Child support in Connecticut.
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 stateConnecticut
Connecticut adds both parents' weekly net incomes together, looks that combined figure up on a published schedule to find what the family as a whole should be spending on the children, then splits that amount between the parents in proportion to their incomes. The parent the children do not primarily live with pays their share to the other parent. Health insurance premiums for the children and work-related child care are added on as separate shares.
How Connecticut works out the number
Authority: Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-215a (Commission for Child Support Guidelines) and the Child Support and Arrearage Guidelines codified at Regs., Conn. State Agencies §§ 46b-215a-1 through 46b-215a-6. A revised set of guidelines took effect August 1, 2026 – confirmed in the Commission's own May 7, 2026 mConnecticut does not use an overnight count. Shared physical custody means the child has 'substantially equal time and contact with both parents,' and the regulation adds that 'an exactly equal sharing of physical care and control of the child is not required.' When it applies, 'the presumptive current support order shall equal the presumptive current support amount of the parent with the higher net weekly income, payable to the parent with the lower net weekly income.' Shared custody is treated as a deviation criterion, not an automatic recalculation, and the 2026 revision added language about deviating where doing so 'would enhance the lower income parent's ability to foster a relationship' with the child.
Use the state’s own calculator, not ours
Connecticut publishes this itself, free. It is called CCSG-1, Worksheet for the Connecticut Child Support and Arrearage Guidelines (a companion CCSG-1A worksheet was added in the 2026 revision for cases with more t. 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 Connecticut calculator →What goes into the calculation
What counts as income
Gross income means earned and unearned income from essentially all sources, and it explicitly includes 'salary; hourly wages for regular, overtime and additional employment not to exceed 45 total paid hours per week; commissions, bonuses and tips,' plus self-employment earnings after reasonable business expenses, pensions, rental income and more. The 45-hour cap is the thing to notice: overtime and second-job hours count, but only up to a combined 45 paid hours a week in the base calculation. Hours between 45 and 52 can still be brought in by the judge as a reason to depart from the guideline number. Deductions are then subtracted to reach net income, which is what the schedule actually uses.
When a judge can treat you as earning more
The regulations themselves do not set out a general earning-capacity formula for a parent. Earning capacity appears instead in the deviation criteria at § 46b-215a-5c – a judge who finds a parent has more earning capacity than their current paycheck shows can depart from the guideline figure on that basis. Connecticut case law has long allowed support to be set on earning capacity rather than actual income.
If you do not earn much
Connecticut builds the low-income protection into the schedule itself rather than publishing a single dollar reserve. A 'low-income obligor' is defined as a parent whose net disposable income falls 'within the darker shaded area of the schedule'; for those parents the shaded-block amount is the whole basic obligation and the usual income-proportion step is skipped. There are also caps on what a low-income parent can be asked to contribute toward child care, and a rule that current support plus arrearage payments generally may not exceed 55% of that parent's net income.
Childcare and health insurance
Both are separate add-ons, allocated by each parent's share of combined net disposable income. Every award must include a provision for one or both parents to contribute to the children's health care coverage, and orders address unreimbursed medical and dental costs. Low-income obligors get a reduced child care share.
Private school, special needs, activities
Handled through the deviation criteria in § 46b-215a-5c, which list 'extraordinary child expenses' – education expenses, unreimbursable medical expenses, and special-needs expenses – as well as extraordinary parental expenses.
When a judge can depart from the number
The guideline amount is a rebuttable presumption. A judge may depart only on a written finding, or a specific finding on the record, that applying the guidelines would be inequitable or inappropriate, and only for one of the listed criteria: other financial resources (including earning capacity and overtime between 45 and 52 hours), extraordinary child expenses, extraordinary parental expenses, hardship to the obligor or the obligor's dependents, a substantial and continuing change in circumstances, special circumstances including shared physical custody, and coordination of total family support.
Two things to watch. First, Connecticut's guidelines were rewritten effective August 1, 2026 – the income schedule now runs to $6,000 in combined weekly net income instead of $4,000, so a number you calculated even a few months ago may be out of date. Second, the 45-paid-hours-a-week cap means a second job or steady overtime does not automatically raise your support the way it would in most states, though a judge can still take those extra hours into account.
Later on
When it ends
Support runs to 18. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-84 extends it for an unmarried child who is 'a full-time high school student' living with a parent until the child completes 'the twelfth grade or attain[s] the age of nineteen, whichever occurs first.' Since October 1, 2023 a court may also order support for a child with an intellectual, mental or physical disability 'until such child attains the age of twenty-six.'
College and support after 18
Connecticut is one of the few states where a court can order parents to help pay for college, through an educational support order. That authority is Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-56c. We could not open the statute text on the legislature's website to quote the age cap and the University of Connecticut cost cap, so confirm those details with a Connecticut lawyer or the court's law library before relying on them.
Changing the amount later
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-86 governs. The usual trigger is a substantial change in circumstances, and the statute also allows modification where the existing order substantially deviates from the guidelines. We were not able to open the statute to quote the exact percentage language, so treat any specific figure you see elsewhere as unverified.
How far back a change can reach
Connecticut ties a modification to the date the motion was served on the other parent, not the date your income changed. We could not open § 46b-86 to quote it, so file the motion as soon as your circumstances change rather than waiting.
If someone stops paying
The Office of Child Support Services within the Department of Social Services runs collection. We did not find an official published page confirming license-suspension or interest-on-arrears rules, so none are stated here.
What we could not confirm
- The Judicial Branch's printed guidelines booklet – the document most Connecticut lawyers actually work from – would not open for us, so we could not read the final adopted August 1, 2026 text or the new schedule tables. The figures above come from the state's own adopted regulation and the Commission's draft regulation and minutes. Before you rely on a number, ask the court clerk or a lawyer for the current printed guidelines booklet. We also could not confirm the exact wording of the college-support statute (§ 46b-56c) or the modification statute (§ 46b-86).
- 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.