How New Jersey Calculates Child Support: The Sole-Parenting Worksheet

By the FigureMyTax Editorial Team · How we calculate

New Jersey subtracts withholding from each parent’s weekly gross income, adds the net incomes, reads the basic award in the Appendix IX-F schedule, adds supplemental costs and has the non-custodial parent pay his or her income share less direct payments.

Step 1: Gross taxable income and net income

Gross income is all recurring earned and unearned income, including wages, business income after ordinary expenses, interest, rents, bonuses, alimony received, benefits and imputed income. Mandatory retirement contributions are subtracted first (line 1a); the Appendix IX-H table then gives the combined federal, state, Social Security and Medicare withholding for the weekly adjusted gross taxable income and the number of eligible dependents (Appendix IX-H). Mandatory union dues and court-ordered support for other dependents are subtracted too (lines 2b and 2c), and non-taxable income is added back (line 4). The result is weekly net income (line 6).

Step 2: Shares and the basic award

Add the two net incomes and divide each by the total for the income shares, rounded to two decimal places (line 7). Look up the basic award for the number of children in the Appendix IX-F schedule at the combined net income; schedule incomes are in $10 steps, and an amount of $5 or more goes to the next higher step (a combined $446 uses $450, a combined $444 uses $440) (Appendix IX-B, line 8).

Step 3: Supplemental expenses

Net work-related child care for a child under 13 (after federal and New Jersey tax credits), the child’s share of the health insurance premium, predictable and recurring unreimbursed health care above $250 per child a year and court-approved extraordinary expenses are added to the basic award (line 13). The non-custodial parent’s direct payments of those costs are credited against his or her share (lines 16 to 19).

Step 4: The order

Each parent’s share of the total is the income share times line 13 (line 14). The non-custodial parent’s net obligation is his or her share less the credits and any parenting-time adjustment (line 21), tested against the self-support reserve (lines 25 to 27).

A worked example

Two children; the custodial parent grosses $1,000 a week with two eligible dependents and the non-custodial parent $2,000 with none.

If the custodial parent pays $100 of net child care and the non-custodial parent $40 of the children’s health insurance, the order becomes $372. The New Jersey child support calculator reproduces both.

What to gather

Pay stubs, W-2s and tax returns, case information statements and records of child care, insurance and other support orders.

The parenting-time adjustment

The court may grant the non-custodial parent an adjustment equal to the basic award times his or her share of overnights times 0.37, the share of child-rearing costs that are variable (food and transportation). With 52 overnights it is $27 in the example, lowering the order to $298. It is not presumptive if the custodial household would fall below 200% of the poverty guideline.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• Appendix IX-B: use of the child support guidelines (sole and shared parenting)
• Appendix IX-F: Schedule of Child Support Awards (effective September 1, 2025)
• Appendix IX-H: combined tax withholding tables

This is general information, not legal advice. It is based on the cited New Jersey statutes, rules and court opinions, and every case turns on its own facts. Confirm how the law applies to your situation with a licensed New Jersey attorney.