Child support in Wisconsin.
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 stateWisconsin
Wisconsin applies a flat percentage to the paying parent's monthly income, set not by statute but by an administrative rule the Department of Children and Families writes. The other parent's income does not enter the basic calculation. Wisconsin then bends the rule in three directions: down for low-income payers, down again for high earners, and sideways into a shared-placement formula when both parents have significant time.
How Wisconsin works out the number
Authority: Wis. Admin. Code ch. DCF 150 (the child support percentage of income standard), promulgated by the Department of Children and Families under Wis. Stat. § 49.22(9) and applied by courts under Wis. Stat. § 767.511(1j)Yes, at 25 percent of the year — 92 overnights. Once a parent has placement at least that often, the shared-placement formula applies: each parent's obligation is calculated with a 150 percent multiplier "to account for increased costs" of maintaining two households, prorated by the share of time, and then offset against the other's. Actual overnight care is required — the rule counts overnights, not daytime hours. Where each parent has placement of different children, split-placement percentages are prorated instead (for two children, 12.5 percent each).
Use the state’s own calculator, not ours
Wisconsin publishes this itself, free. It is called Shared-Placement Worksheet and Split-Placement Worksheet, published by the Department of Children and Families to estimate support under DCF 150. 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 Wisconsin calculator →What goes into the calculation
What counts as income
Gross income includes "wages, salaries, earnings, tips, interest, capital gains, commissions and bonuses," plus worker's compensation, unemployment insurance, income continuation benefits and Social Security Disability payments. Bonuses are named expressly and overtime and second-job wages fall within wages and earnings. Gross income does not include child support received, SSI, or W-2 cash payments. The court may also look at ability to earn, weighing "past earnings," "current physical and mental health," "education and training," and "work experience and local job openings."
When a judge can treat you as earning more
Two routes. The court may impute income based on earning capacity, using past earnings, health, education and training, work experience and local job openings. Separately, and less commonly seen elsewhere, the court may impute income "from assets such as life insurance, cash and deposit accounts, stocks and bonds, business interests" — so a parent sitting on non-earning assets can be treated as generating income from them.
If you do not earn much
The percentage standard is 17 percent of income for one child, 25 percent for two, 29 percent for three, 31 percent for four and 34 percent for five or more. Reduced rates apply to low-income payers, keyed to the federal poverty level, with court discretion at the lowest incomes. As one Department of Children and Families illustration, a payer at $1,595 a month would owe roughly $271 to $542 depending on the number of children. At the other end, on income above $7,000 a month the percentages fall — $7,000 to $12,500 uses 14, 20, 23, 25 and 27 percent, and income above $12,500 uses 10, 15, 17, 19 and 20 percent.
Childcare and health insurance
Neither is a guideline add-on. For medical support, "Either parent or both parents may be ordered to enroll the children in a health insurance plan if the parent's cost for the policy is not more than 10% of the parent's monthly income," and the court may adjust support to account for insurance the paying parent carries. Childcare is not built into the percentages; it is handled through the court's deviation power.
Private school, special needs, activities
Handled as deviation factors under Wis. Stat. § 767.511(1m), which lists "The child's educational needs," "The physical, mental, and emotional health needs of the child, including any costs for health insurance," "The cost of child care if the custodian works outside the home," and "Extraordinary travel expenses incurred in exercising the right to periods of physical placement."
When a judge can depart from the number
Wis. Stat. § 767.511(1m): on a party's request the court may depart if, after weighing the listed factors, "the court finds by the greater weight of the credible evidence that use of the percentage standard is unfair to the child or to any of the parties." Section 767.511(1n) then requires the court to "state in writing or on the record the amount of support that would be required by using the percentage standard, the amount by which the court's order deviates from that amount, its reasons for finding that use of the percentage standard is unfair… its reasons for the amount of the modification and the basis for the modification."
Two things surprise Wisconsin parents. The rules that set your number are not in the statute books at all — they are an administrative rule, DCF 150, written by a state agency, and they change on the agency's schedule, not the legislature's. And after 33 months, the law presumes your circumstances have changed enough to justify a fresh look, so either parent can reopen the number without proving much of anything.
Later on
When it ends
Wis. Stat. § 767.511(4): the court orders support "for the support of any child of the parties who is less than 18 years old, or any child of the parties who is less than 19 years old if the child is pursuing an accredited course of instruction leading to the acquisition of a high school diploma or its equivalent."
College and support after 18
No. Wisconsin's statute limits ordered support to children under 18, or under 19 while finishing high school. There is no statutory authority for a court to order college contributions. A written agreement between the parents is the only route.
Changing the amount later
Wis. Stat. § 767.59 requires a substantial change in circumstances, and creates presumptions. Unless support was expressed as a percentage of income, "the expiration of 33 months after the date of the entry of the last child support order" is itself a rebuttable presumption of substantial change. Other presumptions arise when either parent begins receiving W-2 or AFDC benefits or when a payer fails to make required financial disclosure. The court may also find substantial change from a change in the payer's income or earning capacity or in the child's needs.
How far back a change can reach
Section 767.59(1m): "the court may not revise the amount of child support… prior to the date that notice of the action is given to the respondent, except to correct previous errors in calculations."
If someone stops paying
Unpaid support draws interest under Wis. Stat. § 767.511(6): a party "shall pay simple interest at the rate of 1 percent per month on any amount in arrears that is equal to or greater than the amount of child support due in one month." Payments are applied first to current support, then to past-due support, then to interest. Support is collected by assignment of income under § 767.75. Wisconsin also provides for suspension of a delinquent payer's operating privilege, with the court able to leave the person eligible for an occupational license.
What we could not confirm
- The exact income band for Wisconsin's low-income payer schedule is described slightly differently in two of the state's own publications — one says reduced rates run from 75 to 125 percent of the federal poverty level, another says up to 150 percent — and the underlying rule pages would not open for us. The dollar figures also update every year with the poverty guidelines. Get the current low-income schedule from the Department of Children and Families worksheet before relying on a number.
- 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.
The rest of what we have written about Wisconsin. Every figure is quoted from Wisconsin’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.