Wisconsin Child Support Calculator

How Wisconsin calculates child support

Our record puts Wisconsin on the Percentage of Income Model, though nobody here has read Wisconsin's own guideline to check it, which means a fixed percentage set by the number of children is applied to the paying parent's income alone. Here is what that looks like in practice.

The Percentage of Income Model skips the combined-income step entirely. A fixed percentage, set by the number of children being supported, is applied to the paying parent's income on its own. The receiving parent's earnings do not enter the arithmetic. That makes the guideline figure far easier to predict in advance, and it is the reason two families with identical total income can end up with very different orders depending on which parent earns what.

The trade-off is that the model is blind to the other side of the household. A paying parent whose former spouse out-earns them by a wide margin arrives at the same guideline number as one supporting a parent with no income at all. Courts hold the discretion to depart from the guideline figure when the result does not fit the family, and a large income disparity in the receiving parent's favor is one of the situations where a departure gets argued.

Credits still apply on top of the percentage. Health insurance premiums for the children reduce the obligation, as does support already ordered for children from an earlier relationship. Where the state's guideline accounts for parenting time, substantial time with the paying parent reduces it further.

What moves a Wisconsin order

• The paying parent's income (the receiving parent's income is not part of the formula)
• Number of children covered by the order
• Parenting time, in most states, under a rule we have not yet verified for this one
• Health insurance paid for the children
• Support already ordered for children from another relationship

Income limits and judicial discretion

We hold no income ceiling for Wisconsin, so the estimate on this page keeps computing as income rises rather than stopping at a row. What Wisconsin's own guideline does at the top of its schedule is a question this site has not answered for this state, so read a figure at a high income as our model rather than as the state's own. Courts hold authority to depart from a guideline figure when it produces an amount that does not match what the children actually need. Wisconsin gives judges a moderate amount of room on custody and parenting time, so the final order moves with the facts of the case as well as with the arithmetic. The figure above is our approximation of the guideline rather than the guideline itself, which is a second reason to read it as a starting point.

No child support estimate for Wisconsin

We have withdrawn our Wisconsin child support estimate rather than serve a figure we believe is wrong.

We are not showing you a child support figure for Wisconsin, and this is what sits behind that. Until recently this page ran on 17 percent of gross income for one child, 25 for two, 29 for three, 31 for four and 34 for five or more, applied at every income. We now have good reason to believe that is wrong.

Here is what we found, and one thing about it first, because it changes how much weight to put on the rest. We found it through a search index rather than by reading Wisconsin's guideline. Every legal figure on this site is read out of the document that carries it, and this is not, which is why it is written here as something we found rather than published as something we calculate.

Wis. Admin. Code § DCF 150.035(2) is bracketed. Those rates apply to the first $7,000 of monthly income, then 14/20/23/25/27 to $12,500, then 10/15/17/19/20 above it. A flat rate is correct only inside the first bracket. Above $7,000 it overstates every payer, and the overstatement widens with income.

Knowing a figure is wrong is reason enough to stop showing it. It is not reason enough to show you a replacement nobody here has read, so we are doing the first and not the second.

If you need a Wisconsin figure now, Wis. Admin. Code ch. DCF 150, the percentage standard the Department of Children and Families issues is what carries it, and a Wisconsin family law attorney or the state's own child support agency can run your figures against it. We will publish Wisconsin here once we have read the guideline ourselves, to the same standard as every other state on this site.

How parenting time changes support in Wisconsin

Most states do reduce support when the paying parent has the children a substantial share of the year. What differs between them is not just where the line sits. It is whether there is a line at all, and whether crossing it switches the worksheet, nudges the arithmetic, or does nothing. We apply a state's parenting-time adjustment only once we have verified that state's own rule and built the mechanism behind it, and Wisconsin is not there yet. The figure the calculator returns above is therefore the amount before any parenting-time adjustment. It is a real number and the right starting point, but it is an intermediate one, and changing the overnight count will not move it.

Four mechanisms are in use across the country, and they are not variations on one idea. The first is a cliff. Support is worked out one way below a set number of overnights and a different way at or above it, so the figure steps rather than slides. North Carolina is the clearest example and the first one our calculator computes in full, from the state's own published schedule. Its guidelines, adopted under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50-13.4(c1), send a case to Worksheet B at 123 overnights a year, roughly 34 percent of the calendar. At 122 nights the standard worksheet applies. At 123 a different one does, and the same family can come out several hundred dollars apart on either side of that single night.

Where the line sits is not a national figure, and that is worth seeing rather than being told. Illinois runs the same kind of cliff and puts it 23 nights further along: under 750 ILCS 5/505(a)(3.8) the shared care route applies where each parent exercises 146 or more overnights a year, and the basic obligation is multiplied by 1.5. We compute Illinois too. So the same family, with the same schedule, gets the adjustment in North Carolina and misses it in Illinois anywhere between 123 and 145 nights. The exact wording matters as much as the number: both of those thresholds are inclusive, so a parent sitting exactly on one qualifies, while other states word the same rule as "more than", which excludes them.

The part of a cliff rule that catches parents out is that both of them have to clear the threshold, not only the one asking for the adjustment. Work that through and the result is genuinely counter-intuitive. A parent with 250 overnights leaves the other parent 115, which sits below a 123-night bar, so the case is not shared custody under the rule at all and the shared worksheet never comes out. Getting well past an even split can cost you the adjustment an even split would have given you. If you are negotiating toward a particular number of nights, check what the schedule leaves the other parent, not only what it gives you.

The second mechanism has no line in it. Some states apply a parenting-time offset across the whole range, from the first overnight that can be determined, so every additional night moves the number a little and there is no threshold to reach. Michigan is the verified example and the second state our calculator computes in full. Under 2025 Michigan Child Support Formula Manual § 3.03 the offset applies to every support determination, so a Michigan parent with five overnights a year gets one. Guides that report a single trigger figure for a state like this are usually pointing at one of two things that are not triggers: the place where the curve steepens, which is a property of the arithmetic, or a rule about something else entirely. The 21 overnights often quoted for Michigan are the second kind. That figure governs when a change in parenting time is enough to ask a court to modify an existing order, and it has nothing to do with how the offset is worked out.

The third is no adjustment at all. Texas is the plain case: Tex. Fam. Code § 154.125 runs on the paying parent's net resources and the number of children, and the state's own official calculator has no field for overnights. Possession time reaches a Texas order only as one of the factors a court may weigh in deciding whether to depart from the guideline figure, under Tex. Fam. Code § 154.123(b)(4), and a departure can move the order in either direction.

The fourth is a formula the legislature wrote out. Georgia's parenting time adjustment became mandatory on January 1, 2026 under O.C.G.A. § 19-6-15(g), which directs the court to apply a set calculation to the noncustodial parent's basic obligation wherever a court-ordered parenting time schedule exists. That is a required step inside the presumptive calculation, not an argument made after the guideline figure is settled.

Those four produce very different answers for the same family, which is why we are not applying a general rule to Wisconsin in the meantime. We used to. The threshold we applied was 146 nights, which is Illinois's statutory number generalised to all fifty, the size of the reduction had no legal source anywhere, and neither survived being checked, so both are gone rather than defaulted. What replaces them is each state's own rule, one state at a time, and that work has started. North Carolina's page calculates from North Carolina's published schedule and applies North Carolina's own threshold. Michigan's computes Michigan's own equations and applies an offset with no threshold at all. Illinois's reads a banded schedule keyed to net income and applies its own 146-night cliff. Those three were done in that order on purpose: the second is the opposite mechanism to the first, and the third shares a mechanism with the first while differing from it on every number in it. We will publish Wisconsin's parenting-time adjustment here once we have read it out of Wisconsin's own guidelines to the same standard. Until then the figure above is the amount before that adjustment, and Wisconsin's official child support worksheet, linked below, is where the adjusted number comes from.

Where Wisconsin starts on parenting time

Wisconsin does not presume equal parenting time. That is our own record rather than Wisconsin's own custody law. Courts decide the schedule on the best interests of the children, so the overnight count is established case by case rather than assumed. Parents who expect substantial time should treat it as something to be negotiated deliberately, and should find out what Wisconsin's own guidelines do with the count they end up with before agreeing to it.

Getting a child support order in Wisconsin

The guideline figure is only half the picture. When the order actually arrives, and what it costs to argue about it, vary quite a bit from state to state, and both shape what a family lives on in the meantime.

Residency required

6 months

Waiting period

4 months

Typical uncontested

5 months

Typical contested

about 1.0 years

Support before the case is finished

You need 6 months of residency in Wisconsin before you can file, and a statutory period of 4 months has to run before a judge can finalize the divorce. States measure that period from different starting points, some from filing, some from service on your spouse, and some from the date the two of you separated, so confirm where Wisconsin's clock begins. A contested case in Wisconsin runs about 1.0 years on average, against 5 months when the parents agree. That gap is why temporary support matters. A judge can enter a temporary order early in the case, calculated on the same guideline, so the children are covered while the rest of the case is worked out. If money is tight now, a temporary order is usually the fastest relief available, and waiting for the final judgment can mean months without support.

What it costs to contest the number

Family law attorneys in Wisconsin typically run $200 to $375 an hour, and mediation costs roughly $225a session. Worth doing the arithmetic before digging in: a handful of billable hours on each side can cost more than a full year of the amount being argued over. Where the disagreement is genuinely large, or where one parent's income is hard to pin down, representation earns its keep. Where the gap between the two positions is a few dozen dollars a month, mediation or a negotiated agreement almost always leaves both households better off. Our record carries collaborative divorce as available in all fifty states, so it says nothing specific about Wisconsin; whether trained collaborative attorneys practise near you is a local question. Where it is on offer, both parents commit in writing to settle without litigation and use shared financial experts rather than competing ones.

Changing or enforcing a Wisconsin order

Modifying an existing order

A child support order is not permanent, but it also does not adjust on its own. Either parent can ask the court to recalculate, and the general standard across states is a substantial and continuing change in circumstances since the last order. Job loss, a significant raise, a change in the parenting schedule, a new child support obligation for another child, and a change in the children's medical or childcare costs are the changes that most often qualify.

Two points catch parents out. The first is that a modification usually takes effect from the date the request is filed, not the date the circumstances changed, so waiting to file means absorbing the gap. The second is that the obligation continues in full until a judge signs a new order. An informal agreement between parents to pay less does not bind the court, and arrears can still accrue against the paying parent for the difference.

Enforcement

Enforcement runs through Wisconsin's child support agency as well as the courts. Federal law requires every state to run a child support enforcement program with a common set of tools, which is why the remedies look broadly similar from state to state: income withholding straight from wages, interception of federal and state tax refunds, reporting to credit bureaus, suspension of driver's and professional licenses, liens against property, and contempt proceedings for willful non-payment. Income withholding is the default for new orders in most cases rather than a penalty applied after a missed payment.

Wisconsin guideline authority and official worksheet

The Wisconsin child support guideline in our data is:

• Wis. Admin. Code § DCF 150.035(2)

That authority controls, and the worksheet published under it is the document a court works from. We are not showing a Wisconsin estimate, so that document and the state's own child support agency are where a figure has to come from for now.

Wisconsin keeps its percentage standard in Wis. Admin. Code ch. DCF 150, and the provision was renumbered. What used to be DCF 150.03 became DCF 150.035 by 2021 Wisconsin Act 35, so a citation to the old number points at a provision that no longer carries the standard. Our data pointed at the old number until this update.

The standard is bracketed by income rather than flat, which is the part most summaries leave out. The widely quoted percentages apply to the first $7,000 of monthly income, lower rates apply between there and $12,500, and lower ones again above that. A flat percentage is therefore right for a payer inside the first bracket and increasingly wrong above it, which is why this page shows no rate table.

There is also a low-income schedule at Appendix C, revised every March 1. Wisconsin has both a bracket rule that moves rarely and a floor that moves every year, so the date on a Wisconsin figure matters even when the brackets have not changed.

Where to get the official worksheet

Every state publishes a child support worksheet or an official calculator, and that document is what a judge or the state agency works from. We do not yet have a verified direct link to Wisconsin's worksheet, so the starting points below are the state's own court site and the federal directory of state child support agencies rather than a deep link we cannot vouch for.

• Wisconsin courts , the state judiciary site from our Wisconsin source record.
• Office of Child Support Services, U.S. Administration for Children and Families, which maintains the directory of state child support agencies.
• National Conference of State Legislatures, child support guideline models by state, which publishes its own comparison of the guideline model each state uses, so you can check ours against it.

How we calculate this estimate

We apply the guideline model your state actually uses, and the models differ more than most summaries suggest. Most states follow the Income Shares Model: both parents' monthly incomes are combined, a basic support obligation is drawn from that combined figure and the number of children, and each parent covers the share that matches their portion of the combined income. Which income figure gets combined is the state's own to define and it is not the same one everywhere, so this page names it for your state where the guideline has been read and does not guess at it where it has not. Percentage of Income states apply a set rate to the paying parent's income alone, and Nevada's tiered version steps that rate down across income brackets. The Melson Formula reserves a self-support amount for each parent before dividing what is left. Some states do neither: North Dakota reads a dollar figure off a table keyed to one parent's net income, and California publishes a single algebraic formula with no schedule behind it. Which one your state is on is named on its own page rather than inferred from a list here. Credits for health insurance and childcare are applied where the state's own guideline builds them into the order, along with any income cap the state sets, and the list of what moves the number on each state's page names the levers that actually move that state's figure. Parenting time is computed in the states whose own guideline we have read and implemented, and in no others.

What the estimate assumes for Wisconsin

• Income figures are gross monthly, before taxes, counting the sources your state includes.
• Parenting time moves the figure only where we have read and implemented the state's own rule. The parenting-time section further down this page says which case this state is in, and where no adjustment applies the estimate is the amount before one. We previously reduced support past 146 overnights on a coefficient of our own. 146 turned out to be a single state's statutory threshold applied to all fifty, the size of the reduction had no legal source anywhere, and the mechanisms states actually use are not variations on one rule. Among the ones we have now read: a worksheet that switches at a threshold both parents must clear, an offset applied continuously with no trigger, a threshold that does nothing below it and slides above it, a term written into the guideline formula itself so there is no unadjusted amount at all, no parenting-time term anywhere, and a formula prescribed by statute whose text we do not have. That list is what we have read rather than what exists, and it has grown with every state checked. We removed ours rather than defaulting it, and we publish each state's adjustment as that state's own rule is verified.
• North Carolina is one of the verified threshold cases, at 123 overnights under the guidelines adopted pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. 50-13.4(c1). The threshold has to be cleared by both parents, which is why a parent well past an even split can fall outside shared care entirely.
• Texas has no parenting-time adjustment at all, because its guideline has none. Tex. Fam. Code 154.125 runs on the obligor's net resources and the number of children, and the state's own calculator has no field for overnights. Possession time enters only as a discretionary deviation factor, Tex. Fam. Code 154.123(b)(4).
• Georgia has a mandatory parenting-time adjustment whose formula we do not have. O.C.G.A. 19-6-15(g), effective January 1 2026, requires the court to adjust the noncustodial parent's basic obligation wherever there is a court-ordered parenting time schedule, with the result entered on Child Support Schedule C. Applying arithmetic of our own in place of a prescribed formula would be worse than applying none, so the Georgia estimate is the presumptive amount before that adjustment.
• Where a state's own schedule has been transcribed, the basic obligation is read straight off it. Where it has not, the figure comes from a national approximation of the tables courts read from, and the source panel on that state's page says which of the two you are looking at. That approximation has been measured against the seven transcribed schedules keyed to the same thing it is, at 546 income and family-size combinations. It missed them by 32 to 86 percent on average, and it missed them in both directions at once: at every income from $1,500 to $6,000 of combined monthly income it came in under at least one of those schedules and over another, then above all seven from $8,000 up, reaching 69 to 240 percent above those states' own tables at $30,000. So a modeled figure at a high combined income is the least reliable number this calculator returns, and near $6,000 is where the approximation lands closest.
• Where a state sets an income ceiling, we clamp income at it. That is a fair model of a real cap and a poor one of everything else, so two states are handled differently. New York's $193,000 of combined parental income is the point above which a court may consider the additional income, not a limit on what it can order, and our figure there is the amount the guideline produces at the threshold. New Jersey's Appendix IX-F schedule ends at $3,600 of combined weekly net income, and courts are instructed in capital letters not to extrapolate past it, so we read the obligation at the schedule's last row and treat the result as the minimum basic support award rather than as a guideline amount. Appendix IX-A requires a New Jersey court to add to that minimum from the income above the ceiling. Modeling what a court adds is not something we can do honestly, because it turns on statutory factors rather than on arithmetic. Above the New Jersey line our figure is therefore a floor, and above the New York line it is not one: the addition New Jersey requires is what makes its schedule figure a minimum, and no New York instrument says an award may not come in below the amount at the threshold. Both figures read as the low end of a realistic range and only one of them is a floor a reader can count on.
• The same schedule can also stop short at the bottom. New Jersey publishes no award figure below $180 of combined weekly net income, where the court sets the amount from the paying parent's income and living expenses within a published range. Our estimate at that income is a modeled figure with nothing from the state to check it against, and it says so.
• The result is a guideline number. Judges can deviate from it when the facts justify a different amount.

Where the estimate stops

Your state's official worksheet is the controlling document, and a court order can land somewhere other than any guideline estimate. Use this to prepare, then confirm the figure with a licensed family law attorney or your state's child support agency.

Read the full methodology for how every calculator on the site is built.

Sources

Wisconsin courts and statutes

• wicourts.gov
• Wis. Admin. Code § DCF 150.035(2)

Where to read more

Background reading, not where the figures above came from. No number on this page is taken from any of these.

• National Conference of State Legislatures, child support guideline models by state
• Office of Child Support Services, U.S. Administration for Children and Families
• American Bar Association, Section of Family Law

About this page

Written by Barron Hansen

I am an app developer who is dedicated to building the highest-value, most accurate web apps possible, that people want to use every day.