Child support in Georgia.
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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Georgia adds both parents' adjusted gross incomes together, looks up a single "basic child support obligation" for that combined figure and the number of children, then splits it between the parents in proportion to what each one earns. Work-related child care and the children's health insurance premiums are added on top and split the same way. A parenting time adjustment and, for lower earners, a low-income adjustment are then applied automatically.
How Georgia works out the number
Authority: O.C.G.A. § 19-6-15, as rewritten by SB 454 (Act 618, 2024), with the parenting-time and low-income adjustments effective January 1, 2026; Basic Child Support Obligation table effective July 1, 2024; Uniform Superior Court Rule 24.2AAs of January 1, 2026 this is a mandatory formula, not a judge's discretionary call. The statute raises each parent's number of court-ordered days to the power of 2.5, weights each parent's share of the basic obligation by that figure, and nets the two. In the state calculator the two parents' days must total 365 and the noncustodial parent cannot be entered above 182.5 days. There is no threshold to cross — every day counts.
Use the state’s own calculator, not ours
Georgia publishes this itself, free. It is called Georgia Child Support Worksheet, with Schedules A–E (Schedule C carries the parenting time adjustment; the low-income adjustment appears on line 11 of the works. 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 Georgia calculator →What goes into the calculation
What counts as income
Gross income is "all income from any source, before deductions," and the statute names salaries, commissions, bonuses, overtime, self-employment income, pensions, interest, dividends, Social Security disability, workers' compensation, unemployment benefits and gifts of liquid assets. Self-employment income is "gross receipts minus ordinary and reasonable expenses required for self-employment or business operations," and the court will not accept excessive depreciation or personal living costs run through a business. A second job's earnings fall inside "all income from any source."
When a judge can treat you as earning more
If a parent does not hand over reliable proof of income, the court may impute it, looking at "the parent's assets, residence, employment and earnings history, job skills, educational attainment, literacy, age, health, criminal record and other employment barriers" plus the local job market. Georgia does not set a fixed minimum-wage floor for imputation.
If you do not earn much
As of January 1, 2026 the low-income deviation was replaced by an automatic low-income adjustment. The Child Support Commission describes it as a "failsafe for preventing a child support obligation from exceeding 19%, 24%, 25%, 26%, 27% and 28% of a parent's adjusted gross income in cases with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 children, respectively." The calculator applies it in the background using the table in O.C.G.A. § 19-6-15(p).
Childcare and health insurance
Work-related child care and the children's portion of health insurance premiums are added to the basic obligation as "additional expenses" and prorated between the parents by income share. Only premiums a parent actually pays count — coverage the employer pays for and does not deduct from wages does not.
Private school, special needs, activities
Handled as deviations. Educational deviations cover tuition, room, board and fees for "special needs education or private elementary and secondary schooling," net of scholarships and grants. Extraordinary medical deviations cover "extreme economic hardship involving extraordinary medical expenses not covered by insurance," ordered for a set period. Special expenses — summer camp, music lessons, extracurriculars — support a deviation only once they exceed 7 percent of the basic child support obligation.
When a judge can depart from the number
The guideline amount is presumed correct; a judge who departs must make written findings explaining the deviation and why the guideline figure would be unjust or inappropriate.
The big one: on January 1, 2026 Georgia turned parenting time from something a judge could adjust for into a mathematical formula the calculator runs automatically, and did the same for the low-income adjustment. Orders calculated before that date used a different method. The second surprise is the two-year waiting period between modifications filed by the same parent — plan around it.
Later on
When it ends
Support runs "until the child reaches the age of majority, dies, marries, or becomes emancipated, whichever first occurs." A court may extend it while the child is still enrolled in and has not completed secondary school, but not past age 20.
College and support after 18
Georgia's statute allows continuation only through secondary school and no later than age 20. It does not give a court general power to order college support.
Changing the amount later
You need "a substantial change in either parent's income and financial status or the needs of the child." On top of that, the same parent generally cannot file again within two years of a prior modification — unless parenting time was not exercised, parenting time increased beyond what the order provided, or that parent involuntarily lost 25 percent or more of their income.
How far back a change can reach
We could not confirm this state’s rule on how far back an order or a change can be applied. It matters: in some states the clock starts the day you file, so filing late costs money you do not get back.
What we could not confirm
- We could not pull the actual dollar rows of the low-income adjustment table out of the statute PDF, and we could not confirm on an official Georgia source how far back a new or modified order can reach, or the state's rules on license suspension and interest on arrears. The state calculator will apply the low-income table for you.
- 1 official page 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 Georgia. Every figure is quoted from Georgia’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.