Child Support and Spousal Maintenance in Colorado

How Colorado Calculates Child Support

Colorado child support is set by statute, C.R.S. 14-10-115. The state uses what is called an income shares model. The idea is simple: combine what both parents earn, estimate what an intact household with that income would spend on the children, and divide that amount between the parents in proportion to their incomes.

The calculation runs through a few inputs:

• Each parent's monthly gross income. This is the starting point, and it is defined broadly. More on that below.
• The number of children covered by the order.
• Overnights. How many nights per year the children spend with each parent.
• Add-on costs. Health insurance premiums for the children, work-related child care, and certain extraordinary expenses are added and shared between the parents.
• Adjustments. Support paid for other children, and maintenance paid or received, can adjust each parent's income before the formula runs.

The formula changed meaningfully on March 1, 2026, when House Bill 25-1159 took effect. As of this writing, three updates matter most. First, every overnight now counts. The old rule ignored parenting time below roughly 93 overnights a year, which created a sharp cliff. The new approach gives a gradual credit for each overnight. Second, the guideline schedule now covers combined incomes up to $40,000 per month, up from $30,000, with updated dollar amounts throughout. Third, the law added a self-support reserve that protects a base amount of a lower earner's income, about $1,830 per month as of this writing, tied to the state minimum wage so it adjusts over time.

The formula produces a presumptive number, which means the court starts there and must explain any departure from it. Judges can deviate when the result would be unfair, but deviations require findings, not just a preference.

What Counts as Income, and What Does Not

For support purposes, gross income means income from almost any source. Wages, salary, tips, commissions, bonuses, self-employment earnings, rental income, interest, dividends, capital gains, pensions, severance pay, trust income, and unemployment benefits all count. If money comes in, the safe assumption is that it counts unless the statute says otherwise.

A few important exceptions and nuances:

• Means-tested public benefits do not count. SNAP benefits, Supplemental Security Income, and Colorado Works assistance are excluded.
• Overtime has a special rule. Overtime pay counts only when the employer requires it as a condition of the job. Voluntary extra shifts are treated differently.
• A second job may not count. Income from an additional job that pushes a parent past forty hours a week is generally excluded, so a parent working extra to catch up on bills is not punished for it.
• A child's own benefits are handled separately. For example, Social Security payments a child receives because of a parent's disability follow their own rules in the statute.

What if a parent simply stops working, or takes a much lower paying job on purpose? Colorado law allows the court to use potential income instead of actual income. This is often called imputing income. The court looks at work history, education, health, and the local job market to decide what the parent could reasonably earn, and runs the formula with that number. There are exceptions, including for a parent caring for a very young shared child, so this is an area where the details of your situation matter a great deal.

Spousal Maintenance: The Advisory Guideline

Spousal maintenance, which many people call alimony, is governed by C.R.S. 14-10-114. Unlike child support, the maintenance guideline is advisory. The court must consider it, but it is a starting point for discussion, not a mandate. The judge weighs the full picture: each spouse's income and property, the lifestyle during the marriage, the length of the marriage, each spouse's age and health, and each spouse's ability to meet reasonable needs independently.

The advisory guideline applies when the marriage lasted at least three years and the spouses' combined annual adjusted gross income is $240,000 or less. Within that range, the guideline amount works like this:

• Take 40 percent of the spouses' combined monthly adjusted gross income.
• Subtract the lower earning spouse's monthly adjusted gross income.
• If the result is negative, guideline maintenance is zero.
• Because federal law no longer lets the paying spouse deduct maintenance for orders entered after 2018, the statute then reduces the number: multiply by 80 percent when combined monthly income is $10,000 or less, or by 75 percent when it is higher.

A quick illustration. Suppose one spouse earns $8,000 a month and the other earns $3,000. Combined income is $11,000, and 40 percent of that is $4,400. Subtract the lower income of $3,000, leaving $1,400. Because the combined income is over $10,000 a month, multiply by 75 percent. The advisory figure is $1,050 per month. The court can order more, less, or none at all after weighing the statutory factors.

Above $240,000 in combined annual income, or for marriages shorter than three years, there is no guideline number. The court works directly from the statutory factors.

How Long Each Type of Support Lasts

Child support ordinarily continues until a child turns nineteen, which is the age of emancipation for support purposes in Colorado. There are exceptions. If the child is still in high school at nineteen, support generally continues until the end of the month after graduation, though not past age twenty one. Support can continue longer for a child with a significant disability, and parents can agree in writing to extend support, for example through college.

Maintenance duration follows an advisory table in the statute based on the length of the marriage. For a three year marriage the guideline term is about 31 percent of the marriage's length. The percentage climbs gradually and reaches 50 percent for marriages of roughly twelve and a half years or longer, through twenty years. Here is how that looks in practice, as of this writing:

For marriages of twenty years or longer, the court may set a specific term or order maintenance for an indefinite period, but the guideline says the term should not be shorter than the term for a twenty year marriage. Remember, these figures are advisory. Judges regularly adjust them to fit real lives.

Unless the spouses agree otherwise, maintenance ends automatically if the receiving spouse remarries or enters a civil union, or if either former spouse dies.

Changing an Order Later

Life changes, and Colorado law accounts for that. Under C.R.S. 14-10-122, either parent can ask the court to modify child support when there has been a substantial and continuing change in circumstances. The statute gives that phrase a practical benchmark: if rerunning the guideline with current numbers would change the monthly amount by less than ten percent, the change is generally treated as too small to justify a modification. Job loss, a significant raise, a change in parenting time, or a change in the children's needs are the common triggers.

Two points deserve emphasis:

• Timing matters. A modification usually reaches back only to the date the motion was filed, not to the date circumstances changed. Waiting to file can cost real money, in either direction. If your income drops, file promptly rather than falling behind on an order you can no longer afford.
• The 2026 guideline changes did not rewrite existing orders. Orders entered before March 1, 2026 stay in place until a court changes them. If the new formula would move your number enough, that can support a motion, but the order does not update on its own.

Maintenance can also be modified, but the standard is different and harder to meet: the change must be so substantial and continuing that the current terms have become unfair. One major exception applies. If the spouses agreed in their separation agreement that maintenance is contractual and non-modifiable, the court cannot change it later. That single line in an agreement carries enormous weight, which is one reason we encourage people to get advice before signing.

We practice family law across Colorado. If you are facing a support question, whether it is a first order or a change to an old one, reach out and we can talk through where you stand.