Child support in Minnesota.
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 stateMinnesota
Minnesota combines both parents' gross incomes, called Parental Income for Determining Child Support, and reads a basic support figure off a table in the statute. Each parent owes a share proportional to their income. That share is then adjusted for how many overnights the child spends with each parent, and childcare and medical support are calculated separately and added on.
How Minnesota works out the number
Authority: Minnesota Statutes chapter 518A, particularly §§ 518A.29, 518A.32, 518A.34, 518A.35, 518A.36, 518A.40, 518A.41, 518A.42 and 518A.43Yes, and Minnesota's method is unlike anyone else's. Section 518A.36 does not use brackets. It cubes the number of annual overnights: "raise to the power of three the approximate number of annual overnights the child or children will likely spend with parent A" and the same for parent B, multiplies each result by that parent's income share, subtracts, and divides by the sum of the two cubed figures. Parenting time is "the percentage of time a child is scheduled to spend with the parent during a calendar year according to a court order averaged over a two-year period," and significant blocks of daytime care can count even without an overnight. If parenting time is equal and incomes are equal, no basic support is paid unless the court finds the expenses are not equally shared.
Use the state’s own calculator, not ours
Minnesota publishes this itself, free. It is called Child Support Guidelines Worksheet, with a Parenting Expense Adjustment Supplement, published with the state calculator. 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 Minnesota calculator →What goes into the calculation
What counts as income
Gross income includes salaries, wages, commissions, self-employment income, workers' compensation, unemployment benefits and spousal maintenance received. "No deductions shall be allowed for contributions to pensions, 401-K, IRA, or other retirement benefits." Self-employment income under § 518A.30 is "gross receipts minus costs of goods sold minus ordinary and necessary expenses," and accelerated depreciation and investment tax credits are specifically not deductible. Overtime can be excluded, but only if a tight set of conditions is met: the support order is already at the guideline amount, the extra work began after the case was filed, it reflects hours above the prior two years, it is voluntary, and it is hourly.
When a judge can treat you as earning more
Under § 518A.32, when a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed the court sets income by one of three routes: employment potential based on qualifications and the job market; the actual unemployment or workers' compensation benefits being received; or "30 hours per week at 100 percent of the current federal or state minimum wage." No income is imputed for temporary unemployment, a bona fide career change, incapacity, or while receiving TANF/MFIP.
If you do not earn much
Section 518A.42 sets a self-support reserve at "120 percent of the federal poverty guidelines" for one person, so the paying parent keeps that much before support is calculated. At the bottom of the § 518A.35 table, for combined parental income of $0 to $1,399 per month, basic support is $50 for one child, $60 for two, $70 for three, $80 for four, $90 for five and $100 for six.
Childcare and health insurance
Under § 518A.40, work-related or education-related childcare is "divided between the obligor and obligee based on their proportionate share of the parties' combined monthly PICS," then reduced for estimated federal and state childcare tax credits. Under § 518A.41, private health coverage is presumed affordable if the premium for the child "does not exceed five percent of the parents' combined monthly PICS," and "Unreimbursed and uninsured medical expenses are not included in the presumptive amount."
When a judge can depart from the number
Section 518A.43 sets out the grounds for deviating, and the court must make written findings explaining the deviation and how it serves "the best interests of the child."
Minnesota is the only state on this list that runs your overnights through a cubic formula, which means the adjustment is not linear. Going from 100 to 120 overnights changes your number far more than going from 20 to 40 does. Also worth knowing: Minnesota caps the guideline table at $20,000 a month of combined income, and a court can go above it only where "a child has a disability or other substantial, demonstrated need."
Later on
When it ends
Under § 518A.26 subd. 5, a "child" is someone under 18, someone under 20 who is still attending secondary school, or someone who cannot support themselves because of a physical or mental condition.
College and support after 18
Minnesota's definition of "child" does not extend to college. Support past 18 is limited to a child still in secondary school up to age 20, or a child incapable of self-support because of a physical or mental condition.
Changing the amount later
Section 518A.39 subd. 2 creates a presumption of a substantial change when "the application of the child support guidelines… results in a calculated court order that is at least 20 percent and at least $75 per month higher or lower than the current support order." There is a separate rebuttable presumption if "the gross income of an obligor or obligee has decreased by at least 20 percent through no fault or choice of the party."
How far back a change can reach
A modification "may be made retroactive only with respect to any period during which the petitioning party has pending a motion for modification but only from the date of service of notice of the motion on the responding party." In plain terms: the clock starts when you serve the papers, not when your income changed.
What we could not confirm
- We could not confirm the current dollar value of the self-support reserve, because it is 120% of the federal poverty guideline and resets every year. We also could not confirm from the statute how Minnesota handles private school, special needs or extracurricular costs, or what its enforcement tools are. The state's own calculator uses the current-year figures, so start there.
Compare all fifty states
The overnight thresholds, the ending ages and the college rules, side by side.