A Guide to Child Maintenance Payments

Originally written by Abigail Taylor, updated by the editorial team on 31st March 2026

The second in our series of separated dads guides relates to child maintenance and the issues surrounding it.

To get a quick estimate of what you might need to pay or receive based on your circumstances, you can use our free Child Maintenance Calculator.

Child maintenance is designed to make parents responsible for maintaining their children. This means that non-resident parents (who do not live with the child) make periodical payments to resident parents (who do live with the child and are responsible for the child's day-to-day care).

Parents may agree these payments via a maintenance agreement. The Child Maintenance Service manages the child maintenance schemes. You can contact the Child Maintenance Service on 0800 171 2345 for advice.

The Child Maintenance Service manages the 2012 onwards child maintenance scheme. There is a £20 fee for applying to the Child Maintenance Service. In the first instance, you can call Child Maintenance Options on 0800 988 0988 for free advice.

What is a family-based child maintenance arrangement?

A family-based maintenance arrangement is an agreement between parties made out of court. This allows you to preserve good relations and address your wishes more specifically. It can also help reduce costs. If you and your former partner have a good working relationship, a family-based child maintenance arrangement can be an amicable way to agree matters mutually.

How is child maintenance calculated?

Gross income
Child maintenance via CMS is based upon your gross weekly income. If you are self-employed, your gross income is based upon your total taxable profits.

The CMS will calculate a suitable child support amount upon application by either the resident or non-resident parent. However parents may agree a different amount.

Much like when you pay council tax, certain categories of people pay a reduced rate or are exempt from paying child support altogether.

Exemptions and deductions
You may be exempt or qualify for a reduced rate if you:

have a gross weekly income of less than £7.
are in prison
are under 16 years old
are a 16- to 19-year-old who has left school but is registered for certain types of government-approved training courses
are a 16- to 19-year-old who is in full-time, non-advanced education (up
to and including A-level or equivalent standard
are a 16- to 17-year-old who is included in their partner's claim for Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or Income related Employment and Support Allowance
are in a care home or independent hospital, for which you are receiving help with fees.

Shared care
If your children stay with you overnight, you may be entitled to a reduction of your child maintenance payments. They must stay with you a minimum average of one night per week.

If you share care equally, neither of you has to pay maintenance to each other.

If you don't tell the CMS about your shared care arrangements, they will estimate that the children stay with you one night a week. This means you'll usually pay one-seventh less maintenance.

What happens if I have children from a new relationship?

If you have other children this could affect the amount of child support you will pay. Other children relevant to the equation are those for whom you (as the non-resident parent) or your partner receive child benefit for.

Other relevant children are taken into account before the calculation is completed.

When do Child Maintenance payments stop?

Child Support is paid until the relevant child is at least 16 years old.

If the child continues to study full-time (at least 12 hours per week) after the age of 16, you will still have to pay to support your child. Full-time studies include A-level standard but do not include university / professional studies after this level. Child maintenance payments will end when the course finishes or when the child turns 20 years old, even if they are still in full-time studies.

Child Maintenance Calculator

Find out how much child maintenance you should pay or receive. Takes less than a minute.

Try our Child Maintenance Calculator free, here on this site →

What happens if I dispute that I am the parent of a child?

When parentage is in dispute, a maintenance calculation should not be done by the CMS until the matter is resolved. There are some exceptions when parentage will be assumed however:

If you were married to the mother at any point between conception and birth of the child
You are registered as the father on the birth certificate
You refuse to take a DNA test or a DNA test shows you are the father
There has been a previous declaration of parentage
Court proceedings have decided you are the father

If you deny parentage, you must communicate this to the CMS and a DNA test can be arranged.

What could happen if I don't pay my child support payments?

The CMS has various enforcement methods available to ensure child support is paid. These include:

Deduction from earnings
Committal to prison for up to six weeks
Disqualification from driving

If one of you dies, what will happen to the children?

Whilst we never want to think about death, it is an important and responsible thing to consider when you have children. You need to know that they will be looked after should anything happen to you.

Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.

Guardians

In your will, you have the opportunity to name a guardian (or guardians) to look after your children if you are no longer here to do so. A trusted family friend is a popular option. Guardians are not paid to look after your children, but will usually get money from your estate to help with the additional costs of caring for children. It is usually better to name just one guardian, as problems can be caused if co-guardians separate in the future. However, if the other parent has parental responsibility, then they can challenge any such provision in the will. As in all cases, the court's main concern is the welfare of the child in question. The court will always put the child's best interests first and this main issue will determine the outcome of any application for an order.

Other parent

If the resident parent were to die, the non-resident parent has rights to the children as a parent. This does not mean that you will automatically get residency of a child you have not previously lived with. However the court will look to see if you are a suitable parent to have full custody. If you are suitable, you will get custody over any named guardian in your partner's will. If you are not suitable, custody is likely to go to the named guardian, which is why it is important to name someone in your will who you trust.

We know that some of the dads on here don't have much free money. So we are offering the guides for free.

To help us develop more guides and other products to help separated dads we would really appreciate a small PayPal donation. Our content is written by a qualified barrister. It would really help us and we would appreciate it.

We hope that we can help you in some small way with your Child Maintenance application or questions.

Need to write to the CMS?

We have produced a series of letter templates to accompany the guides relating to maintenance and support. Why not take a look at these easy to use templates.

The Next Step

Now that you have read through the advice above, you might want to put it into practice. Our Child Maintenance Calculator lets you find out how much child maintenance you should pay or receive. Takes less than a minute. Try it now →

Showing 20 of 1,630 questions

Ask Separated Dads a Question

SeparatedDads Editor 17/05/2026 at 1:32 pm

@Shiffyscott You're right that it feels one-sided, but unfortunately CMS treats each case separately, so your liability for the two with their mum doesn't get offset against what she owes you for the third. Push CMS to move her case to Collect & Pay and start enforcement (deduction from earnings, bank account, etc.) since she's been in arrears since March. Keep everything in writing and if they drag their feet, raise a formal complaint and escalate to the Independent Case Examiner. Your MP can also give them a nudge.

Shiffyscott 07/08/2024 at 5:17 pm

I’ve been paying maintenance for 2 of my children but back in august last year I took my 3 rd child from the mother and have temporary custody. I put forward to the cms for maintenance from her and since March she ain’t paid nothing. The cms know this but tell me I still need to pay my side otherwise they will put me on collect and pay.
What can I do about it ?
Because this seems one sided to me.

Ed 27/05/2024 at 2:55 pm

Hi, due to time taken off work to deal with a number of health issues (and the CMS using incorrect data - not being updated on the dates I was initially off work and claiming benefits, which they have refused to revise because of the time elapsed since. Part of this stems from a breakdown when I was unable to manage my finances) I have got a fair amount of arrears. They're currently taking the flat rate from my UC, but I've been awarded PIP recently. I'm going to use some of the PIP money to reduce the arrears, but will the CMS automatically do this, or is PIP something they can't touch? Obviously, PIP is to help with the daily costs associated with my disabilities, so I'm unsure.

Barney 30/01/2024 at 8:42 am

I'm paying Maintenance for my 16 year old son who was in full time education at college but has since dropped out at the beginning of this year and I am unable to find any concrete answers as to if I still have to pay or not. I am willing to pay him direct an amount as I struggled to pay tha amount CSA set. So my question is do I still have to pay or not??? Any advice greatly appreciated

DannyJ 09/08/2023 at 5:39 pm

Five year old daughter spends 8 consecutive nights with mum followed by 6 with me.
I am not willing to pay the ‘advised’ maintenance direct to her bank for near 50/50 custody, almost 10% of my salary this cannot be right?
Mum threatening to go through CMS, and also complaining that it is not me ‘looking after’ daughter.
Daughter gets on great with my girlfriend and mother so they help out with some school, evenings, weekend babysitting as I have work and sometimes other commitments.
Any advise from similar situation would be appreciated.

Abused father 06/08/2023 at 11:29 am

I too would like to know how you get the cms to listen when the paying party has a dispute about the child leave education before it is 18 years old then deciding to return after a year's break and still claim for cms because I was led to believe if they leave education or dont attend before their 18th birthday then all cma payments stop. I've since been told the payments will only stop when child benefits stop and not before,so this means that the receiving party will still get cma whether they attend or not is this correct.

Martymack 20/07/2023 at 3:12 am

Mu ex-wife (who I have two children with) made false allegations to the CMS about me receiving extra money on top of my Universal Credit. The CMS has rejected her accusations, but has allowed an appeal which will be taken to HM Courts in due time. Does anyone know if the courts will automatically go through my personal details (eg:bank accounts etc.)as part of this process; or are the allegations likely to be rejected once the HMRC has been consulted ?
Any advice would be most welcome.

Chris 12/07/2023 at 9:44 am

Your a clown that’s why you hide bree because if she come to me she would drop you in heart beat junkie whore love dogs more then your child

Moaning minnie 12/07/2023 at 6:20 am

My husband hasn't seen his daughter for 7 years now she is now 17 no contact whatsoever. We still have a yearly letter come thru from child maintenance to pay the ex so we do but how do they know that she is still in education and not an apprenticeship earning money and the greedy ex is just taking our money

Eric 27/06/2023 at 7:26 pm

Hopefully someone can help with a quick question I'm finding it impossible to get answered. I've paid a private maintenance payment for years to my lad's mum. She claims the child benefit too. My lad is 17 and doing A levels so I know I have to keep paying and I'm happy to. However a few weeks ago he moved out and is sharing a flat with mates. His Mum doesn't help out financially in any way so my question is... do I have to keep paying her? If he's not living there is she still entitled to receive payments? I don't want to get in trouble but it seems wrong to pay when none goes to my lad. Can I not pay my lad an amount instead and put the rest towards his future education costs? Any advice appreciated

Bertie 26/06/2023 at 11:45 am

I separated from my sons mum 12 years ago and have always paid half of the mortgage, an agreed amount every month for maintenance and other things such as trips etc. He is soon to be 18 and is in full time education (A Levels). he spends at least one night a week with me and every other weekend (more during holidays). his mum says i have to continue to pay half the mortgage and maintenance until he leaves university as she cant afford to get a mortgage to buy me out of the house. I am retired with a small pension. What are my rights regarding payments and the mortgage?

MB 26/04/2023 at 6:39 pm

My brother has just been advised he has to pay £165.00 per week for 1 child that lives with her mother despite him having their other daughter in his full time care where he doesn’t receive a penny nor has he claimed child benefit. They had an arrangement in place but greed has got the better of her and she clearly has no thought for the child in his care (her daughter!) and the impact this has for that child. She works, also has child maintenance from another father for another child. The poor logic of CMA is a sham… if you have two children and have 1 each surely that’s just like a shared care arrangement and none of you should be paying anything to the other parent. No wonder there is a rise in men’s MH and suicide! Who needs that amount of money per week for 1 child?!

Caredad 01/02/2023 at 7:06 pm

The section on shared care stating if there is a shared care is in place, no payments to or from either parent are required is not entirely correct. I have my daughter 50% of the time but both the CMS and the tribunal courts require me to pay a.significant amount in CM payments as they have determined that a primary career needs to be established, which is her mother. Incredible frustrating, stressful and financially difficult but neither the courts or the CMS look at things logically.

Loulou 29/01/2023 at 9:26 am

My husbands 16 year old has gone no contact! She has dropped out of college & moved to a different part of the country. Bio mum has now made a claim through cms & to cb stating daughter in full time education. How can my husband confirm if his daughter is in education?

Whinny 06/01/2023 at 9:19 am

My partner has 1 daughter from his marriage, who is now aged 17. Unfortunately, we don't have any kind of contact with her. We don't know if she is still in education. We heard from a reliable source that she is working full-time, but the CSA says she is on a traning course to become a carer. I didn't know there were long term full time courses for carers. The CSA won't give my partner any details as to the length of the course etc., Is there a way that my partner can find out what they are doing as their biological father?
Regards,
Gill

Sj 23/10/2022 at 10:09 am

My husband has 3 daughters from his previous marriage. The eldest is about to turn 18 and the middle one is 17. Unfortunately, we have no kind of contact with them anymore. We don't know if they are still in education. We heard from a reliable source that they are both working full-time. Is there a way that My Husband can find out what they are doing as their biological father?

Carrie 11/10/2022 at 4:02 pm

My child’s other parent…dad… pays me money every week for our child, if I go through csm to ensure he keeps up with these payments, will they try to recover any payments he has already made to me, as this is what he is telling me

Exasperated Dad 23/09/2022 at 7:04 pm

I have been divorced for 2 years and paying maintenance for my daughter my son decided to live with me so one child each living with each parent how does maintenance work

Truth 30/05/2022 at 9:42 pm

Samantha I will never( forgive you )not only did you repeatedly cheat on me and on top off that you sent me to prison ,you are the one that should be begging for my forgiveness. But you think your victim I personally think your the one with mental health .and on top off everything you still won't let me meet bree .just a heads up dont ever come near me because you are the only person( I want to kill and im not afraid off spending the rest off my life in prison for doing it .)you haven't got a distant bone in your body you are (junkie Thief that has sex with under age boys that has put my daughter in jeopardy) .I want to f you up kick your teeth out then cut your throat because your the one thats evil .and you thought sending love hearts on social media you would get me ha ha ha you loser .

Moz 30/05/2022 at 12:36 pm

My 16 year old daughter just started a paid apprenticeship and goes college 1 day a week do i still pay child maintenance

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