Who Pays for Activities? Extracurricular Expenses in Colorado Parenting Plans

Colorado child support does not split activity costs for you. Whatever your agreement or order says is what you can enforce, and without a clause there is no default share.

Ski lessons at Keystone, travel soccer, robotics camp. The costs add up fast, and across two households the question of who pays turns into a negotiation nobody planned for.

The answer starts somewhere most parents do not expect. Colorado’s child support guideline does not allocate ordinary activity costs, so if your paperwork is silent, there is no percentage to fall back on.

That does not mean the other parent contributes nothing. The basic support obligation is built to cover the ordinary costs of raising a child, so what is missing is a separate share of the activity itself.

What Colorado Child Support Actually Covers

The guideline calculates a basic support obligation from both parents’ incomes and the overnight schedule, then makes specific adjustments. Those adjustments include work-related child care, health insurance, extraordinary medical expenses, and certain school and transportation costs.¹ Ordinary extracurricular activities are not one of them.

The statute is pointed about this. In defining the mandatory school fees that can be adjusted for, it says the term does not include uniforms, meals, or extracurricular activity fees.

The guideline itself was rewritten in 2025, with the changes taking effect in March 2026.² That rewrite changed how overnights feed the calculation, and it did not turn activity costs into a guideline category.

So activity costs sit outside the basic calculation. That calculation runs on both incomes and the overnight count, and Colorado child support turns on those two inputs before any activity is considered.

Your Agreement or Order Governs

This is the part worth reading twice. Because the guideline does not allocate these costs, the obligation comes from your parenting plan or a court order, and nowhere else.

If the plan says each parent pays a stated share, that is the obligation. If it sets a dollar threshold requiring agreement above it, that is the obligation. If it says nothing at all, neither parent owes the other a separate contribution.

That last scenario is where most of the arguments come from. A parent enrolls a child, assumes the other will share the cost, and discovers there was never anything requiring it.

Courts can allocate these costs when asked, by agreement or by order. A court doing so either treats the cost as an extraordinary educational expense under the guideline or deviates from the guideline amount, and a deviation requires findings explaining why. What they will not do is read a split into a plan that does not contain one.

Timing matters more than parents expect. Support is modified only as to installments accruing after the motion is filed, so costs you already covered alone are generally not recoverable.³ The same prospective rule shapes how parenting time and child support interact.

If Your Plan Does Set a Share

Plans usually pick one of two approaches, and both are worth understanding before you agree to either.

Proportional to income

Each parent pays a percentage matching their share of the parents’ combined income. Where the guideline does divide a cost this way, it uses adjusted gross income, which is gross income less preexisting child support obligations and less maintenance actually paid.

Take two parents with adjusted gross monthly incomes of $5,000 and $3,000, so $8,000 combined. The first parent’s share is 62.5 percent and the second’s is 37.5 percent, which on an $800 activity means $500 and $300.

That arithmetic only applies if your plan says it does, and only to the figure your plan names. A plan that says gross income produces a different answer from one that says adjusted gross income, which is why the wording matters.

An equal split

Some plans divide activity costs equally regardless of income. This suits parents who earn similar amounts, or who simply prefer a rule that needs no annual recalculation.

The trade-off appears when incomes diverge later. An equal split that felt fair at the outset can become the thing one parent wants to revisit, so it is worth deciding now how that conversation would happen.

Plan silent on activity costs?

If your paperwork does not address this, neither of you has an obligation you can enforce. Schedule a free consultation with Johnson Law Group and we will look at what your plan says and what it would take to change it.

The Five Terms Worth Writing Down

A plan that addresses activity costs properly answers five questions. Each one is a dispute you are preventing.

First, who decides. Does either parent enroll the child alone, or does enrollment above a threshold need both to agree? Second, what the cap is, whether that is an annual total, a per-activity limit, or both.

Third, how the cost splits, naming the method and the income figure it uses. Fourth, how much notice the enrolling parent gives before signing up and committing the other to a share.

Fifth, when reimbursement is due, counted from a stated event such as the date a receipt is sent. A deadline without a trigger is the clause that produces the next argument.

These sit alongside the other terms in a Colorado parenting plan, and they are easier to negotiate before a season starts than after a deposit is paid.

Who Decides Which Activities?

Enrollment is usually a decision-making question rather than a money question, and the two are allocated separately. Decision-making responsibility covers the major areas, and a plan can allocate it mutually or to one parent in a particular area.⁴ Activities often sit with education or are named on their own.

If your plan gives one parent decision-making over activities, that parent can enroll. Whether the other parent has to contribute is a separate question, answered by the payment terms. That is why Colorado child custody arrangements and payment clauses need to be read together.

Where parents share decision-making and cannot agree, some plans alternate who chooses by year or by season. Others name a tie-breaker for this category specifically.

When the Other Parent Will Not Pay

Keep records as you go rather than assembling them later. Registration receipts and payment confirmations, equipment purchases, travel costs for competitions, coaching fees, and facility or membership dues all belong in one place.

Keep the notifications too. The texts and emails where you told the other parent about the cost and asked for their share are what show you followed the plan’s notice terms.

Where the plan does set an obligation and it is not being met, a motion to enforce is the route. A court can order payment of the overdue amount, reimbursement of what you covered alone, and compliance going forward, and it can award attorney fees.⁵ An award of fees considers the parties’ financial resources.

The limiting factor is almost always the plan itself. Enforcement works where there is a term to enforce, and it is the parents with vague language who end up back in court repeatedly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Colorado child support cover extracurricular activities?

Not automatically. The guideline calculates a basic obligation and makes specific adjustments, and ordinary activity costs are not one of them. The statute even excludes extracurricular activity fees from the mandatory school fees it does adjust for.

My parenting plan says nothing about activity costs. What is my co-parent’s share?

There is no default share. If neither your plan nor a court order allocates these costs, neither parent has an enforceable obligation to contribute beyond basic support. A court can allocate them going forward if asked, but it will not read a split into a plan that does not have one.

Is the split based on gross income?

It depends on what your plan says. Where the guideline divides a cost in proportion to income, it uses adjusted gross income, meaning gross income less preexisting child support obligations and less maintenance actually paid. A plan that says gross income produces a different number.

Do I need my co-parent’s agreement before enrolling our child?

That is a decision-making question, and your plan answers it. Many plans require agreement above a dollar threshold, and some give one parent authority over activities. Note that authority to enroll is separate from any obligation on the other parent to help pay.

My income dropped. Can the split be changed?

Support is modified only on a showing of changed circumstances that are substantial and continuing. A recalculation producing less than a ten percent change is deemed not to meet that standard. Modification also reaches only installments accruing after you file, so acting early matters.

Talk With a Colorado Family Law Attorney

Most of the conflict here is avoidable, and it is avoided in the drafting rather than in the argument. Five clear terms in a parenting plan prevent years of negotiating each registration on its own.

Johnson Law Group works with parents on parenting plans and support across the state, and you can learn more about our approach on our Colorado family law page. You can find our offices in Denver, Colorado Springs, Commerce City, Englewood, and Fort Collins. You can also read about the background and experience of the attorneys on our team.

Schedule a free consultation and we will help you put terms in place that hold up.

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