Colorado Child Support
Colorado’s child support law changed significantly on March 1, 2026. If you’re going through a divorce or custody matter now, the new rules under HB25-1159 apply to your case. Here’s what you need to understand.
The Basic Framework
Colorado uses an income shares model. Both parents’ adjusted gross incomes are combined and looked up in a statutory schedule that estimates what the household would have spent on the children had the family stayed together. That obligation is then divided between the parents in proportion to each parent’s share of the combined income.
If you earn 60 percent of the combined income and your co-parent earns 40 percent, you bear 60 percent of the basic child support obligation. Additional costs—childcare, health insurance, extraordinary medical expenses—are allocated in the same proportion.
What Changed in 2026
The new law updated the child support schedule to reflect current costs of raising children—amounts went up across the board. The income cap expanded from $30,000 to $40,000 in combined monthly gross income, which means the guidelines now cover households earning up to $480,000 per year. For incomes above $40,000 per month, the court can extrapolate or cap the obligation at the maximum guideline amount.
The biggest structural change: the old 93-overnight threshold for shared parenting is gone. Previously, a parent with 90 overnights got zero credit. A parent with 93 got a significant adjustment. That cliff has been eliminated. Under the new law, every overnight counts—from the first one. This is a major change for parents with any meaningful parenting time.
The new law also introduces a self-support reserve—a floor amount of income a parent keeps before support is calculated. For 2026, that amount is approximately $1,790 per month, based on 29 hours per week at Colorado’s minimum wage. Parents earning at or below $650 per month pay a flat $10 regardless of the number of children.
Worksheet A vs. Worksheet B Is Gone
Under the old law, you used Worksheet A if one parent had fewer than 93 overnights and Worksheet B for shared custody. The new law replaces this with a unified approach—one framework that adjusts proportionally based on actual parenting time. The old 1.5x multiplier for shared custody is gone, replaced by a parenting time credit table that scales with overnights.
Deviations
The guidelines are presumptive, not absolute. Courts can deviate if the guideline amount would be “inequitable, unjust, or inappropriate” based on factors like extraordinary income, substantial assets, special needs of the child, or true time spent (not just overnights). But deviations require specific findings.
Modifications
Child support can be modified when there’s a substantial and continuing change in circumstances. Colorado presumes the change is substantial if recalculated support differs from the current order by 10 percent or more. The change in law alone doesn’t automatically trigger modification—you have to file a motion. But if your current order was calculated under the old law and your circumstances have shifted, the new framework may produce a meaningfully different number.
At Burnham Law, we’re fully current on the 2026 changes and calculate support using the new statutory framework. If you need a calculation, a modification, or an explanation of how the new law affects your case—call us.