When can a parent pay less child support?

The law says that parents are responsible for financially supporting their dependent children. Dependent usually means until the child turns 18 and sometimes longer.

Usually child support is the money paid by the parent that spends the least amount of time with the child to the parent who takes care of the child most of the time. It is used to help cover the costs of caring for the child.

A parent can be a birth parent, a non-birth parent, an adoptive parent, and sometimes a step-parent. The parent who pays child support is called the payor parent.

Parents must support their children even if they:

• do not live with the children
• do not see the children
• are not married to the other parent
• did not live with the other parent
• did not have an ongoing relationship with the other parent
• have other children from a new relationship

Sometimes a parent may not have to pay child support or may pay less than the basic monthly amount of child support set out in the Child Support Guidelines and the Government of Canada's child support tables.

The court looks at the facts of your case to see if:

• The payor parent is a step-parent.
• There is a parenting arrangement like shared parenting time or split parenting time. This used to be called shared custody or split custody.
• Either parent has undue hardship.
• The child is over the age of majority, that is, over 18 years old.