Child support in Texas.
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 stateTexas
Texas looks only at the paying parent's monthly net resources and applies a flat percentage based on how many children are before the court. Twenty percent for one child, rising five points per child to forty percent for five or more. The receiving parent's income does not enter the formula at all. What makes Texas distinctive is the cap: the percentages apply only up to a maximum amount of net resources, which is adjusted for inflation every six years.
How Texas works out the number
Authority: Texas Family Code chapter 154, particularly §§ 154.062, 154.125 and 154.129; the adjusted maximum net resources amount is published by the Office of the Attorney General in the Texas Register under § 154.125(a-1)No. Texas guideline child support does not change with the number of overnights. The percentage applies regardless of the possession schedule, and the state's own calculator does not even ask how much time the child spends with each parent. Possession time can be raised as a reason to depart from the guideline amount under § 154.123, but there is no built-in credit.
Use the state’s own calculator, not ours
Texas publishes this itself, free. It is called The Office of the Attorney General publishes the Monthly Child Support Calculator and annual Tax Charts rather than a fill-in guideline worksheet.. 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 Texas calculator →What goes into the calculation
What counts as income
Net resources start from monthly gross income, from employment or self-employment, and subtract Social Security (OASDI) and Medicare taxes, federal income tax, state income tax, union dues, and the cost of the children's health insurance and dental insurance premiums. Overtime, bonuses and second-job earnings are part of gross income; they are not carved out. Self-employment income is included.
When a judge can treat you as earning more
Texas Family Code § 154.066 allows a court to base support on a parent's earning potential rather than actual income when the parent is intentionally unemployed or underemployed. We could not open the official statute text to confirm the exact wording of that standard.
If you do not earn much
Texas has a separate lower set of guideline percentages for low-income obligors. The Attorney General's 2026 Tax Charts confirm that § 154.125(c) contains "a different set of percentages… for low-income obligors, who are defined as obligors whose monthly net resources are less than $1,000." The official calculator applies these automatically to actions filed on or after September 1, 2021.
Childcare and health insurance
The children's health insurance premiums and dental insurance premiums are deducted from the paying parent's net resources before the percentage is applied, which is a different mechanism from the income-shares states. Medical support and dental support are treated as separate obligations from child support. Texas guidelines do not add work-related childcare into the base calculation.
The number that changes most often is the cap, and it just moved: effective September 1, 2025, "the guidelines for the support of a child apply to situations in which the obligor's monthly net resources are not greater than $11,700.00." That is a big jump, and it means high earners in Texas now owe meaningfully more than they did before. The other thing that catches people off guard is that Texas gives you no credit for overnights. You can have the children half the time and still owe the full percentage unless a judge agrees to depart from the guideline.
Later on
When it ends
"Child support generally continues until the child's 18th birthday or until the child graduates from high school, whichever occurs later."
College and support after 18
We could not confirm whether a court here can order support for college.
Changing the amount later
A parent may qualify for a modification if "it has been three years since the child support order was created or modified; and the amount you currently pay differs by 20 percent or $100 from the amount you would pay based on your current income." A material and substantial change in circumstances is the alternative route.
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.
If someone stops paying
The Attorney General's handbook confirms that "Interest is charged on unpaid child support" and that jail is a possible consequence of non-payment.
What we could not confirm
- The Texas Legislature's statute site refused automated access, so we could not read chapter 154 directly. That means we could not confirm: the full list of deviation factors under § 154.123; the exact imputed-income standard under § 154.066; how the reduced percentages work when a parent supports children in more than one household under § 154.129; how far back retroactive support can reach; whether and how support continues for a disabled adult child; and whether Texas suspends licenses for non-payment. The guideline percentages (20% for one child rising to 40% for five or more) and the $11,700 cap are confirmed from official Attorney General and Texas Register publications.
- 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 Texas. Every figure is quoted from Texas’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.