How Child Support Is Calculated in Colorado

Colorado's child support guidelines estimate the share of the parents' combined adjusted gross income that would have gone to the child in an intact household, adjust for extraordinary medical expenses and work-related child care, and allocate the total between the parents by income (an income shares approach). The Judicial Branch provides free Family Law Software to calculate child support and maintenance and print worksheets.

Apply to Colorado Child Support Services (CSS), part of the Colorado Department of Human Services; county child support offices manage the individual cases. Applying online is free, with no application fee, and an unfinished online application is saved for 60 days if you create an account. You can also print the Application for Child Support Services (English or Spanish) and mail it to your county child support office.

Unless a court finds a child emancipated earlier, child support ends automatically, without a motion, when the last or only child turns 19. Exceptions: the parents may agree otherwise in a written stipulation; the court or child support unit may order support to continue past 19 for a mentally or physically disabled child; and if the child is still in high school or an equivalent program, support continues until the end of the month after graduation (a child who drops out and later re-enrolls can receive support until the end of the month after graduation, but not past 21). A child who marries or enters active military duty is considered emancipated. Parents may also agree in writing to pay postsecondary education expenses.

Child support can be modified only for payments due after the motion is filed, and only on a showing of substantial and continuing changed circumstances (or because the order lacks a medical support provision). If applying the guidelines to current circumstances would change support by less than 10% a month, that is not considered a substantial and continuing change. Through the child support program, a review can be requested at any time, for example after a child emancipates, an income change, a change in child care or health costs, a change in overnights, or three years since the last review. Requests must be made in writing to the county child support office, with an Income and Expense Affidavit and supporting documents; a review can take up to six months.

Unpaid child support does not go away and can accrue interest. Colorado Child Support Services can enforce orders through income withholding, suspension and denial of driver's licenses and recreational licenses, tax refund and other payment intercepts, credit bureau reporting, and court actions. By statute, interest on support owed on or after July 1, 2021 is 2% above the statutory rate and may be compounded annually (it was 4% above the statutory rate, compounded monthly, before then); the person owed may waive it, and the paying parent can ask the court to disallow interest for good cause.

The Colorado Child Support Services Program (Colorado Division of Child Support Services, with cases managed by county child support offices) sets up child support and medical support orders, collects child support payments and changes existing orders. Apply, make a payment, or log in or create an account through the program's website.

The Colorado Judicial Branch's "Calculate Support Payments" self-help page directs people to the Family Law Software child support and maintenance calculator, which runs in a web browser and produces printable worksheets (create an account and select Colorado; the page says not to click "Free Trial"). Child support worksheets can also be downloaded from the court's forms page and completed by hand, which the page calls rare. Support is governed by C.R.S. 14-10-115.