Child Support Attorneys: Getting Colorado's Formula Right

Colorado child support is not a negotiation from scratch. It is a statutory formula under C.R.S. 14-10-115 that runs on three kinds of inputs: each parent’s income, the parenting schedule, and specific add-on costs. Get the inputs right and the output tends to take care of itself.

That is where we focus: accurate income pictures for salaried and self-employed parents, honest overnight counts from the parenting plan, and the right adjustments. When circumstances change later, modification has its own rules and its own deadlines.

How we help

• Establishing support in dissolution, allocation of parental responsibilities, and parentage cases
• Accurate income determination, including self-employment income, executive compensation, bonuses, commissions, and imputed income
• Adjustments for health insurance premiums, child care costs, extraordinary expenses, and shared parenting arrangements
• Requests to deviate from the guideline calculation when the facts support it
• Modification when incomes or the parenting schedule change in a substantial and continuing way
• Enforcement of unpaid support through income assignments, judgments, and contempt proceedings

How Colorado Calculates Child Support Under C.R.S. 14-10-115

Colorado uses the income shares model: the statute estimates what the parents would have spent on the children in an intact household, then splits that obligation in proportion to each parent's share of combined income.

• The calculation starts with each parent's monthly gross income, applies statutory adjustments, and contemplates a basic support obligation on the schedule in C.R.S. 14-10-115.
• The number of children, the number of overnights with each parent, and certain add-on expenses all change the bottom line.
• Both parents have a support obligation; the formula determines a net transfer payment from one household to the other as reconciliation of those individual support obligations.
• Courts can deviate from the guideline amount, but only with written findings explaining why the deviation is necessary for the best interests of the child.

What Counts as Income (and What Does Not)

Gross income is broad: wages, salary, bonuses, commissions, self-employment income, rental income, and most other revenue streams count.

• If a parent is voluntarily unemployed or voluntarily underemployed, the court can impute potential income based on work history, education, and local job opportunities, with statutory exceptions such as caring for a very young shared child.
• Means-tested public assistance benefits are excluded, and a new spouse's income is not part of the calculation.
• Self-employment income is measured as gross receipts minus ordinary and necessary business expenses, and courts scrutinize personal expenses run through a business.
• Financial responsibility for non-joint children can affect a parent's income and therefore the child support calculation.

Every Overnight Counts Now

Until March 2026, parenting time only had a significant effect on child support once you hit 93 overnights or more per year, and families litigated over a single overnight. That cliff is gone. For orders entered or modified on or after March 1, 2026, child support changes from the very first overnight, on a graduated statutory table, and the credit grows as the schedule approaches equal time. Our child support calculator runs the current law, and our attorneys walk through three worked examples with the actual math.

• Accurate overnight counts in the parenting plan now matter financially at every schedule, not just near the old threshold, so the support number more accurately reflects the parenting schedule and negotiations reflect reality.
• Even at exactly equal parenting time, a support payment usually still flows from the higher earner to the lower earner, though other expenses that might be paid by the higher earner and included on the worksheet, such as the children's health insurance premiums, can change the exchange of support.
• Orders entered before March 1, 2026 stay under the old rules until modified, which is itself a reason to have an older order reviewed if you think child support might otherwise be modified.
• Split parenting time arrangements, where each parent has primary care of at least one joint child, or the parties' children are not on the same parenting time schedule, use their own calculation.

Adjustments, Add-Ons, and the Low-Income Rules

The children's health insurance premiums and work-related or education-related child care costs are added to the basic obligation and shared in proportion to income.

• Extraordinary medical expenses, mandatory school fees, certain agreed-upon expenses, and court-ordered education or extracurricular expenses can be allocated between the parties using the child support worksheet.
• The 2026 law protects low-earning parents with a self-support reserve tied to the state minimum wage, phased reductions, and caps that keep orders realistic.
• The statutory schedule covers combined incomes up to a cap set in the statute; above it, courts set support using the guideline's highest bracket as a floor and discretion beyond that.
• Getting the inputs right (income calculations, overnight counts, premium amounts) matters more than arguing about the formula itself, because the math follows the inputs.

How Long Support Lasts, and How It Is Enforced and Changed

Child support in Colorado generally continues until the child turns 19, the age of emancipation, not 18.

• Support can extend beyond 19 if the child is still in high school (through the end of the month after graduation, up to age 21) or if the child is physically or mentally disabled, and parents can agree to longer support such as college contributions.
• Standard enforcement tools include contempt, judgments with interest, and income assignments. Child support services can offer further enforcement options such as interception of tax refunds and license suspension.
• Either parent can seek modification under C.R.S. 14-10-122 when circumstances have changed in a substantial and continuing way that would move the monthly amount. Keep in mind that meeting the statutory threshold to seek a modification does not override the requirement to confer with the other side before filing.
• Most jurisdictions will require mediation to occur before hearing a request to modify child support. Additionally, many Orders and Agreements include language requiring mediation before a Motion to Modify Child Support can be filed. Review your Orders carefully and seek legal advice if you have questions on how you can proceed.
• Modifications generally reach back only to the date the motion was filed, so waiting to file after a job loss or income change has real consequences.

Local courts and where to file

Child support is set by the district courts across the metro area. Judges and Magistrates commonly hear support matters in Denver, Arapahoe, Douglas, Adams, Broomfield, Jefferson, and other metro area counties. Where to file to establish or modify child support is pre-determined under Colorado law. If child support is established through County child support services units (for example, Denver Human Services and the Arapahoe and Jefferson County CSS offices), payments will run through Colorado's Family Support Registry.

Last updated August 2026.