We use information given to us by both parents to decide if someone has to pay child maintenance and to work out the amount of maintenance that should be paid. We may also use information from other sources, including the non-resident parent's employer or HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) — which used to be the Inland Revenue.
We work out child maintenance by applying one of four rates to the non-resident parent's income. Income is earnings, money from an occupational or personal pension, and tax credits. We use the amount of income left after things like income tax, National Insurance and any money paid into a pension scheme have been taken off. This does not apply if the pension is set up to pay off a mortgage, when only 75% of the money paid into the pension scheme is taken away from the non-resident parent's income.
The four rates we apply to the non-resident parent's income are:
- basic rate (if they have an income of £200 a week or more)
- reduced rate (if they have an income of more than £100 and less than £200 a week)
- flat rate (if they have an income of between £5 and £100 a week)
- nil rate (if they have an income of less than £5 a week).
We can then adjust the child maintenance based on:
- the number of other children who are living with the non-resident parent, who they or their partner get Child Benefit for (a regular payment made to anyone bringing up children)
- the number of children the non-resident parent needs to pay child maintenance for
- whether the child stays with the non-resident parent at least one night each week.
For more information about the other factors that can affect maintenance, how we work out
child maintenance and for details of our four rates, read How is
child maintenance worked out?
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You can also use our current scheme online calculator to see how much maintenance might be payable.
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