How is maintenance calculated?

The amount of child maintenance that you will be asked to pay is worked out by applying one of four rates to your income. Income is classed as earnings, money from an occupational or personal pension and tax credits.

Rates of child maintenance

The amount of income left after things like income tax, National Insurance and any money paid into a pension scheme have been taken off. This does not apply if the pension is set up to pay off a mortgage, when only 75 per cent of the money paid into the pension scheme is taken away from the income.

The four rates applied to your income are:

basic rate (if you have an income of £200 a week or more)
reduced rate (if you have an income of more than £100 and less than £200 a week)
flat rate (if you have an income of between £5 and £100 a week)
nil rate (if you have an income of less than £5 a week)