Changing a child support order.
A support order is arithmetic done once, on the incomes the parents had that year. When the incomes move, the order does not move with them. Wyoming gives either parent a petition to redo the arithmetic, a bright-line rule that makes a twenty-percent gap enough by itself, and one hard limit: nothing changes before the day the petition is served. The work is the inputs, and in Jackson the inputs are rarely a single salary.
Call or text me. Clients get my cell number from day one, and I answer. Just been served? Here's what happens next.
Three rules that decide most petitions.
A parent may petition to review an order "entered more than six (6) months prior to the petition," alleging that today's presumptive support "will change by twenty percent (20%) or more per month" from the existing order. If it does, the court "shall consider there to be a change of circumstances sufficient to justify the modification" (W.S. § 20-2-311(a)).
The twenty-percent route "do[es] not preclude" a petition "based upon a substantial change of circumstances, at any time." And every three years either parent may ask for a guideline review "without a requirement for a showing of a change in circumstances" (W.S. § 20-2-311(a)).
A support order "is not subject to retroactive modification" except by agreement, or for the period a petition is pending, "but only from the date notice of that petition was served" (W.S. § 20-2-311(d)). The filing date is the earliest day the new number can start.
Running the numbers again.
The same guideline, today's incomes
A modification is the original calculation done over. The court requires both parents to complete "a verified financial statement on forms approved by the Wyoming supreme court" and applies the presumptive guideline to the parents' circumstances "at the time of the review" (W.S. § 20-2-311(a)). No order modifying support can be entered without those affidavits, supported by pay stubs or, for the self-employed, receipts and expenses, and the most recent tax return (W.S. § 20-2-308). The calculator on this site runs the gross-to-net arithmetic and the table, including the shared-custody formula; the first thing I do with a prospective client is run it twice, once on the incomes in the existing order and once on today's, and look at the gap.
Twenty percent is measured against the monthly amount in the order, in either direction. An order of $1,000 is modifiable under the bright-line rule if the guideline now says $1,200 or $800. Smaller gaps go the harder route, a substantial change of circumstances, which has no number attached and is argued on what changed and why. The statute names a few changes as substantial on their own: the start of public assistance, Medicaid, SNAP or SSI for the child.
Where the overnights moved
Income is not the only input. The shared-responsibility formula applies when each parent has the children more than a quarter of the overnights, and a custody modification that moves the schedule across that line, or well past it, moves the support figure with it. The custody modification page covers the separate and stricter standard for the schedule; the two petitions are commonly filed together, and the support figure follows whatever schedule the court ends up ordering.
- 01Run the guideline on current net incomes and overnights; compare to the order; decide which route the petition takes
- 02File the petition in the court that entered the order, with your financial affidavit, pay stubs and latest return; serve the other parent
- 03The date of service: the earliest day any new amount can take effect, up or down
- 04The other parent's affidavit and documents; twenty days to answer, thirty if served out of state
- 05Discovery where the affidavits disagree: business records, bank statements, employer housing, the second job
- 06A stipulated order if the numbers agree; otherwise a hearing, often decided largely on the papers
- 07The new order, stating the presumptive amount, with a new income withholding order to the employer
The Child Support Program (Department of Family Services) may petition on its own in cases it is enforcing, and may add an amount for arrears to the monthly payment without a petition (§ 20-2-311(c)).
The four arguments in a Jackson support modification.
- Seasonal and irregular income. Income is "any form of payment or return in money or in kind," and overtime counts only if two years of history show it will continue (W.S. § 20-2-303(a)(ii)). A guide's year, a lift operator's winter, a contractor's summer: the guideline annualizes, and the modification turns on whether the year changed, not the month.
- Imputed income. A parent who is "voluntarily unemployed or underemployed" is assigned potential earning capacity, judged on work history, education, the children at home, available jobs, local wage rates, skills, and whether the figure is realistic (W.S. § 20-2-307(b)(xi)). Leaving a salaried job to work part time after the order is the classic case.
- The deviation. Every order states the presumptive amount and whether it departs from it. A parent who asks the court to deviate and loses can be ordered to pay the other side's fees (W.S. § 20-2-311(b)). Child care in this valley is the deviation most often requested, and the one most often granted.
- The business owner. Receipts less "reasonable unreimbursed legitimate business expenses," not the Schedule C bottom line. When the paying parent's income is a company's, the modification is a small forensic case; the hidden assets page describes the tools, and the high-net-worth page the experts.
Timing, the court, agreements, and the end of the order.
Why the filing date is everything, how Teton County handles these, agreed changes, and when support ends
The filing date
The retroactivity rule is the one that costs people money. The court may modify support only for the period a petition is pending, and only from the day notice of the petition is served on the other parent (W.S. § 20-2-311(d)). A parent whose hours were cut in November and who waits for the slow season to end before filing in April has paid five months at a figure the court will agree was too high, and none of it comes back. The same rule protects a paying parent: a custodial parent who learns of a raise and waits a year to file cannot collect the difference for that year. In either direction, file the week the change is known and serve promptly; a petition that sits unserved starts nothing. Each unpaid installment in the meantime is a judgment by operation of law on the day it is due (W.S. § 20-2-310(c)), and the enforcement page explains what that becomes.
In Teton County
Support modifications in this county are heard by the district judge who entered the original order, and most of them never see a courtroom. The statute requires financial affidavits before any modified order is entered, and where the affidavits and documents line up the case ends in a stipulated order run through the guideline. Where they do not, the judge decides many motions on the papers under W.R.C.P. 6(c)(4), sets a hearing only once the motion is fully briefed, and generates her own orders; the brief that helps is the one that cites the subsection that entitles the parent to the relief and attaches the arithmetic, not the one that recites the other parent's faults. The court sits in temporary quarters on East Simpson Avenue; the courthouse page covers the practical side.
Agreed changes, and the ones you cannot make
Parents may agree to a new figure and submit it, with affidavits, for approval; the court compares it to the presumptive amount and asks for a written explanation if it departs, and cannot approve a below-guideline figure while means-tested benefits are paid for the children (W.S. § 20-2-307(d)). Two things no agreement can do. It cannot waive support that belongs to the child, so a parent who signed it away at the divorce in exchange for the house can still be ordered to pay it. And it cannot change the past: accrued arrears are judgments. Medical support follows the same petition. Any order modifying support must address health insurance and uncovered expenses (W.S. § 20-2-401(a)), and a change in which parent has coverage through work is itself a reason to revisit the order.
Alimony, and when support ends
Alimony is modified under a different section, which lets the court "revise and alter the decree respecting the amount of the alimony or allowance" on either party's petition (W.S. § 20-2-116), with no twenty-percent rule and no guideline; the alimony page explains how it is set and the modifications overview how it is changed. Child support ends when the parents marry each other, the child dies or is emancipated, or the child reaches majority (W.S. § 20-2-313(a)), and continues past that for an adult child who cannot support himself because of a disability, for whom the noncustodial parent may petition for an adjustment under the same rules (W.S. § 20-2-316). None of these endings lowers the monthly figure in a multi-child order by itself; that takes a petition, filed before the birthday, not after.
What parents ask about changing support.
How much does my income have to change before child support can be modified in Wyoming?
I lost my job. Does child support stop automatically?
My ex got a big raise. Can I get more support?
How does seasonal income work when support is modified in Jackson?
Can we agree to change support ourselves?
My oldest child just turned eighteen. Does support for the younger ones go down?
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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