Child Support Lawyer in The Woodlands and Conroe, Texas
Almost every parent who calls a child support lawyer in The Woodlands or Conroe opens with the same question: what will I pay each month, or what should I be receiving? Texas answers with a public formula, and the percentages are the easy part. What decides your number is the definition of the income they apply to, and it surprises most parents.
Support is usually decided alongside conservatorship and possession, which is what Texas calls custody. Griffin & Cain, Attorneys at Law, PC handles child support matters across Montgomery County from our Conroe office, and we will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us.
How Texas Calculates Guideline Child Support
The formula starts with the paying parent's monthly net resources, a defined term we unpack below, and applies a percentage based on how many children are before the court. Texas Family Code § 154.125 sets the schedule:
- One child: 20 percent of monthly net resources
- Two children: 25 percent
- Three children: 30 percent
- Four children: 35 percent
- Five children: 40 percent
- Six or more children: not less than the amount ordered for five children
The $11,700 Cap, and the Nuance Most Articles Miss
The percentages do not run on unlimited income; they apply to monthly net resources up to a cap of $11,700 per month, effective September 1, 2025.
Here is the nuance. That figure is not written into the statute; the law points to the amount most recently published by the Office of the Attorney General, which must adjust it for inflation every six years. That is what happened in 2025. The Legislature did not raise it; the Attorney General adjusted it from $9,200, where it had sat since 2019, and the next adjustment is due in 2031.
If the Paying Parent Earns Very Little
A lower schedule applies when monthly net resources fall below $1,000, starting at 15 percent for one child instead of 20, with each bracket five points below the standard one. Unlike the cap, the $1,000 line is fixed in the statute and never adjusts for inflation.
"Net Resources" Is Not Your Take-Home Pay
This is the part of the law we most often see mangled online, and where support cases are won and lost. Net resources starts wider than your salary and narrows only through a short, closed list of deductions; your paycheck stub is not the measure.
What Counts as Income
Nearly everything:
- All pay for your work. 100 percent of wage and salary income and other compensation for personal services, including commissions, overtime pay, tips, and bonuses.
- Money your money earns. Interest, dividends, and royalty income.
- Self-employment income.
- Net rental income. Rent after operating expenses and mortgage payments, with no reduction for paper items such as depreciation.
- Almost everything else you actually receive. Severance pay, retirement benefits and pensions, trust income, annuities, capital gains, Social Security benefits other than SSI, VA disability benefits other than non-service-connected disability pension benefits, unemployment benefits, disability and workers' compensation benefits, interest from notes, gifts and prizes, spousal maintenance, and alimony.
What Is Left Out
- Return of principal or capital
- Accounts receivable
- TANF and federal public assistance payments
- Payments for the foster care of a child
What Comes Out to Reach "Net"
- Social Security taxes
- Federal income tax, computed as if you were a single person claiming one personal exemption and the standard deduction, however you actually file
- State income tax
- Union dues
- The cost of health insurance, dental insurance, or cash medical support for your child, as ordered by the court
- Mandatory retirement contributions, but only if you do not pay Social Security taxes
Read the second item again. The court ignores your actual withholding and filing status; every paying parent is run as a single filer, which is why the Attorney General publishes tax charts for this calculation every year.
What You Cannot Deduct
The list is closed. If an expense is not on it, it does not come out:
- Voluntary 401(k) and other elective retirement contributions. The only retirement deduction is a mandatory one, for parents outside Social Security.
- Debt payments. Car notes, credit cards, student loans, your own mortgage.
- Money spent on other children, unless a court ordered it.
- Your own living expenses. Rent, groceries, and gas change nothing.
The Math, in Order
- Add up everything that counts, minus the exclusions.
- Subtract only the allowed deductions, using the Attorney General's tax chart.
- Cap the result at $11,700.
- Apply the percentage that fits your family: standard, low-income, or multiple-household.
- Add medical and dental support.
If your income is more complicated than a single W-2 — swinging overtime, a side business, rental property — this is where a child support lawyer earns the fee. Call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 before you agree to a number someone else calculated.
When the Court Can Move Off the Guideline Number
Guideline support is a presumption, not a ceiling and not a floor. A judge can order more or less when the evidence justifies it, weighing seventeen listed factors: the child's age and needs, including extraordinary educational and health care expenses; each parent's ability to contribute; the receiving parent's resources and earning potential; debts assumed; whether either parent has custody of another child; and costs such as child care and travel for possession.
"We Split Time 50/50. Why Am I Still Paying Guideline Support?"
This is the question we field most, and the honest answer disappoints. Equal time is one of those seventeen factors: a reason a judge may adjust the number, not an automatic offset. If your schedule should matter, that case has to be built and argued.
Supporting Children in More Than One Household
If you are also responsible for children who are not before the court, the percentages shift down through a separate table. One child in the case plus one other child you support comes to 17.50 percent instead of 20; two children in the case plus one other comes to 22.50 percent instead of 25. The right cell is worth confirming; small differences compound over the years an order runs.
How Long Child Support Lasts
Until your child turns 18 or graduates from high school, whichever happens later. A senior who turns 18 in October is generally still owed support through graduation. It also ends if the child is emancipated or dies; for a child with a disability, it can run indefinitely.
Support for an Adult Disabled Child
A court can order support with no end date for a child who requires substantial care and personal supervision because of a mental or physical disability and will not be capable of supporting themselves. The condition families most often miss: the disability, or a known cause of it, must exist on or before the child's 18th birthday. The court can also designate a special needs trust and order payments made directly to it, and the order remains modifiable.
Medical and Dental Support Come on Top
Whatever the guideline number is, the court must also order medical support, with dental on parallel rules, on top of the monthly figure. Before a hearing, each parent discloses what coverage is available for the child and what it costs.
Now the detail published articles most often get backwards. Reasonable cost for health insurance means no more than 9 percent of the paying parent's annual resources, and the dental ceiling is 1.5 percent. Both run on resources counted before the deductions above, the gross figure rather than the net one; compute them on net resources and you understate both.
The priority is fixed: employer or organization coverage at reasonable cost first, another source next, and where private coverage cannot be obtained, cash medical support from the paying parent, capped at that same 9 percent. Dental follows the same order, weighing cost, accessibility, and quality.
Questions About Child Support?
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Changing or Enforcing an Order
Orders can change when life does, but the timing rules are unforgiving. Texas Family Code § 156.401 gives two routes: a material and substantial change in circumstances, or three years since the order was signed or last changed plus a current amount that differs from the guideline figure by 20 percent or $100. One trap: if you agreed to an amount outside the guidelines, the three-year route is closed and only a material and substantial change will do. Our page on modifying a support order has the detail.
The sharper deadline: a court can modify support only as to payments that come due after the other parent is served or appears. Whatever accrued before then stays as ordered, however good your reason for waiting.
When the other parent simply stops paying, the remedies escalate from wage withholding to a judgment for the arrearages to contempt. Our child support enforcement page walks through them.
If your income has dropped, or the support owed to you has stopped arriving, do not wait: call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 before another month accrues that no court can reach.
The Mistakes We Correct Most Often
- Paying cash, or paying the other parent directly. Court-ordered support runs through the state disbursement unit or the local registry. Money outside that channel is often treated as a gift while the arrearage keeps growing.
- Trusting a private deal to lower support. A text agreeing to accept less does not change a court order.
- Waiting to file a modification. Support changes only going forward. Every month you wait is a month you cannot recover.
- Quitting a job to shrink the number. Courts are not required to take a sudden income drop at face value.
- Deducting a voluntary 401(k) contribution. Parents do this constantly, and it puts the calculation thousands of dollars off.
Child Support in Montgomery County
Family cases here go to the 410th District Court, the 418th District Court, and County Court at Law No. 3; state law requires the 418th to give preference to family law matters. We work in these courts, and a few local habits change how a support case actually runs.
Court-ordered payments go through the District Clerk, the county's local registry for child support. If the Attorney General is involved in your case, the county requires a file-stamped copy of the petition served on the OAG Child Support Division at 5452 Highway 105 W, Suite 202, Conroe, TX 77304. In child cases in the 410th and 418th, health and dental insurance information must be filed within seven days before any hearing.
Both family courts order the parties to attend mediation before a temporary orders hearing, and they cap hearing time when mediation does not produce an agreement: three hours for child residence cases and two hours for other matters in the 418th, one hour per side in the 410th. In our experience, it rewards the parent who arrives with the income picture already documented.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is child support calculated in Texas?
Texas applies a percentage to the paying parent's monthly net resources: 20 percent for one child, 25 for two, 30 for three, 35 for four, and 40 for five. Net resources is a defined term wider than take-home pay, and medical and dental support are ordered on top.
What is the maximum child support in Texas?
The guideline percentages apply only to the first $11,700 of monthly net resources, effective September 1, 2025. That figure is not written into the statute; it is the amount the Attorney General publishes and adjusts for inflation every six years, most recently up from $9,200.
Does 50/50 possession mean no one pays child support?
No, not automatically. Equal possession time is one of seventeen factors a judge may weigh as a reason to move off guideline support. It is judicial discretion, not a formula that cancels support on its own.
When does child support end in Texas?
Support runs until the child turns 18 or graduates from high school, whichever happens later. It ends early if the child is emancipated or dies. For a child with a disability, it can continue indefinitely if the disability, or a known cause of it, existed by the 18th birthday.
Can my ex and I agree to no child support?
You can agree to a below-guideline amount, but a judge must still find it is in the child's best interest, and nothing outside a signed court order is enforceable. One caution: agreeing to an out-of-guideline amount closes the three-year shortcut, so a later change requires a material and substantial change in circumstances.
Is overtime counted as income for child support?
Yes. Texas counts 100 percent of wages and other compensation for personal services, and the law names overtime, commissions, tips, and bonuses specifically. The usual fight is over the averaging period, which is why a full year of pay records matters.
What if I lose my job?
File to modify promptly. A court can change support only for payments that come due after the other parent is served or appears in the case, so everything owed before that stays owed in full. Unemployment benefits still count as income.
Who pays for the child's health insurance?
If coverage is available at reasonable cost through a parent's job, the court orders that parent to enroll the child. If private coverage cannot be obtained, the paying parent provides cash medical support instead. Reasonable cost has a defined ceiling: 9 percent of the paying parent's annual resources for health insurance and 1.5 percent for dental, both measured before the deductions that produce the net figure.
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Our attorneys have years of experience practicing family law in Conroe, The Woodlands, and surrounding counties.
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Talk to a Conroe Child Support Attorney
Child support looks like arithmetic until you are the one gathering a self-employed parent's records. Partner Brian Russell Cain, a member of the Montgomery County Bar Association, handles child support, divorce, and related family matters for parents in Conroe, The Woodlands, Magnolia, and Montgomery. Before you sign anything, talk it through with a child support lawyer who works in these courts.
Call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 or contact Griffin & Cain at 400 W. Davis St., Suite 200, Conroe, TX 77301. We will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us.
We're Available to Speak With You
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Contact Our Office
Today
We will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us. Get started by calling us or contacting us via email, and we will respond as soon as possible.
Phone:
936-539-1011
Address:
400 W. Davis St., Suite 200. Conroe, TX. 77301