Split Parenting Child Support in Ontario: Each Parent Has a Child

Sometimes the children divide between homes. An older child may live mainly with one parent while a younger one lives mainly with the other. In that case each parent is both a payor and a recipient, which can make the usual question of who pays whom less obvious.

This article explains how the offset works, shows a simple illustration, and lists what else can affect the final figure in Ontario.

What split parenting means

Split parenting applies when there is more than one child and each parent has a majority of parenting time with at least one of them. A majority of parenting time means a child spends more than 60% of the time with one parent over a year.

It is different from shared parenting. In shared parenting, each parent has at least 40% of the time with the same child. In split parenting, the children are divided, so each parent mostly has different children.

How the set-off works

If each spouse has a majority of parenting time with one or more of the children, support is the difference between the table amounts each spouse would otherwise pay the other. This is often called the set-off.

The table amount depends on the paying parent's annual income, the number of children and the province where the paying parent lives. Because each parent's income is used for their own table amount, the parent with the higher income will usually be the one paying the net difference.

A simple illustration

Take two parents with two children, where one child lives mainly with each parent. Say Parent A earns $100,000 and Parent B earns $50,000. Using the 2025 Ontario one-child table, the monthly amounts are $932 at $100,000 and $450 at $50,000. These are amounts at the start of an income band, and amounts inside a band are slightly higher.

Real cases involve exact incomes, so your figure will differ. The point is that the two amounts are netted against each other rather than both being paid in full.

What else can affect the amount

• Special or extraordinary expenses, which are added to the basic amount: child care, medical and dental premiums, certain health costs, extraordinary primary or secondary school education expenses, post-secondary education expenses, and extraordinary extracurriculars.
• The sharing of those expenses, which follows the parents' incomes after deducting any contribution from the child.
• Child care costs, which are shared after taking into account subsidies, benefits, tax deductions or credits.
• Undue hardship, such as unusually high debts reasonably incurred to support the family or unusually high costs of exercising parenting time, though a claim must be denied if the claiming household would have a higher standard of living than the other spouse's household.
• Income questions, including fluctuating, self-employed or imputed income.

New Federal Child Support Tables took effect on October 1, 2025. The 2025 tables apply to support owed from that date, and the 2017 tables apply to November 22, 2017 to September 30, 2025. Existing orders do not change automatically.

What to do next

• Write down where each child actually spends their time over a year, to show who has the majority for each child.
• Collect three years of tax returns and notices of assessment for both parents.
• List special expenses for each child and who pays them.
• Check any existing order or agreement for how the children were divided and what amounts were set.
• Choose the right form: Form 8 to set up support, Form 15 to ask for a change without consent, Form 15D where both consent, and Form 13 with Form 13A for financial disclosure.

The online Child Support Service cannot be used if parenting time is shared or split. Court-ordered support is automatically filed with the Family Responsibility Office. A lawyer can help you check that the set-off has been done correctly for your family.

Frequently asked questions