Child support in Alabama.
What the state’s own guideline says, where the number comes from, and the one figure that moves it more than anything you will argue about.
See a different stateAlabama
Alabama adds both parents' monthly gross incomes together, looks up a single 'basic child support obligation' on a published table, and then splits that number between the parents in proportion to what each one earns. The parent the children do not primarily live with pays their share to the other parent. Rule 32 says outright that the guidelines 'are based on the income shares model developed by the National Center for State Courts.'
How Alabama works out the number
Authority: Ala. R. Jud. Admin. 32 (Rule 32, Alabama Rules of Judicial Administration — Child-support guidelines)Alabama does not have a sliding overnight scale. There is one bright line: when a court order gives each parent physical custody 50% (or roughly 50%) of the time, the Shared 50% Physical Custody Adjustment applies — the basic obligation is multiplied by 150% to cover duplicated housing and transportation, and Form CS-42-S is used instead of CS-42. That adjustment can be taken away if a parent 'without sufficient cause fails to exercise his or her physical custody of a child for more than 14 days in the 12 consecutive months immediately preceding the filing of a petition to modify child support.' Below 50/50, extra parenting time is only a listed reason to ask for a deviation, not an automatic discount.
Use the state’s own calculator, not ours
Alabama publishes this itself, free. It is called Form CS-42 (Child-Support Guidelines) and Form CS-42-S (shared 50% physical custody); Form CS-41 Child-Support-Obligation Income Statement/Affidavit; Form CS-43. We are not going to build a competing calculator and ask you to trust it — this is the one a judge will recognize.
Open the Alabama calculator →What goes into the calculation
What counts as income
Rule 32(B)(2) defines gross income as income from 'salaries, wages, commissions, bonuses, dividends, severance pay, pensions, interest, trust income, annuities, capital gains, Social Security benefits, veteran's benefits, workers' compensation benefits, unemployment-insurance benefits, disability-insurance benefits, gifts, prizes, and preexisting periodic alimony.' Bonuses are expressly in. Overtime and a second job are not called out by name, but the list is a list of all earnings, so overtime and second-job wages are ordinarily counted as wages. For a self-employed parent, income is 'gross receipts minus ordinary and necessary expenses required to produce this income, as allowed by the Internal Revenue Service' — but accelerated depreciation and certain business write-offs the court finds inappropriate are added back. Child support received for other children and means-tested public assistance are excluded.
When a judge can treat you as earning more
If a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, the court estimates what that parent could earn and uses that figure instead. Rule 32 tells the judge to weigh 'the parent's assets, residence, employment and earnings history, job skills, educational attainment, literacy, age, health, criminal record and other employment barriers, and record of seeking work, as well as the local job market.' Being locked up does not count: 'Incarceration may not be treated as voluntary unemployment in establishing or modifying a child-support order.'
If you do not earn much
Alabama uses a self-support reserve of $981 per month, described in Rule 32 as based on 2021 federal poverty levels adjusted for Alabama incomes. The reserve is subtracted from adjusted gross income, the remainder is multiplied by 85%, and the lower of that figure or the guideline amount is used. There is a rebuttable presumption of a $50 minimum monthly order if the calculated figure comes out under $50. A $0 order is presumed when the paying parent has no gross income and receives only means-tested assistance, or is incarcerated or institutionalized for more than 180 consecutive days.
Childcare and health insurance
Work-related child care is added into the calculation, capped at 'the amount required to provide care from a licensed source for the children, based on a schedule of guidelines developed by the Alabama Department of Human Resources.' Health-care coverage must be provided if either parent can get it at reasonable cost and it is accessible — 'reasonable cost' means not more than 10% of that parent's gross income, and 'accessible' means ordinary medical care is available within a 100-mile radius of the children's home. The children's share of the premium is figured as total cost divided by total people covered, times the number of children on the order, and the paying parent gets credit for it if they pay it.
Private school, special needs, activities
The court may order additional amounts for extraordinary medical, dental and educational expenses, but only if the parents agreed in writing or the court reviews the evidence, finds the extra amount is in the children's best interest, and states its reasons. Private school and special needs would be handled this way. Rule 32 also lists 'expenses of college education incurred prior to a child's reaching the age of majority' and child care costs that exceed the DHR guideline schedule by 20% or more as grounds to depart from the standard number.
When a judge can depart from the number
The guideline figure is presumed correct. It can be rebutted only by (1) a fair written agreement between the parents stating a different amount and the reasons for it, or (2) 'a determination by the court, based upon evidence presented in court and stating the reasons therefor, that application of the guidelines would be manifestly unjust or inequitable.'
Two things surprise people here. First, Alabama's shared-custody discount is all-or-nothing: at a court-ordered 50/50 schedule you use a different worksheet and the pot grows by 50% before it is split, but at 45% of the nights you get no automatic adjustment at all — you have to ask the judge for a deviation and give reasons. Second, the guideline table stops at $30,000 of combined monthly gross income, and above that Rule 32 says the number 'should not be extrapolated from the figures in the schedule but should be left to the discretion of the court.' High earners are essentially litigating, not calculating.
Later on
When it ends
We could not confirm the exact ending age and conditions on a state source. This is worth one phone call to the clerk.
College and support after 18
Rule 32 lets a judge consider 'expenses of college education incurred prior to a child's reaching the age of majority' as a reason to depart from the guideline amount. We could not confirm on an official Alabama source whether an Alabama court can order a parent to pay for college after the child reaches majority, so treat any promise about college as something you should put in your written agreement rather than something a judge will add later.
Changing the amount later
Rule 32(A)(3)(c): 'There shall be a rebuttable presumption that child support should be modified when the difference between the existing child-support order and the amount determined by application of these guidelines varies more than ten percent (10%).'
How far back a change can reach
Rule 32(A)(3)(a): 'The provisions of any judgment respecting child support shall be modified only as to installments accruing after the filing of the petition for modification.' In plain terms, the clock starts the day you file — not the day your income changed. Waiting to file costs you money you cannot get back.
If someone stops paying
Support is collected through income withholding; the Administrative Office of Courts' own Form CS-44 (Affidavit for Termination of Withholding Order for Support) is filed under Ala. Code § 30-3-62(i) to stop a withholding order once every child on it has aged out. We did not confirm Alabama's official positions on license suspension or interest on arrears from a state source, so ask your local child support office about those.
What we could not confirm
- We could not confirm on an official Alabama source the exact age at which support ends. Rule 32 talks about 'the age of majority' but does not define it, and Alabama's official online code we could not reach it while we researched this. Ask the clerk of the court handling your case, or your attorney, to confirm the ending age and whether it extends while a child is still in high school. We also could not confirm Alabama's official rules on driver's or professional license suspension and interest on unpaid support.
- 2 official pages we tried to read refused automated access. We did not try to get around the block, so some detail above comes from a different official source rather than the one we would have preferred.
Compare all fifty states
The overnight thresholds, the ending ages and the college rules, side by side.
The rest of what we have written about Alabama. Every figure is quoted from Alabama’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.