Child Support Austin: What the Guideline Decides and What It Doesn’t

The percentage table behind the child support Austin parents pay runs only on the first $11,700 of monthly net resources. That ceiling took effect September 1, 2025. The Office of the Attorney General sets it as the Title IV-D agency under Texas Family Code § 154.061(b), and the agency’s own tax charts restate the figure twice.

Above that line the table simply stops. A court still applies the percentages to the capped amount. Then it decides separately, under § 154.126, whether the proven needs of the child justify anything more.

So the guideline is narrower than it looks. It produces a clean number for ordinary wage income. What it leaves open is most of what a child support Austin order costs in practice — a second household, an imputed salary, or a balance three years unpaid.

How a child support Austin order gets to a number

The court starts with resources, not salary. Section 154.062(b) counts all wage and salary income, including commissions, overtime, tips and bonuses. It also counts interest, dividends and royalties, self-employment income, and net rental income after operating expenses and mortgage payments — though not after noncash items such as depreciation.

The catch-all in that subsection reaches further than most people expect. Severance, retirement benefits, pensions, trust income, annuities, capital gains, unemployment benefits, workers’ compensation, gifts and prizes, and spousal maintenance all count. Social Security counts too, but supplemental security income does not.

Then come the deductions. Section 154.062(d) permits exactly six:

• social security taxes;
• federal income tax figured for a single person claiming one personal exemption and the standard deduction;
• state income tax;
• union dues;
• the cost of health insurance, dental insurance, or cash medical support for the child, ordered under §§ 154.182 and 154.1825;
• nondiscretionary retirement contributions, but only where the obligor pays no social security taxes.

Nothing else comes out. Rent, car notes and credit cards stay in. Under § 154.063 the court can also require two years of tax returns, a financial statement and current pay stubs, so the inputs rarely stay guesswork for long.

Two schedules, and the subsection numbers people misquote

Section 154.125(b) carries the standard schedule: 20 percent of net resources for one child, 25 for two, 30 for three, 35 for four, and 40 for five. Six or more children draws “not less than the amount for 5 children.”

Section 154.125(c) carries a second, lower schedule — 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 percent. It applies when monthly net resources fall below $1,000. Senate Bill 286 added it effective September 1, 2021, so older summaries of the Texas child support guidelines miss it completely.

Two restatements circulate widely and both are wrong. There is no § 154.125(a)(1). Subsection (a) is a single undivided sentence carrying no dollar figure at all, pointing instead to whatever the Title IV-D agency last published in the Texas Register. And the cap does not move annually. Section 154.125(a-1) adjusts it every six years against the consumer price index, rounded to the nearest $50, which puts the next adjustment on September 1, 2031. Annual publication applies to the tax charts, not to the cap.

Any Austin child support calculator online is running this same table. Arithmetic is not where a child support Austin dispute turns.

Four things that move a child support Austin order off the guideline

Four recurring issues pull the number away from the table, and each runs on its own statutory track.

One: children in more than one household. Section 154.128 sets a four-step computation. The court first figures what the obligor would owe if every child he or she has a duty to support lived together. It divides that figure by the total number of children, multiplies by the number not before the court, and subtracts the result from net resources. Only then does it apply the one-household percentage to what is left. Section 154.129 offers an alternative: a multiple-family adjusted table where, for example, one child before the court and one other child produces 17.50 percent rather than 20.

Two: intentional unemployment or underemployment. Under § 154.066(a), a court may apply the guidelines to earning potential where actual income falls significantly below what the obligor could earn. But subsection (c) draws a hard line: the court may not treat incarceration as intentional unemployment or underemployment when establishing or modifying an order. That bar also arrived with S.B. 286 in 2021, and it reverses what older articles say.

Above the cap, and the two orders that are not child support

Three: resources above $11,700 a month. Section 154.126(a) tells the court to apply the percentages presumptively to the capped portion. Beyond that, it may order additional support “depending on the income of the parties and the proven needs of the child.” Subsection (b) sets the outer bound — no obligor pays more than the greater of the presumptive amount or 100 percent of the child’s proven needs.

Four: medical and dental support. These are separate mandatory orders, not line items inside the support figure. Section 154.181(a) says the court shall render a medical support order; § 154.1815(b) says the same for dental. Each section defines “reasonable cost” by a percentage — nine percent for health coverage, 1.5 percent for a dental premium.

Here the common shorthand fails twice over. Both percentages run against annual resources as described by § 154.062(b), which is the gross resources list, not net resources and not monthly income. And neither figure caps a payment. Each one defines the outer limit of coverage an obligor can be required to buy.

How long a child support Austin order lasts

Section 154.001(a)(1) runs support until the child turns 18 or graduates from high school, whichever occurs later. Section 154.002 then adds a two-part test for anything past the eighteenth birthday. The child must be enrolled in an accredited secondary program leading to a diploma, and must comply with the minimum attendance requirements. Miss the second half and support ends, because § 154.006(a)(4) terminates the duty on a finding of noncompliance.

Section 154.006 lists the other termination triggers. They are the child’s marriage, removal of disabilities, and death. An order terminating the parent-child relationship after genetic testing excludes the obligor counts too. So does the one most lists drop: the date a child who enlists begins active service.

What happens when a child support Austin order goes unpaid

Section 157.261(a) makes each missed payment a final judgment for the amount due. Section 157.263 is the provision that matters at a hearing, though. It requires the court to confirm arrearages and render cumulative money judgments — three of them, separately, for child support, medical support and dental support. Subsection (b-3) forbids the court from reducing or modifying arrearages, while still allowing counterclaims and offsets.

Interest is narrower than the summaries suggest. Section 157.265(a) applies six percent simple interest only to the portion of delinquent support “greater than the amount of the monthly periodic support obligation.” Roughly, one month’s obligation sits outside the interest calculation. Delinquency itself is defined in a different section entirely. Under § 157.266(a), the clock runs from the payment date stated in the order. A payment is delinquent if a registry or the obligee does not receive it before the 31st day.

Where an Austin case actually sits

Travis County runs an institution most Texas counties do not. Its Domestic Relations Office holds a contract with the Office of the Attorney General. That contract covers an integrated child support system for the county. It also monitors divorces and parentage suits carrying ordered child and medical support, and tracks delinquent cases. The same office runs parenting classes, visitation dispute resolution and adoption evaluations.

Establishment, enforcement and paternity cases go to the county’s Title IV-D court, Child Support Court #19, at 1700 Guadalupe Street, sixth floor. An associate judge presides, so a contested child support Austin matter is heard there first and reaches the referring court only on a timely de novo request.

That structure carries a deadline worth knowing. Section 201.1042(b) governs a Title IV-D matter. It gives a party three working days to file notice with the clerk of the referring court. The clock runs from the date the associate judge signs the proposed order. The general rule at § 201.015(a) runs from a different event — receipt of notice of the substance of the associate judge’s report. Neither clock starts at the hearing, and neither counts calendar days.

The bottom line

The guideline is precise about the part of the case that is easiest to compute and quiet about the rest. It fixes a percentage of the first $11,700. It says almost nothing about how a court exercises discretion above that figure, beyond “proven needs.” Read Chapter 154 of the Texas Family Code alongside the attorney general’s current tax charts and the gap becomes obvious. A child support Austin order starts with that table, and the table answers one question. The four adjustments above answer the ones that actually move money.

Keep reading: Modifying Child Support in Arizona: When and How · Modifying a Custody Order in Arizona: The One-Year Rule

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This article explains how Texas courts apply the statutory child support guidelines and is general information, not legal advice. Guideline percentages, the net resources cap and the medical and dental support rules change by legislative amendment and by periodic adjustment, and how they apply turns on the facts of an individual case.