Indiana works in weekly figures. Both parents' weekly incomes are combined, looked up on the Supreme Court's guideline schedules, and divided in proportion to what each earns. Overnights then reduce the paying parent's share through a parenting-time credit — the part of Indiana's formula that does the most work and is hardest to estimate by hand.
Four questions. The estimate updates as you type, and you can open the working to see which figure drives it.
Gross pay before deductions — wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, self-employment profit and benefits.
Count the nights the children sleep at your home. This matters financially: 90 overnights is the threshold for an automatic 10% reduction.
Enter both incomes to see an estimate.
Estimate onlyBasic support before health insurance, child care and medical costs are added. Courts can depart from the guideline figure. Based on Indiana Child Support Rules and Guidelines, last checked 2026-07-29.
Indiana uses the income-shares model on a weekly basis, with schedules issued by the Indiana Supreme Court rather than by statute.
Marcus and Dee have two children. Marcus earns $3,600 a month and Dee $2,400, and the children live mainly with Dee. Marcus has them 40 nights a year.
Marcus pays about $208 a week — roughly $903 a month. Had he had 98 overnights instead of 40, the parenting-time credit would cut about $55 a week off that — roughly $238 a month, which is why the overnight count is worth recording precisely rather than estimating.
Indiana orders, worksheets and schedules are all expressed per week, which trips up parents comparing figures with other states. A $200 weekly order is about $867 a month, not $800 — there are 52 weeks in a year, not 48.
Ind. Child Support Guideline 3Indiana does not use a single threshold like Ohio's 90 overnights. The credit is calculated from the number of annual overnights using a table, and reflects three categories of expense: those that transfer with the children, those duplicated across both homes, and those controlled by the parent receiving support. It starts at 52 overnights a year and grows steadily from there, so an accurate overnight count directly changes the number.
Ind. Child Support Guideline 6Child support combined with any spousal maintenance cannot exceed half of the paying parent's weekly adjusted income. The published schedules include a column showing that ceiling at each income level.
Ind. Child Support Guideline 2The schedules provide no figure below $100 of combined weekly adjusted income. Below that, and generally where income is very low, a court sets an amount that establishes the principle of payment without denying the paying parent a subsistence living — and a $0 order is possible in limited circumstances.
Ind. Child Support Guideline 2Indiana adjusts income before the schedule lookup rather than adjusting the result. A parent supporting children born before those in the current case deducts that legal duty from their weekly income; a parent with children born later receives a smaller credit for them. The order of births genuinely changes the arithmetic.
Ind. Child Support Guideline 3(C)The parent paying the children's weekly health-insurance premium receives a credit against their obligation. Work-related child care is added into the calculation and shared. Uninsured medical costs are split with the receiving parent covering the first 6% of the basic obligation.
Ind. Child Support Guideline 3(E), 7Kidtime records every overnight, swap and handover as it happens, so the parenting-time figure behind your support order is evidence rather than an estimate. Free to start.
Support is established in a dissolution, paternity or juvenile case in the county where the child lives, or through the local Title IV-D office and prosecutor's child support division at no charge. Indiana requires a completed Child Support Obligation Worksheet to be filed with any order, signed by both parties or their counsel, so the arithmetic is on the record rather than implied.
An order can be modified where there has been a substantial and continuing change of circumstances, or where the order is at least twelve months old and a recalculation differs from it by 20% or more. A changed parenting-time schedule is a common trigger, because the parenting-time credit is tied directly to overnights — if the schedule has drifted in practice, the order will not follow it on its own.
It depends on both incomes combined and on overnights. As a sense of scale, about $1,385 of combined weekly income — roughly $6,000 a month between both parents — produces a basic obligation of about $231 a week for one child, which is then split by income share and reduced by the paying parent's parenting-time credit.
It reduces the paying parent's share to reflect what they spend directly while the children are with them. The credit is read off a table by annual overnights and combines expenses that transfer with the children, such as food, with costs duplicated in both homes, such as bedrooms. It begins at 52 overnights a year and increases from there, reaching its largest value at an equal split.
Weekly. The schedules, the worksheet and most orders are all expressed per week, and payments are usually withheld from wages on that basis. To convert a weekly figure to monthly, multiply by 52 and divide by 12 — multiplying by four understates it by about 8%.
Not automatically. An equal schedule produces the largest parenting-time credit, which can bring the obligation close to zero where the incomes are also similar. Where one parent earns considerably more, the income-share split still leaves them paying something even on an even schedule.
Yes, weekly gross income includes overtime, bonuses, commissions and self-employment income, though the Guidelines caution against counting irregular income that cannot be relied on. Courts often handle genuinely variable income by ordering a base amount plus a percentage of the extra when it is actually received.
The duty to pay generally ends when the child turns 19, which is earlier than many states. It can end sooner if the child is emancipated, or continue for a child incapable of supporting themselves. Educational expenses can be ordered separately and are not automatically covered by the weekly support figure.
This calculator gives an estimate of basic guideline support for general information. It is not legal advice and it is not the figure a court will order — judges can and do depart from the guideline, and the calculation leaves out health insurance, child care and medical costs. For the controlling text see Indiana Child Support Rules and Guidelines, compare against the state's own calculator, and consult a licensed Indiana family-law attorney about your situation. Last reviewed 2026-07-29.