What do New York's support formulas say about your case?
The calculator takes five short steps. It applies the same statutory guidelines a New York judge starts from — for spousal maintenance and child support — in plain language, with every step of the math shown.
First — what does each of you earn?
Enter gross annual income before taxes, as it would appear on a tax return. Don't worry about being exact; you can change it and re-run this as many times as you like.
The person with the higher income is treated as the maintenance payor under the statute. We'll work that out for you.
Now the deductions the law actually allows
New York doesn't use gross income directly. It subtracts a short, specific list of items — not your rent, not your credit cards. Leave anything blank if it doesn't apply.
FICA is Social Security (6.2% up to the annual wage base) plus Medicare (1.45%, plus 0.9% on wages over $200,000). The estimate assumes ordinary W-2 employment.
Advanced — other statutory deductions
Children and custody
Child support is calculated for children of the marriage who are under 21. Custody matters because it decides who pays — and it changes which maintenance formula applies.
How long has the marriage lasted?
This does not change the maintenance amount — only how long post-divorce maintenance is advised to run. The clock runs from the date of marriage to the date the divorce action is commenced.
If maintenance is waived or not sought, child support is calculated on the unadjusted incomes.
If you are not married, or if you only need the child-support figure, leave this blank and continue — we'll skip the maintenance duration.
Advanced — above-cap income and deviations
This is useful for testing a settlement offer: child support is then recalculated from the deviated maintenance figure, as the statute requires.
Every calculation on this page runs inside your own browser. Nothing you type is transmitted, stored, or logged by this firm or anyone else. Standard visit analytics count page views only — they cannot see anything you enter.
Get a real assessment of your case.
A calculator can only apply a formula to two numbers. It cannot weigh the statutory factors, argue that income should be imputed, account for equal parenting time, or handle the part of your case that actually decides the outcome. That is what the consultation is for.
Confidential Case Inquiry
Consultations are private and without obligation. Please don't include sensitive details in this first message.
New York maintenance and child support, explained
New York does not leave support to a judge's instinct. Two statutes set out arithmetic that produces a starting figure, and a court that departs from it has to say why, on the record.
Spousal maintenance — DRL §236(B)(5-a) and (6)
The maintenance guideline runs two calculations on the payor's income up to a statutory cap and takes whichever produces the lower number. If the payor is also the parent paying child support, the first calculation is 20% of the payor's income minus 25% of the payee's; otherwise it is 30% of the payor's income minus 20% of the payee's. The second calculation is 40% of the parties' combined income minus the payee's income. If the result is negative, the guideline is zero. The same formula produces both temporary maintenance (while the divorce is pending) and post-divorce maintenance.
Duration is separate. An advisory schedule keyed to the length of the marriage suggests a range — a percentage of the marriage — but the court still has to weigh the statutory factors and can go outside the range.
Child support — the Child Support Standards Act, DRL §240(1-b)
Both parents' incomes are added together after the statutory deductions, capped, and multiplied by a fixed percentage that depends on the number of children — 17% for one, 25% for two, 29% for three, 31% for four, and no less than 35% for five or more. That basic obligation is then split between the parents in proportion to their incomes, and the non-custodial parent pays their share to the custodial parent. Because maintenance shifts income from one household to the other, it is calculated first and the child-support figures are run on the adjusted incomes.
Where the formula stops and a lawyer starts
The guidelines take only income into account. They know nothing about a child with special needs, a parent who has structured their compensation to look smaller than it is, a house that has to be sold, equal parenting time, health insurance and childcare add-ons, or income above the caps — all of which are decided by argument, not arithmetic.