How is child support calculated in North Carolina?

Gross income

The guidelines start from each parent’s actual gross income from any source, including wages, self-employment income after ordinary and necessary business expenses, Social Security, unemployment, and disability benefits. Means-tested public assistance such as TANF and SSI is excluded.

If the court finds that a parent’s voluntary unemployment or underemployment results from bad faith or deliberate suppression of income to avoid or minimize support, it may use the parent’s potential income instead. Incarceration may not be treated as voluntary unemployment.

Which worksheet

Worksheet A (AOC-CV-627) applies when one parent or a third party has the child 243 nights or more a year. Worksheet B (AOC-CV-628) applies when the child lives with each parent at least 123 nights a year and each parent assumes financial responsibility for the child’s expenses during that time; the combined basic obligation is multiplied by 1.5. Worksheet C (AOC-CV-629) applies when each parent has primary custody of at least one child.

Added expenses

Work-related child care and the cost of the children’s health insurance are added to the basic obligation and prorated by income. The basic obligation already includes $250 per child per year for uninsured medical and dental costs, and the court may allocate costs above that amount.

Deviation and updates

The guideline amount is presumed correct. On its own motion or a party’s motion, the court may deviate from it if, after hearing evidence, it finds by the greater weight of the evidence that the guideline amount would not meet or would exceed the child’s reasonable needs or would be otherwise unjust or inappropriate, and it must make written findings explaining the deviation (G.S. 50-13.4(c) and the guidelines).

The guidelines must be reviewed at least once every four years (G.S. 50-13.4(c1)), and they state that the next review will occur during 2026. Check the Judicial Branch’s guidelines page for a newer edition before relying on any figure.