computes the single-parent schedule amount; use the offset for an equal-residential case.

It reads the basic schedule obligation from the paying parent’s monthly net income. It does not compute net income from gross for you, add or allocate health insurance, child care and extraordinary medical costs, run the equal-residential-responsibility offset, or apply a low-income or hardship deviation. For a figure you can file, use the North Dakota child-support calculator worksheet or consult an attorney.