Does receiving a large bonus or commission after the fact trigger a retroactive adjustment?

It can, particularly where the bonus or commission reflects income the payor actually earned during a period when support was calculated using a lower base income, and the recipient only learns of it after the fact. Courts generally treat bonuses and commissions as part of a payor's total income for guideline purposes, so a support calculation based on salary alone, without accounting for a consistent bonus history, may understate what the payor was genuinely earning during that period.

Whether this triggers a full retroactive adjustment depends on the same broader factors that apply to any retroactive claim: whether the bonus was disclosed at the time, whether it was a one-time event or part of a recurring pattern the payor should have flagged, and how promptly the recipient acted once they learned about it. A payor who receives a genuinely unpredictable, one-time windfall bonus is in a different position than one who receives a substantial, recurring annual bonus that was simply never factored into the original support calculation. Because bonus and commission structures vary widely, both sides benefit from clarifying upfront, in any support agreement or order, exactly how variable income like this will be treated going forward.