UK Work out your figure first
Before reading further, you can get an estimate in about thirty seconds with our free child maintenance calculator, which implements the statutory formula described below including shared-care and other-children reductions.
The official service is the GOV.UK child maintenance calculator, and the CMS itself is the only authoritative source for a binding assessment.
The five rates
Everything turns on the paying parent's gross weekly income — before tax, after pension contributions. There are five bands:
Nil rate — income below £7 a week, or the parent is a student, a prisoner, or aged 16-19 in full-time non-advanced education. Nothing is payable.
Flat rate — £7 a week, where gross weekly income is between £7 and £100, or the parent receives certain benefits.
Reduced rate — where gross weekly income is between £100.01 and £199.99. This is £7 plus a percentage of income above £100: 17% for one child, 25% for two, 31% for three or more.
Basic rate — where gross weekly income is between £200 and £800: 12% for one child, 16% for two, 19% for three or more.
Basic rate plus — for income between £800.01 and £3,000, the basic rate applies to the first £800, then a lower percentage applies to the remainder: 9% for one child, 12% for two, 15% for three or more. Income above £3,000 a week is outside the formula; the receiving parent can apply to court for a top-up order.
The two reductions that change the answer most
Shared care. If the child stays overnight with the paying parent, the amount falls on a banded scale: 52 to 103 nights a year cuts it by one seventh, 104 to 155 nights by two sevenths, 156 to 174 nights by three sevenths, and 175 or more nights halves it and then deducts a further £7 per child per week.
Because the bands are wide, a handful of extra nights can change nothing at all — or move you across a threshold and change the figure noticeably. That is a genuine and uncomfortable feature of the system: it creates an incentive to argue about nights for financial rather than parenting reasons. Most people are better off agreeing what actually suits the child and treating the money as a separate conversation.
Other children living with the paying parent. Gross income is reduced before the percentages are applied: by 11% for one other child, 14% for two, and 16% for three or more.
Private arrangement, Direct Pay, or Collect and Pay
A family-based arrangement is simply an agreement between the two of you. It is free, flexible and not legally enforceable. For parents who communicate reasonably, it is usually the best option.
Direct Pay means the CMS calculates the amount but you arrange payment between yourselves. There is an application fee, currently £20, but no ongoing charges.
Collect and Pay means the CMS collects and passes on the money. It costs: the paying parent is charged a percentage on top of the maintenance, and a percentage is deducted from what the receiving parent gets. It exists for cases where payment is not reliably happening, and the fees are the price of enforcement.
Fees and thresholds are reviewed periodically, so confirm current figures on GOV.UK before relying on them.
Northern Ireland and the rest of the picture
Northern Ireland operates its own Child Maintenance Service through nidirect, using broadly the same formula but administered separately.
Child maintenance is separate from spousal maintenance, and separate again from arrangements about where a child lives. Paying maintenance does not buy contact, and refusing contact does not excuse non-payment — the two are legally independent, however unfair that feels in the moment.
If maintenance is one part of a wider financial settlement, it usually belongs alongside a consent order so that everything else is properly closed off.
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