How child support is calculated in Wyoming.
Wyoming child support is arithmetic, and the number it produces will be withheld from a paycheck every month until the youngest child is grown. The court adds two net incomes, finds the row in the statutory table, and divides the result by income share. That figure is presumed correct; a judge who departs from it must say why. So the fight is over the inputs: what a seasonal or self-employed parent really earns, and how many overnights each home really carries. Getting those two things right, on paper, before the affidavit is sworn, is most of what I do in a support case.
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Three parts to every Wyoming support order.
Income is "any form of payment or return in money or in kind ... regardless of source" (W.S. § 20-2-303(a)(ii)). Net income deducts taxes, Social Security, the children's health insurance, mandatory pension deductions, and support paid for other children.
The tables (W.S. § 20-2-304(a)), one per number of children, start at $1,000 of combined net income, each row a base amount plus a percentage above it. One child at $8,000 is $1,379. No top row, so high-income cases are argued as deviations.
The table figure is "rebuttably presumed to be the correct amount," and every order must state it (W.S. § 20-2-307(a)). A judge may deviate only on "a specific finding" that it would be "unjust or inappropriate," after weighing thirteen listed factors.
From two paychecks to one number.
Primary custody
Take a parent who nets $5,000 and a parent who nets $3,000, with one child living mainly with the second. Combined net income is $8,000, a row in the one-child table, which reads $1,379. The first parent earns five-eighths and owes five-eighths of the obligation, $862 a month, paid through the clerk. The second parent's share is presumed spent in the home where the child lives. That is the whole calculation for most salaried families; the Child Support Program's calculator produces it in a minute, from net incomes, not gross.
Shared responsibility
When each parent has the children more than twenty-five percent of overnights, ninety-two or more, and both "contribute substantially to the expenses of the children," the table amount is multiplied by 150 percent, divided by income share, and each share is multiplied by the other parent's share of time; the parent owing more pays the difference (W.S. § 20-2-304(c)). The same two parents on a 60/40 schedule produce $465 rather than $862. The formula rewards a schedule actually kept; claimed overnights that never happen are a deviation factor.
The inputs that get argued here.
Seasonal income, imputed income, medical support, child care, withholding, changes, ending
Self-employed, seasonal, and paid in kind
Overtime is excluded from income unless two years of history show it will continue. A large share of the people who live in this valley are paid irregularly: outfitters and guides, ski-area and hospitality workers with a winter and a summer, contractors, real-estate agents, and owners of small companies. The statute anticipates all of them. Income is annualized rather than read off one month; income "in kind," such as employer-provided housing, counts; and a business owner's income is receipts less "reasonable unreimbursed legitimate business expenses," not the bottom line of a Schedule C after depreciation, a vehicle, and a phone that is also personal. Distributions retained in an entity, personal expenses run through a company, and cash income are where the financial affidavits diverge, and the affidavit must be supported by pay stubs, receipts and the most recent tax return. In a case with a real business, the high-net-worth page describes the forensic work. Higher up the table, one child at $15,000 combined is $2,157 plus 10.3 percent of anything over that; two children at $15,000 is $3,171 plus 15.3 percent above.
Imputed income
A parent who is "voluntarily unemployed or underemployed" is assigned potential income (W.S. § 20-2-307(b)(xi)). The court considers prior employment and history, education, the presence of the children in that parent's home and its effect on earnings, the availability of work the parent is qualified for, prevailing local wages, special skills, and whether the parent can realistically earn the imputed figure. A parent who left a salaried job to guide part time after the separation will usually be treated as earning the salary. A parent who stayed home by agreement for years and has no recent history is treated more carefully. A parent who asks for a deviation and loses can be ordered to pay the other side's fees.
Medical support and child care
Every support order must also address medical support. The court orders one or both parents to carry health insurance for the children if it is available at reasonable cost and accessible where the children live, and it either makes both parents liable for uncovered expenses and deductibles as cash medical support or fixes the proportion each will pay (W.S. § 20-2-401). The parent ordered to insure must file proof within sixty days. The premium for the children's coverage is deducted in computing net income, so it lowers the payer's share as well as the payer's take-home. Child-care cost is not a line in the table; it is a deviation factor, and in a valley where full-time care costs what it does here, it is the deviation most often requested.
What the order says, and how it is paid
The order states the presumptive amount, the amount actually ordered, and the medical terms. Every support order is accompanied by an income withholding order, effective immediately unless the parents sign an alternative arrangement or the court finds good cause (W.S. § 20-6-204), and payments go through the clerk of court or the state's disbursement unit, never hand to hand, so that there is a ledger. Each parent must tell the clerk in writing within fifteen days of a change in address or employment. In Teton County many motions are decided on the papers without a hearing, so the affidavit and what is attached to it are often the whole argument. Support arrives in the same decree as custody; the custody page explains how the schedule that drives the overnight count is decided.
Changing it, collecting it, and when it ends
A support order can be reviewed once it is six months old if applying the guideline to today's incomes would move the amount by twenty percent or more a month; a substantial change of circumstances can be raised at any time; and every three years either parent can ask for a review without showing any change at all (W.S. § 20-2-311(a)). No modification reaches back before the date the petition was served. The page on modifications and enforcement covers those petitions and the tools used against a parent who does not pay: income withholding, license suspension, tax-refund offset, liens and contempt, most of them run by the Child Support Program, which opens a case for either parent regardless of income. The duty does not end on its own: an order for two children stays at its full amount when the older child ages out until someone asks the court to change it. Where a family has ties to another state, the state that entered the order keeps the authority to modify it while a parent or the child still lives there; my post on which state decides custody and support explains why custody and support can end up in different courts. Alimony is a separate calculation with no table, described on the alimony page.
What parents ask about support.
How is child support calculated in Wyoming?
Is there a Wyoming child support calculator I can use?
Does 50/50 custody mean no child support in Wyoming?
What counts as income if I am self-employed or work seasonally in Jackson?
Can the parents agree to a different amount, or to no child support?
When does child support end in Wyoming?
Tool · two minutesWyoming child support calculatorThe statute's table, gross to net, shared custody. Run it before anyone quotes you a number.
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