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, 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 looks up 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.
• Courts can deviate from the guideline amount, but only with written findings explaining why the guideline result would be inequitable or not in the child's best interests.

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 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.
• Preexisting support orders and responsibility for other children can adjust a parent's income figure before the formula runs.

Overnights Matter: Worksheets A and B

When one parent has 92 or fewer overnights per year, sole physical care Worksheet A applies.

• When each parent has more than 92 overnights, shared physical care Worksheet B applies, which accounts for the duplicated costs of two households.
• Under Worksheet B, each additional overnight shifts the number, which is why accurate overnight counts in the parenting plan matter financially.
• Even at exactly equal parenting time, a support payment usually still flows from the higher earner to the lower earner.
• Split arrangements, where each parent has primary care of at least one child, 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 and certain agreed or court-ordered education expenses can also be allocated between parents.
• Colorado's schedule includes a low-income adjustment so that orders against low-earning parents remain realistic, along with a statutory minimum order.
• 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 documentation, 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.
• Enforcement tools include income assignments, interception of tax refunds, license suspension through child support services, judgments with interest, and contempt proceedings.
• Either parent can seek modification under C.R.S. 14-10-122 when changed circumstances would move the monthly amount by 10 percent or more on a continuing basis.
• 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, and magistrates commonly hear support matters in Denver, Arapahoe, Douglas, Adams, Broomfield, and Jefferson counties. County child support services units (for example, Denver Human Services and the Arapahoe and Jefferson county CSS offices) can establish and enforce administrative orders, and payments in enforced cases run through Colorado's Family Support Registry.

Last updated August 2026.