What Are the New Child Support Laws in Missouri?

The biggest change to the new child support laws in Missouri is a revised Form 14 worksheet that took effect January 1, 2026, updating the guideline schedule courts use to calculate the presumed support amount.¹ The Missouri Supreme Court entered the order on March 4, 2025 following its periodic review of the guidelines, which adjusts income tables and calculation methods to reflect current economic conditions. The rest of Missouri’s support framework, including income withholding, enforcement, and criminal penalties, stays where it was, but the new schedule changes the numbers that flow through every new or modified order going forward.

What the 2026 Form 14 Change Does

Form 14 is the standardized worksheet Missouri courts use to arrive at a presumed support amount from both parents’ incomes, allowed deductions, and custody time. The January 1, 2026 revision replaces the underlying guideline schedule. If you’re going through a divorce, a paternity case, or any proceeding where support is being set for the first time, the new worksheet is what the court will use.

If you already have a support order, nothing changes automatically. The revised Form 14 applies only when a new order is entered or when an existing order is modified. A payment set under the old numbers keeps going at the old numbers until somebody files a motion to modify.

Whether the New Schedule Gives You Grounds to Modify

Missouri doesn’t let you reopen a support order just because circumstances have shifted. You need a change that is both substantial and continuing, one that makes the current order unreasonable.²

There’s a shortcut in the statute that matters right now. If running the current Form 14 with updated financial information would change the support amount by 20 percent or more, that difference alone creates a presumption that circumstances have changed enough to justify modification.² Because the 2026 update rewrote the underlying schedule, the recalculated amount for an older order may clear that 20 percent threshold on the schedule change alone, before you factor in any income or custody changes.

Job loss, long-term disability, or a real shift in the custody arrangement can all support a modification request as well. Voluntarily cutting your income and then asking for a lower payment does not work; courts look at whether you’ve made a genuine effort to maintain stable employment. Filing fees for modification motions typically run between $50 and $125, plus service costs.

How the Amount Is Calculated Under the New Worksheet

The calculation still begins with both parents’ gross incomes, subtracts allowed deductions, and produces each parent’s adjusted income. From there, the court weighs the child’s financial needs, each parent’s resources, the standard of living the child would have had if the family stayed together, custody and visitation time, and reasonable work-related childcare expenses.³

The Form 14 number is presumed correct. A judge can deviate when the circumstances justify it, and they look closely at whether claimed childcare costs and health insurance premiums are reasonable and at how custody time actually splits, particularly in shared-parenting cases close to 50/50.

Imputed Income

If a parent isn’t working or is earning less than they’re capable of earning, the court doesn’t accept that lower figure at face value. Missouri law directs judges to consider the “earning capacity of a party who is not employed” when setting support.² The court weighs work history, education, skills, and the local job market to decide what you could be earning. Quitting a job or accepting a pay cut without a legitimate reason costs credibility fast.

Self-Employment Income

Self-employed parents get closer scrutiny because the income is harder to verify. Courts can require tax returns with all schedules, business ledgers, and other financial records.⁴ Expenses that look more like personal spending than business costs tend to get added back to income. Clean records matter.

How Payments Actually Move

For most support orders, the money never passes through the paying parent’s hands. Missouri law requires income withholding to begin on the effective date of the order.⁵ The employer deducts the support amount and forwards it to the Family Support Payment Center. “Income” is defined broadly and covers wages, salary, commissions, independent contractor pay, workers’ compensation, disability, and retirement benefits.⁶

A court can waive immediate withholding only if it specifically finds withholding would not be in the child’s best interest, or if both parents agree in writing to a different arrangement.⁵ Those exceptions are uncommon.

If you aren’t subject to wage withholding, payments can go through the Family Support Payment Center by mail, online, by phone at 888-761-3665, or by automatic bank withdrawal.⁷ One trap to avoid: informal payments handed directly to the other parent, even if documented, may not count toward your obligation. Route payments through the official system so there’s a verifiable record.

What Happens If You Fall Behind

The Family Support Division has a broad toolkit for collecting unpaid support, and most of these mechanisms kick in automatically at specific dollar thresholds.

Driver’s License Suspension

The FSD can order the Department of Revenue to suspend your driver’s license once you owe at least $2,500 in past-due support or an amount equal to three months of current payments, whichever is lower. A Notice of Intent goes out by certified mail, giving you 60 days to enter a payment agreement, provide employment information for wage withholding, or request an administrative hearing.⁸ Professional licenses and recreational permits are also on the table.

Liens, Bank Seizures, and Intercepts

Unpaid support becomes a lien against real estate, personal property, and personal injury settlements. The FSD can also pull money directly from bank accounts through data matching and works with federal agencies to intercept tax refunds and other government payments.

Passport Denial

Once you owe $2,500 or more in past-due support, the federal government can deny or revoke your passport, even if you need it for work.⁹ The only way out is to pay down the arrears or enter an approved payment plan.

Credit Reporting

Reporting to consumer credit agencies is mandatory once you’re at least two months delinquent and owe $1,000 or more.¹⁰ The hit follows you into loan, housing, and job applications.

Interest on Arrears

Missouri charges 1 percent per month, or 12 percent per year, on delinquent support, and the interest attaches automatically.¹¹ No payment applies to interest until the entire support arrearage is paid off, so the balance compounds hard. A $10,000 arrearage adds $100 a month in interest alone.

Criminal Nonsupport

Missouri treats willful failure to support your child as a crime. Under § 568.040, criminal nonsupport is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail.¹²¹³

The charge escalates to a Class E felony once the total arrearage exceeds an aggregate of 12 monthly payments owed under any support order.¹² A Class E felony carries up to four years in prison.¹³ Concretely, an $800 monthly obligation crosses the felony line once unpaid support tops $9,600.

An “inability to pay for good cause” defense exists, but the defendant carries the burden. Good cause does not apply if the parent deliberately maintains their inability to pay, for example by refusing available work. Courts can also order community service or job training and make ongoing support a condition of probation or parole.

Things the 2026 Update Did Not Change

A few points parents often assume are moving that actually aren’t. Child support still generally ends when the child turns 18, with extensions for higher education (up to age 21 if the child enrolls in a vocational or college program by October 1 following high school graduation and meets the credit-hour and reporting rules) and for a child unable to be self-supporting due to a physical or mental condition.³ Support also ends earlier if the child marries, enters active military duty, becomes self-supporting, or is otherwise emancipated.

Federal tax treatment is unchanged: child support is neither deductible for the payer nor taxable to the recipient.¹⁴ And Missouri’s relocation rules still require advance notice when a parent wants to move the child’s primary residence for 90 days or more; if the court approves the move, it must decide how to split the added transportation costs and adjust support accordingly.¹⁵

If you think the new Form 14 schedule would shift your amount by 20 percent or more, that alone may be enough to open the door to modification. Pull together current income figures for both parents, run the numbers under the 2026 worksheet, and compare the result to your existing order before deciding whether to file.

1
The Missouri Bar. Supreme Court of Missouri Order – New Form 14 Child Support Amount Calculation Worksheet
2
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 452.370 – Modification of Judgment as to Maintenance or Support
3
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 452.340 – Child Support, How Allocated
4
DSS Manuals. 1805.030.05 Income Evidence – Section: Self-Employment and Farm Income
5
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Revised Statutes 452.350 – Withholding of Income
6
Cornell Law School. 13 CSR 40-104.010 – Immediate Income Withholding Exceptions for Child Support Orders
7
Missouri Department of Social Services. Non-Custodial Parent
8
Department of Social Services. Frequently Asked Questions: Driver License Suspension
9
Administration for Children and Families. Passport Denial Program 101
10
Cornell Law School. 13 CSR 40-104.020 – Reporting of Child Support Debts to Consumer Reporting Agencies
11
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 454.520 – Delinquent Child Support and Maintenance, Interest On
12
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 568.040 – Criminal Nonsupport, Penalty
13
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 558.011 – Authorized Terms of Imprisonment
14
Internal Revenue Service. Dependents 6
15
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 452.377 – Relocation of Child by Parent