Child support in Virginia is not set by a judge’s impression of what seems fair. It is produced by a formula written into Virginia Code § 20-108.2, and the figure that formula produces is presumed to be the correct amount. Understanding the formula is most of understanding your case.
The answers below cover the questions we hear most often at our Newport News, Hampton, Yorktown, Virginia Beach, and Lynchburg offices, with the governing Code section cited throughout.
How is child support calculated in Virginia?
Virginia uses the income shares model. The premise is that a child should receive roughly the same proportion of parental income they would have received if the parents lived together, so both incomes go into the calculation rather than just the payor’s.
The sole custody calculation under § 20-108.2(G)(1) runs in four steps:
- Add both parents’ monthly gross incomes together to get the combined monthly gross income.
- Look up that combined figure, alongside the number of children, on the Schedule of Monthly Basic Child Support Obligations in § 20-108.2(B). That yields the basic child support obligation.
- Add the cost of health care coverage allowable under subsection E and work-related child-care costs under subsection F. That total is the total monthly child support obligation.
- Divide that total between the parents in the same proportion as their incomes. If one parent earns 60 percent of the combined income, that parent carries 60 percent of the obligation.
The noncustodial parent pays their share to the custodial parent. The custodial parent is presumed to be spending their own share directly on the child.
The schedule runs to $42,500 in combined monthly gross income. Above that, § 20-108.2(B) adds a percentage of the excess: 2.6 percent for one child, 3.4 percent for two, 3.8 percent for three, rising to 5.0 percent for six.
What counts as income for child support in Virginia?
More than most people expect. Section 20-108.2(C) defines gross income as all income from all sources, and the list it gives is not exhaustive. It expressly includes salary, wages, commissions, royalties, bonuses, dividends, severance pay, pensions, interest, trust income, annuities, capital gains, workers’ compensation, unemployment benefits, disability insurance benefits, veterans’ benefits, spousal support received, rental income, gifts, prizes, and awards.
Four things are excluded: public assistance and social services benefits, federal supplemental security income, child support received, and certain secondary employment income earned specifically to pay down an arrearage under a court or administrative order.
Several adjustments matter in practice. Spousal support paid is deducted; spousal support received is added. Half of self-employment tax paid is deducted. Self-employed parents and those with rental income may deduct reasonable business or rental expenses, though the deduction for rental property excludes acquisition cost, depreciation, and the principal portion of a mortgage payment, and the party claiming any such deduction carries the burden of proving it.
There are also presumed deductions for children from other relationships, both where an existing order or written agreement requires support and where the child lives in that parent’s household. No adjustment may reduce support to a level that seriously impairs the custodial parent’s ability to maintain minimally adequate housing and provide basic necessities for the child.
What gets added on top of the basic obligation?
Two categories are added into the guideline figure itself. Under § 20-108.2(E), the cost of health care coverage, vision coverage, and dental coverage for the children covered by the order is added to the basic obligation. Under subsection F, child-care costs incurred because the custodial parent is employed are also added, though they cannot exceed what quality care from a licensed source costs, and a court may consider whether the noncustodial parent is willing and available to provide that care personally.
These are not optional extras that parents negotiate separately. They are part of the calculation.
Who pays unreimbursed medical and dental expenses?
Both parents, in proportion to their gross incomes. Section 20-108.2(D) requires the order to say so absent good cause or agreement of the parties, and it requires the order to specify the method of payment. Each parent pays their share as expenses are incurred.
The statute defines these expenses broadly, including eyeglasses, prescription medication, prosthetics, orthodontics, and mental health or developmental disability services from a social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor, or therapist.
Importantly, these amounts sit outside the monthly guideline number. They are not added to it and do not adjust it.
What if we share custody?
A different formula applies, and either parent can end up paying.
Under § 20-108.2(G)(3), once a parent has custody or visitation for more than 90 days of the year, a shared custody calculation applies. A day means a 24-hour period, and where the parent with fewer overnights has an overnight with the child but under 24 hours of physical custody, there is a presumption that each parent gets half a day.
The mechanics differ from sole custody in one significant way. The shared support need is the guideline amount for the parents’ combined income multiplied by 1.4, recognizing that two households cost more to run than one. Each parent’s obligation is then calculated against their custody share and income share, and the two figures are offset against each other. Whichever parent owes more pays the difference.
If a party shows that the sole custody figure is lower than the shared custody figure, the lower amount controls. And where a parent consistently fails to exercise the custody time the award was based on, § 20-108.2(G)(3)(e) creates a rebuttable presumption that the award should be modified.
This is the single most common reason a parent’s expectation about support turns out to be wrong. The 90-day line matters enormously and it turns on actual overnights, not on what the order calls the arrangement.
What if we have split custody?
Split custody under § 20-108.2(G)(2) applies where each parent has physical custody of at least one child of the parties. Each parent’s household is treated as a separate family unit, a noncustodial obligation is computed for each parent as to the children in the other parent’s unit, and the parent owing the larger amount pays the difference.
The statute also addresses more complicated arrangements: different shared custody schedules for different children under subdivision G 4, a mix of sole and shared custody under G 5, and a mix of split and shared custody under G 6.
Is there a minimum child support amount in Virginia?
Yes. Section 20-108.2(B) provides for a presumptive minimum obligation payable by the payor parent where the calculated sole custody obligation falls below it. The schedule in that subsection begins at $68 per month for one child at the lowest combined income band.
The statute lists exemptions. A parent who lacks sufficient assets to pay and who is institutionalized in a psychiatric facility; imprisoned for life without parole; or medically verified as totally and permanently disabled with no potential to pay, including recipients of Supplemental Security Income, or otherwise involuntarily unable to produce income, is exempt from the presumptive minimum.
Separately, where the obligor’s gross income is at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, a court hearing evidence of no ability to pay may set an obligation below the presumptive minimum, provided doing so does not seriously impair the custodial parent’s ability to maintain minimal adequate housing and basic necessities for the child.
Can a court order an amount different from the guideline?
Yes, but not casually. Section 20-108.2(A) makes the guideline figure a rebuttable presumption. To depart from it, the court must make written findings that applying the guideline would be unjust or inappropriate in the particular case. Those findings must state what the guideline amount would have been and justify the variance.
Section 20-108.1(B) supplies 15 factors the court weighs, running from the child’s actual monetary and special needs, to independent financial resources of the child, to standard of living during the marriage, to earning capacity and financial resources of each parent, to tax consequences, to a written agreement between the parties, closing with such other factors as are necessary to consider the equities for the parents and the children.
Deviation is the exception. The starting point is always the number the formula produces.
How do I get a child support order in Virginia?
Two routes. Administratively, through the Division of Child Support Enforcement, or judicially, through the juvenile and domestic relations district court or as part of a divorce in circuit court.
Neither route requires you to have a lawyer. Whether you want one usually depends on whether income is disputed, whether a parent is self-employed or has variable earnings, and whether the custody schedule is contested, since all three drive the number.
How does the DCSE administrative process work?
You apply for services with the Division of Child Support Enforcement, which then issues an Administrative Support Order. That order is served on the other parent, who has a window in which to object and request a hearing. If no objection is made, the administrative order stands and is enforceable like a support order entered by a court.
DCSE sets the amount using the same § 20-108.2 guideline a court would use. The Department is directed to do so by § 20-108.2(A).
Information about applying, making payments, and managing an existing case is available through the Virginia Department of Social Services at dss.virginia.gov/empowering-families, and through the MyChildSupport parent portal at mychildsupport.dss.virginia.gov.
How does the court process work?
A support case can be brought by independent petition in the juvenile and domestic relations district court, or decided in circuit court as part of a divorce. J&DR petitions are typically heard within a matter of weeks. Either court applies the same guideline and can build enforcement mechanisms into the order at the same time it is entered.
For our clients, that usually means the Newport News, Hampton, York County, Poquoson, or Virginia Beach juvenile and domestic relations district courts or, in Central Virginia, the Lynchburg J&DR District Court. A J&DR decision may be appealed to the circuit court, where the case is heard de novo.
Can we just agree on an amount ourselves?
You can agree, and agreements have real advantages. Parents can address things a court will not usually order on its own, such as splitting the cost of competitive sports, extracurriculars, or a vehicle.
The limit is that a court still runs the guideline. If your agreed-upon figure falls below the guideline amount, the court will not approve it unless doing so is in the child’s best interest, and the deviation still has to be justified in writing. An agreement is a starting point for the court, not a substitute for the calculation.
When does child support end in Virginia?
The default is the child’s eighteenth birthday.
Section 20-124.2 extends it in one common situation. Support continues for a child over 18 who is (i) a full-time high school student, (ii) not self-supporting, and (iii) living in the home of the party seeking or receiving support, until the child turns 19 or graduates from high school, whichever comes first. All three conditions have to be met. A child who graduates at 17, or who turns 18 and moves out, does not trigger the extension.
A court may also order support to continue for a child over 18 who is severely and permanently mentally or physically disabled, where the disability existed before the child turned 18 (or 19, if the high school extension applied), who is unable to live independently and support himself, and who resides in the home of the parent seeking or receiving support. This is discretionary, not automatic.
Parents can also agree to extend support past the statutory end date, and a court may confirm that agreement.
How do I change a child support order?
By filing a petition to modify and showing a material change in circumstances since the last order. A change in either parent’s income, a change in the custody schedule, a change in child care or health insurance costs, or a child aging out are the usual grounds.
Two statutory limits are worth knowing in advance. Under § 20-108.2(C), the existence of a parent’s financial responsibility for another child does not by itself constitute a material change. And the cessation of secondary employment income once an arrearage is paid off is expressly not a basis for modification.
Is a modification retroactive?
Only partly, and this is where delay costs people the most money.
Section 20-108 provides that no support order may be modified retroactively. It may be modified for the period during which a petition for modification is pending, but only from the date notice of that petition was given to the responding party.
Everything that accrued before that date stands, regardless of what changed in your life. If you lost your job in January and file in September, the January through September obligation accrued in full at the old rate and becomes arrears. Filing promptly is the only thing that protects that period.
Initial orders work differently. Under § 20-108.1, liability on an initial determination is calculated retroactively from the date the proceeding was commenced by filing, provided the complainant exercised due diligence in serving the other party, or from the earlier date a Department of Social Services order was delivered for service.
What if I cannot afford to pay?
File to modify, and do it immediately rather than waiting to see whether things improve. Support continues to accrue at the ordered rate until a court changes it, and under § 20-108, no court can reach back past the date the other party received notice of your petition.
Not paying while you wait does not pause anything. It converts current support into arrears, which become a judgment by operation of law under § 20-78.2 and carry interest at the judgment rate set by § 6.2-302 unless the recipient waives it in writing.
Being unemployed does not by itself end the obligation. A court can impute income where it finds a parent voluntarily unemployed or underemployed. The exemptions from the presumptive minimum described above are narrow and turn on genuine inability rather than difficulty.
What if the other parent stops paying?
You have several routes, and they can run in parallel. If DCSE administers your case, the Division can pursue income withholding, liens, license suspension, and tax refund interception without a new court proceeding. If your order came from a court, you can file a motion for income deduction, a motion to show cause asking the court to hold the other parent in contempt, or a Motion and Notice for Judgment for Arrearages to reduce the unpaid amount to a judgment and set a monthly payment toward it.
One thing that is not a remedy: withholding the children. Support and visitation are separate obligations in Virginia, and refusing parenting time because support is unpaid creates a problem for you rather than leverage.
WHY DO I STILL OWE AFTER MY CHILD TURNED 18?
Because arrears survive the end of the current obligation. Unpaid support becomes a final judgment by operation of law under § 20-78.2 as each payment comes due, and interest accrues at the judgment rate unless waived in writing by the person owed.
Virginia support orders are required by § 20-60.3 to say this directly. Where arrears exist when the youngest child covered by the order emancipates, payments continue at the same total amount then being paid, current support plus the amount applied to arrears, until the arrears are satisfied.
There is no statute of limitations that quietly erases them and no court that can retroactively reduce them.
Does child support cover college?
Not by court order. Virginia courts do not have authority to order a parent to pay college expenses as child support, and the guideline in § 20-108.2 addresses the period during which the child is a minor or covered by the § 20-124.2 extension.
Parents can agree to share college costs, and where that agreement is incorporated into a court order, it becomes enforceable as a contract. If college matters to you, it needs to be negotiated into the agreement rather than left for a judge to address later.
Talk with a Virginia child support lawyer
Holcomb Law, P.C. handles child support establishment, modification, and enforcement from offices in Newport News, Hampton, Yorktown, Virginia Beach, and Lynchburg. Most disputes in these cases come down to what counts as income and how the custody days are actually counted, and both are worth getting right before an order is entered rather than after.
Call (757) 913-5204 or contact our office online to arrange a consultation.
