How Tennessee Child Support Is Calculated: Income, Parenting Time, Credits

Tennessee child support is calculated using the Income Shares Model: the court adds both parents’ gross monthly incomes, looks up the base support amount on the state Child Support Schedule for that combined income and number of children, and then splits that amount between the parents in proportion to each one’s share of the combined total. The worksheet also adjusts for parenting time, the cost of the child’s health insurance, work-related childcare, and support the paying parent provides for other children. Every court in the state uses the same worksheet and the same schedule, so identical facts produce the same dollar amount regardless of county.¹

The number the worksheet produces is called the Presumptive Child Support Order. A judge has to follow it unless there is a specific legal basis to deviate.

What Counts as Each Parent’s Income

Gross income for the worksheet is almost everything a parent receives before taxes. Wages, salaries, commissions, tips, bonuses, overtime, self-employment earnings, pensions, Social Security, disability, workers’ compensation, unemployment, interest, dividends, trust income, capital gains, prizes, lottery winnings, and alimony received from someone other than the other parent in the case all go in.¹

Cash gifts and inheritances count. So do gifts that reduce a parent’s living expenses, such as a relative paying the parent’s rent. Bonuses and overtime that bounce around month to month should be averaged over a reasonable period so the figure reflects what the parent actually earns.

A short list of items stays out. Child support received for children from another relationship doesn’t count. Means-tested benefits are excluded: Families First (Tennessee’s TANF program), SNAP, Supplemental Security Income, and LIHEAP. The child’s own income is also excluded.

How Parenting Time Changes the Number

The number of days each parent has the child meaningfully moves the obligation. The adjustment is tied to the parent who pays support, called the Alternate Residential Parent (ARP). If the ARP has the child for fewer than 92 days per year, no parenting time credit applies. At 92 days or more, the worksheet begins reducing the support obligation, and the reduction grows as parenting time increases.²

Because this input moves the final number so much, use the schedule you actually follow rather than an idealized version. Count real overnights.

Credits for Other Children

A parent who is legally responsible for and actually supporting other children can reduce their gross income on the worksheet before the main calculation runs. The credit covers two situations.¹

For children living in the parent’s home at least half the time, the credit equals 75 percent of a theoretical support amount calculated using only that parent’s income and the number of qualifying other children. For children living elsewhere and supported under a separate court order, the credit equals the amount actually being paid. These numbers are run on a separate Credit Worksheet, and the parent has to show documentation of the parent-child relationship, such as a birth certificate or court order.

Stepchildren do not qualify. A child who happens to live in the household but whom the parent has no legal duty to support does not qualify either.

Health Insurance and Childcare

Two recurring costs for the child go directly into the worksheet. The first is the premium cost for the child’s health insurance, pulled out of any family-plan figure so only the child’s share is included. The second is work-related childcare: expenses for licensed care that lets the parent work or look for work. Both are added to the base support obligation and then prorated between the parents by their income shares, the same way the base amount is split.

Low-Income Cases: The Self-Support Reserve

If the paying parent’s gross income falls into a designated low-income range on the Child Support Schedule, the calculation switches gears. Instead of using combined income, the worksheet uses only that parent’s income to protect a minimum amount for the parent’s own living expenses. The current threshold is $957 per month in gross income, based on 90 percent of the federal poverty level. When the Self-Support Reserve applies, the support amount is the lesser of what the low-income formula produces or what the standard combined-income formula would yield.³

One important limit: a parent in the Self-Support Reserve range does not receive a parenting time credit, even with 92 or more days per year.

Running the Worksheet Yourself

The Tennessee Department of Human Services publishes an automated calculator and downloadable Excel worksheets that do the arithmetic once you enter the right numbers.⁴ To complete the worksheet you need:

Monthly gross income for both parents, from all sources above
Days per year each parent has the child
The cost of the child’s portion of any health insurance premium
Work-related childcare costs for licensed care
Documentation for any qualifying other children

For a case through the state, file an Application for Child Support Services (Form HS-2912) with your local Child Support Office in person, by mail, or through the Department of Human Services parent portal.⁵ Families who have never received Families First pay a $35 annual fee, not collected until $550 in support has been received in the case. A private petition filed in Juvenile or Circuit Court is the other route and usually involves an attorney. Either way, the other parent has to be formally served before an order can be entered.

When a Judge Can Deviate From the Worksheet

The worksheet amount is presumed correct, but the court can order a different number for specific reasons. Any deviation has to prioritize the child’s best interest and cannot leave the primary residential parent unable to provide basic necessities like food, housing, and clothing.⁶

Recognized grounds include:

Substantial travel costs for parenting time when the parents live far apart
Extraordinary educational expenses, such as private school tuition or special education costs
Special child-rearing expenses like summer camp, music lessons, or school extracurriculars; the court must consider adding these as a deviation when they exceed 7 percent of the monthly basic support obligation
A child in Department of Children’s Services custody where the permanency plan aims to return the child to the parent, so the parent can establish an adequate household

Whatever the ground, the judge has to put the reasoning for the deviation in writing. It is not a free-hand override of the number; it is a specific finding tied to a listed basis.

Imputed Income for Underemployed Parents

When a parent is voluntarily unemployed or working well below their earning capacity, the court can assign income to that parent as if they were earning what they reasonably could. Tennessee’s guidelines do not require proof that the parent reduced income to dodge child support; any intentional choice that lowers income can trigger imputed income.¹

Judges look at the parent’s work history, education and training, ability to work, and whether the parent’s lifestyle suggests more income than they report. A stay-at-home parent gets a more nuanced analysis: whether they were the primary caretaker during the relationship, how long they have been out of the workforce, and the ages of the children.

Imputed income does not apply to a parent unemployed because of a layoff and actively looking for work, a medical condition or disability, incarceration, or full-time military service. For incarcerated parents, only actual income earned in prison counts.

Once the court finds willful underemployment, the imputed figure is based on the parent’s past and present employment history combined with their education and training. In practice this is where cases get adversarial, because the other parent usually has to put on evidence of job availability and realistic pay. Showing up with job postings in the underemployed parent’s field and salary range can move the number.

What Ends the Calculation

A quick boundary worth knowing. The calculation above sets the ongoing amount, but the obligation itself has an endpoint: child support in Tennessee ends when the child turns 18, with an extension if the child is still in high school at 18 that runs until the child graduates or the child’s class graduates, whichever comes first.⁷ Any arrears that built up before that point still have to be paid.

1
Legal Information Institute. Tennessee Comp R Regs 1240-02-04-.04 – Determination of Child Support
2
Legal Information Institute. Tennessee Comp R Regs 1240-02-04-.08 – Worksheets and Instructions
3
Tennessee Secretary of State. Rules of the Tennessee Department of Human Services – Child Support Guidelines
4
Tennessee Department of Human Services. Child Support Calculator
5
Tennessee Department of Human Services. Applying for Services
6
Legal Information Institute. Tennessee Comp R Regs 1240-02-04-.07 – Deviation From the Guidelines
7
Justia. Tennessee Code 34-1-102 – Custody of Minors