Child support in Colorado.
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.
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Colorado combines both parents' adjusted gross monthly incomes, finds the basic obligation on a statutory schedule, and divides it between the parents in proportion to each parent's income. As of March 1, 2026 Colorado also gives the paying parent a credit for every single overnight the children spend with them, read off a 0-to-365 parenting time table. Work-related and education-related child care, health insurance, and extraordinary medical costs are added on top and shared the same way.
How Colorado works out the number
Authority: Colo. Rev. Stat. § 14-10-115, as amended by House Bill 25-1159 (Laws 2025, ch. 334)This is Colorado's biggest recent change, effective March 1, 2026. The old rule gave nothing until a parent had more than 92 overnights, then applied a cliff-edge 1.50 multiplier. The 1.50 multiplier is gone. Now 'shared physical care' means each parent has the children for 'AT LEAST ONE OVERNIGHT each year,' and the credit comes off a Parenting Time Table in § 14-10-115(8)(h) that runs from 0 overnights (0.00%) to the high 90s. One overnight is worth 0.07%; 73 overnights is 8.87%; 146 is 32.32%; 218 is 67.23%; 291 is 90.93%. 'THE PARENTING TIME CREDIT IS THE TOTAL BASIC CHILD SUPPORT OBLIGATION MULTIPLIED BY THAT PARENT'S PARENTING TIME CREDIT PERCENTAGE.' The result can never exceed what that parent would owe with no overnights at all. With two or more children on different schedules, you add each child's overnights and divide by the number of children.
Use the state’s own calculator, not ours
Colorado publishes this itself, free. It is called The paper worksheets are gone. JDF 1820 (Worksheet A) and JDF 1822 (Worksheet B) were discontinued after HB25-1159, and JDF 1821 was pulled for rewriting after . 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 Colorado calculator →What goes into the calculation
What counts as income
Section 14-10-115(5) defines gross income broadly, from any source. For a parent with a business, gross income is receipts minus 'ordinary and necessary expenses' — and the 2025 amendments say those expenses do not include accelerated depreciation or investment tax credits, 'EXCEPT THAT, THE COURT MAY CONSIDER STRAIGHT-LINE DEPRECIATION, IF APPROPRIATE, EVEN IF ACCELERATED DEPRECIATION WAS USED IN THE PARTY'S INCOME TAX FORMS.' On overtime, Colorado's own child support agency tells parents: 'Generally, overtime is not counted as part of your income for child support unless your employer requires it.' We could not read the full statutory list of included income types (bonuses, second jobs) on an official source — see below.
When a judge can treat you as earning more
If a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, the court uses potential income instead of actual income. HB25-1159 narrowed the exceptions: no potential income is figured for a parent who is physically or mentally incapacitated, who is 'caring for a child under the age of TWENTY-FOUR months' (down from thirty months), or who is 'an incarcerated parent sentenced to ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY DAYS or more' (down from one year).
If you do not earn much
Colorado replaced its old flat $1,500 income cutoff with a 'SELF-SUPPORT RESERVE' defined as 'THE STATE HOURLY MINIMUM WAGE MULTIPLIED BY TWENTY-NINE HOURS PER WEEK, MULTIPLIED BY FIFTY WEEKS PER YEAR, DIVIDED BY TWELVE MONTHS.' If the paying parent's adjusted gross income is $650 a month or less, the order is the minimum: 'THE MINIMUM ORDER AMOUNT IS TEN DOLLARS PER MONTH, REGARDLESS OF THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN BETWEEN THE PARTIES.' Between $650 and the self-support reserve, the basic obligation is reduced to $50/month for one child, $70 for two, $90 for three, $110 for four, $130 for five, and $150 for six or more. Just above the reserve, the total order 'MUST NOT EXCEED TWENTY PERCENT OF THE OBLIGOR'S ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME' up to full-time minimum wage, and the obligation is capped at 80% of income over the reserve for one child, rising to 95% for six.
Childcare and health insurance
Education-related and work-related net child care costs, health insurance, and extraordinary medical expenses are added to the basic obligation and then 'divided in proportion to EACH PARENT'S adjusted gross incomes.' A parent who actually pays one of these costs gets credit for it. Uninsured medical costs count as extraordinary once they exceed $250 per child per calendar year, and the statute lists copayments, deductibles, prescriptions, medical equipment, orthodontia and dental treatment.
Private school, special needs, activities
Extraordinary medical expenses over $250 per child per year are shared pro rata; for a child 'WITH A DISABLING CONDITION' the statute expressly includes 'MEDICALLY NECESSARY EQUIPMENT, HOME AND VEHICLE MODIFICATION.' Private school and extracurriculars are not named in the amended text we could read — they fall under the court's 'extraordinary adjustments' discretion.
Two things to know. First, Colorado just rebuilt its parenting-time math: as of March 1, 2026 every overnight you actually exercise reduces support a little, and the old 93-overnight cliff — where one extra night could swing the number by hundreds of dollars — is gone. Second, the state has taken its paper worksheets offline. If you go looking for JDF 1820, 1821 or 1822 you will find a page saying the form is discontinued or being rewritten and directing you to the free Colorado Support Calculator on the Judicial Branch site. Use that calculator; a printout from an old worksheet will not match current law.
Later on
When it ends
Colorado's child support agency states: 'If your child support order was issued in Colorado, emancipation occurs and child support ends when the child reaches 19 years of age in most cases.' Support may continue past 19 if the child is still in high school (to age 21) or if the child is disabled.
College and support after 18
We could not confirm whether a court here can order support for college.
How far back a change can reach
HB25-1159 gave courts explicit discretion over 'RETROACTIVE CHILD SUPPORT FOR A TIME PERIOD THAT OCCURRED PRIOR TO THE MONTH THE CHILD SUPPORT OBLIGATION BEGINS,' weighing among other things the paying parent's ability to pay current support on top of the back support.
If someone stops paying
Colorado's child support agency officially lists these tools: income withholding (up to 60% of income), driver's license suspension, professional and occupational license suspension, recreational license suspension, bank account liens and freezes, federal tax refund offset, workers' compensation withholding, credit reporting, and judicial action. The agency also states plainly that 'Unpaid child support does not go away… Interest may be added to this balance.'
What we could not confirm
- Colorado's official statute site would not load for us, so a few things stayed out of reach. We could not read the full statutory list of what counts as income (whether bonuses and second-job pay are named), the exact wording a judge must use to depart from the guideline number, whether a Colorado court can order college or post-majority support, or the precise percentage change that counts as a 'substantial and continuing' change for a modification. Ask your county child support office or a Colorado family lawyer for those four. Also, the self-support reserve is a formula tied to Colorado's state minimum wage, which changes every January — you need this year's minimum wage to turn it into a dollar figure.
- 3 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 Colorado. Every figure is quoted from Colorado’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.