Child maintenance and the CMS

This is information, not legal advice

This explains how child maintenance generally works through the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) in England, Wales and Scotland. Figures change. Use the official calculator and links below, and check your own numbers before relying on anything here.

Maintenance and contact are completely separate

This is the one thing to never get wrong. Money and time with the children are legally separate. You cannot stop paying because contact is being blocked, and the other parent cannot stop contact because money is short. The only way the children’s nights with you affect maintenance is the shared care reduction below. Never let anyone trade one against the other.

Child maintenance is regular money from the parent the children mainly live apart from (usually, though not always, the dad) towards their everyday costs. There are three ways to sort it.

The three ways to arrange it

1. A family-based arrangement. You agree an amount between you and pay directly, with no CMS involvement. Free, flexible, and you can include things the formula ignores (uniform, clubs, trips). The downside: it isn’t legally enforceable and relies on goodwill. The government encourages parents to try this first, and you can use the official calculator just to agree a fair figure.
2. CMS Direct Pay. The CMS works out the amount using its formula, but you arrange the actual payments between yourselves (usually a standing order). You get an official figure with no fees on the payments themselves.
3. CMS Collect & Pay. The CMS works out the amount, collects it from the paying parent, passes it on, and enforces it if it isn’t paid. This carries fees (see below) and is normally used where there’s a history of non-payment.

Note

The government has announced it will eventually replace Direct Pay with a single collection service so all payments pass through the CMS. As of June 2026 this is not yet in force and needs new legislation (expected 2027 to 2028). The current rules below still apply.

How the CMS works out the amount

The CMS uses the paying parent’s gross weekly income (before tax and National Insurance, after pension contributions), taken from HMRC, and applies one of five rates.

Rate	Gross weekly income	What you pay
Nil	under £7 (or student, under 16, prisoner, certain situations)	nothing
Flat	£7 to £100, or on certain benefits	£7 per week
Reduced	£100.01 to £199.99	£7 plus a percentage of income over £100
Basic	£200 to £800	a percentage of gross income (below)
Basic plus	£800.01 to £3,000	basic rate on the first £800, plus a lower percentage above it

Basic rate (income £200 to £800), as a percentage of gross weekly income:

• 1 child: 12%
• 2 children: 16%
• 3 or more children: 19%

Basic plus rate applies to the slice of income between £800.01 and £3,000:

• 1 child: 9%
• 2 children: 12%
• 3 or more children: 15%

Other children you support. Before the percentages are applied, your gross income is first reduced if you have other children living with you (your own or a partner’s children you support): by 11% for one, 14% for two, and 16% for three or more.

A worked example: 2 children, £1,000 gross a week, no other adjustments. You pay 16% of the first £800 (£128) plus 12% of the next £200 (£24), so £152 a week before any shared care reduction.

The shared care (overnight) reduction

This is the part dads most want to understand, and it’s the only way the children’s nights with you change the money. The more nights a year the children stay overnight with you, the more the maintenance is reduced:

Nights per year with you	Maintenance reduced by
52 to 103	1/7 (about 14%)
104 to 155	2/7 (about 29%)
156 to 174	3/7 (about 43%)
175 or more	1/2, plus a further £7 a week per child

A few things worth knowing:

• 52 nights is roughly one night a week, the point at which any reduction starts. Fewer than that and there’s no overnight reduction.
• The bands only reduce the amount, they don’t usually zero it. For the basic and reduced rates there’s a floor: a paying parent normally still pays at least £7 a week, however many nights the children stay.
• Genuinely equal care is a different, separate rule. Maintenance drops to nothing only when day-to-day care is actually shared equally between both parents. In that case the CMS treats neither of you as the “paying parent”, so there’s nothing to assess. Note that this is a higher bar than simply reaching 175 nights, and in a close case the CMS often looks at who receives Child Benefit to decide who counts as the receiving parent, so “equal care” is sometimes disputed.
• A warning, drawn from how these things really play out: because nights affect money, it’s tempting for either parent to argue about overnights with one eye on the maintenance. Don’t. Decide the children’s time on what’s right for the children (see where the kids will live and talking it through), and let the money follow. Dressing up a money argument as a welfare one gets seen through, and it puts the children in the middle of the household budget.

Reporting and proving shared care

The bands above only matter once the CMS accepts how much shared care you actually do, and that is where it gets messy. The CMS will not simply take one parent’s word for it.

• It checks with the other parent. When you report shared care (or a change in it), the CMS asks the other parent to confirm the level. What happens next depends on whether you agree.
• If you agree it is genuinely equal, the CMS can decide there is no paying parent for that child, so nothing is payable, and the case can close for that child. Remember “equal” means equal day-to-day care, not just matching nights.
• If you agree it is shared but dispute the number of nights, the CMS asks both of you for proof. If there is not enough evidence or common ground, it falls back on a default called “assumed shared care”: one night a week, a 1/7 reduction (the lowest band). That default holds until you agree a figure or produce proof of more nights. So if you cannot evidence your nights, you may only get the smallest reduction even if you actually have the children more.
• The burden tends to fall on the paying parent to prove it, against a presumption that whoever receives Child Benefit is the parent with care. So keep a clear, dated record of the nights the children are with you before you report anything.
• If you disagree with the decision, you can ask for a “mandatory reconsideration”, and if still unhappy, appeal to an independent tribunal.

Fees

• No application fee. It was abolished in February 2024.
• Family-based arrangement and Direct Pay: no collection fees.
• Collect & Pay: the paying parent pays an extra 20% on top of the maintenance, and the receiving parent has 4% deducted. Further charges can apply for enforcement.

Higher earners

The most gross income the CMS will use is £3,000 a week (about £156,000 a year). Income above that is ignored by the CMS formula. If the paying parent earns more, the other parent can apply to court for a “top-up” on top of the CMS amount. Court can also be used for things like school fees or costs linked to a disability.

Just use the calculator

Before any conversation about money, put your figures into the official calculator. It gives you a fair, formula-based number to work from, which takes a lot of the heat out of the discussion.

• GOV.UK child maintenance calculator

Where to get real help

• GOV.UK: how child maintenance is worked out: the rates, rules and worked examples.
• GOV.UK: Child Maintenance Service: setting up and managing a case.
• MoneyHelper: free, government-backed guidance.
• Citizens Advice: free, independent help.
• Gingerbread: support and advice for single parents, including maintenance.

Last reviewed: 9 June 2026. These are the 2025/26 figures. Rates, bands and fees change, so check the official links above for the current numbers before you rely on anything here.