What Is the Minimum Amount of Child Support in Colorado?

If your income is low, Colorado’s child support guideline does not simply run the formula and send you the bill. The law sets a floor, reduces the obligation for parents below a self-support reserve, and caps what the lowest earners pay. This page explains those rules as they stand after the March 1, 2026 changes, with worked examples.

One caution before the numbers. These rules key off the paying parent’s own adjusted gross income and interact with parenting time, so a calculator run is a starting point, not an answer.

Colorado child support is set on an income shares model, and the low-income rules sit inside that model. They change the paying parent’s number, not the way the combined obligation is found.

What Is the Bare Minimum Possible Child Support?

The minimum order in Colorado is $10 a month. It applies when the paying parent’s monthly adjusted gross income is $650 or less, regardless of what the other parent earns.¹ It does not change with the number of children.

If shared parenting time would produce a presumptive obligation under $10, that lower figure applies instead.

The next band is the reduced low-income adjustment. When the paying parent’s adjusted gross income is above $650 but no more than the self-support reserve, the basic obligation drops to a set amount. That amount is $50 a month for one child, $70 for two, $90 for three, $110 for four, $130 for five, and $150 for six or more.

The self-support reserve is the state minimum wage times 29 hours a week, times 50 weeks, divided by 12. With Colorado’s 2026 minimum wage of $15.16 an hour, that is about $1,832 a month.² The figure moves each January when the minimum wage changes.

Two guardrails apply in this band. Child care, health insurance, and extraordinary expense adjustments cannot push the total above 10 percent of the paying parent’s adjusted gross income. A parent with shared parenting time never owes more than that parent would with no overnights.

What If You Earn Just Above the Reserve?

Above the self-support reserve, the guideline phases the obligation in rather than jumping to the full schedule. The court subtracts the reserve from the paying parent’s adjusted gross income and multiplies the difference by a percentage. That percentage is 80 for one child, 85 for two, 89 for three, 92 for four, 94 for five, and 95 for six or more.

If that result is below the schedule amount, it becomes the basic obligation. If it meets or exceeds the schedule, the schedule applies.

There is also a 20 percent cap. It covers a paying parent earning more than the reserve but no more than full-time minimum wage, about $2,628 a month in 2026. For that parent, the final obligation including adjustments cannot exceed 20 percent of adjusted gross income.

Worked Examples

These examples are illustrations, not orders. They ignore the other parent’s income, parenting time, and expense adjustments, each of which changes the result.

• Parent earning $600 a month, two children: the $10 minimum order applies, because income is at or below $650.
• Parent earning $1,200 a month, one child: income is above $650 and below the reserve, so the basic obligation is reduced to $50. Expense adjustments cannot take the total above 10 percent of income, which is $120.
• Parent earning $2,200 a month, one child, no overnights: $2,200 minus the $1,832 reserve is $368, and 80 percent of that is about $294. If the schedule amount is higher, $294 becomes the basic obligation, and the total cannot exceed 20 percent of $2,200, which is $440.

Run your own figures in the Colorado child support calculator and treat the output as an estimate. The court uses verified income and the full worksheet.

Is There a Maximum Child Support Amount in Colorado?

The schedule of basic child support obligations now runs to a combined adjusted gross income of $40,000 a month. Above that, the judge has discretion, but the presumptive basic obligation cannot be less than it would be at the top of the schedule.

If you and your co-parent earn more than that combined, expect the court to start at the top of the schedule and explain any departure.

How Parenting Time Changes the Number

As of March 1, 2026, Colorado no longer uses a 93-overnight threshold. Every overnight earns a parenting time credit from a statutory table, from a fraction of a percent at one overnight to 50 percent at 182.5 overnights. The credit reduces each parent’s share of the basic obligation, and the parent who owes more pays the difference.

Work-related and education-related child care, the children’s share of health insurance, and extraordinary medical expenses over $250 per child per year are then added and divided in proportion to income. The paying parent gets credit for any of those costs paid directly.

Low-income rules are where calculators go wrong most often, because the reserve, the caps, and the overnight credit all interact. Johnson Law Group offers a no-pressure consultation to run your numbers the way the court will, so schedule a consultation before you rely on an online estimate.

When Can the Court Deviate From the Guideline?

The guideline amount is presumed correct, but the court can order a different amount when applying the guideline would be unfair. Reasons that come up include parenting time the overnight count does not capture, extraordinary travel costs for parenting time, and a large income disparity. A deviation requires written findings, and none of these factors produces a different number by itself.

Modification, Enforcement, and When Support Ends

A support order is not permanent. Either parent can ask for a modification when circumstances change in a substantial and continuing way, which includes income changes and shifts in the overnight schedule. The Colorado child support guidelines page explains how to file and what the court will want to see.

Unpaid support accrues as arrears and can be collected through income assignment, intercepts, and license actions, so do not stop paying without a court order. When the obligation ends is its own question, and when child support ends in Colorado covers the age 19 rule and its exceptions.

Talk With a Colorado Child Support Attorney

If you are facing a child support determination and your income is near the low-income bands, the details matter. Johnson Law Group is here to help.

The attorneys at Johnson Law Group help parents on both sides of the worksheet and will give you a clear read before anything is filed. Schedule a free consultation through our Colorado offices, and we will serve as your North Star from here.

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