DanfioA schedule, then a split
Published 2026-09-22 · Last reviewed 2026-09-23
A percentage state hands you a number to argue about and a multiplication to do. A dollar-schedule state hands you a book.
Virginia's statute (Code of Virginia § 20-108.2) prints 844 rows of combined monthly gross income - zero to $350, then every $50 up to $42,500 - each with an obligation in dollars for one child through six. There is no percentage anywhere in it, and there is a second step after the table, because the figure at a row belongs to the family and is then divided between the two parents in proportion to their two incomes. This page walks both steps with the same engine the calculator runs.
First the table: one row, a dollar figure
Take a combined $3,000 a month for one child. The row at $3,000 prints $554 a month - the whole obligation for that family at that income, before anyone is assigned any of it. With a single income entered, there is nobody to split it with, so the paying parent carries all $554 a month, $6,648 a year.
Then the division: income share decides who pays what
In Virginia the second income is not optional arithmetic. Put $2,000 on one parent and $1,000 on the other: the combined figure is still $3,000, the table still prints $554, and then subdivision G 1 divides that figure "in the same proportion as their monthly gross incomes". The $2,000 parent's income is 66.7% of the combined total, so that parent's obligation is $369 a month, $4,428 a year - about two thirds of the $554 the table printed. Two parents entering both incomes changes where the money lands, not what the table says.
Between two rows, the statute says "extrapolate"
An income rarely lands exactly on a printed row. $3,025 falls between the $3,000 row ($554) and the $3,050 ($562), and the section's own words say amounts between two rows "shall be extrapolated" - moved by the same fraction of the gap the income is. That produces $558 a month for one child, from the upper part of the schedule, and above the last row the statute stops extrapolating and adds its own percentage of the income above $42,500. A schedule is a table, but it is not a cliff.
Where these numbers come from
- Virginia Code § 20-108.2, from the Commonwealth's own legislative text. The whole 844-row table is kept here and checked against the statute again at every release, and the same calculation the Child Support Calculator runs prices it, so the row this page quotes cannot drift from the published text.
- Virginia rounds to whole dollars. The state's own worksheet, FORM DC-637, asks for figures rounded to the nearest dollar and rounds "amounts of $.50 or more" up; the extrapolated $558above is that rule being applied, not a display choice.
- Above the table, the statute adds a rate. Past $42,500 the section adds its own percentages of the excess - 2.6 percent for one child - which is also a rule of the section, applied rather than approximated here.
What this guide does not cover
This page explains one state's schedule shape and nothing else. It does not add the two worksheet cost lines - the health-care coverage and work-related child-care figures of FORM DC-637, with the 5 percent reasonable-cost test - that a real Virginia order puts on top of the table before the division; it does not model shared custody (which multiplies by the other parent's overnights); and it says nothing about what a court will order in any state.
It also does not claim a percentage exists where the statute prints none: the number to argue about in Virginia is a row and a split, not a rate.
Look up your own combined income in the Child Support Calculator, compare a statutorily-capped spousal amount in the Alimony Calculator, or see what your take-home pay is before you enter it in the Paycheck Calculator.
An estimate of a statutory guideline only - not legal, tax or financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.