How child maintenance works in England & Wales

If you're looking to sort out child maintenance in England and Wales, the Child Maintenance Service is the government service that can help you set up, calculate, or enforce child maintenance payments. You can find them on GOV.UK along with their guidance on making child arrangements when you separate or divorce.

If you need free legal information and advice on family law matters, Child Law Advice from Coram can point you in the right direction. You might also want to check GOV.UK Legal Aid to see if you qualify for help with legal costs. If you're finding things tricky, Cafcass advises the family courts about what's best for children, and they can help guide you through the process.

In England and Wales you have two routes: agree an amount privately between yourselves, or ask the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to work it out and, if needed, collect it. Plenty of separated parents manage with a private arrangement and never involve the CMS at all, but it is there as a backstop, and knowing roughly what it would calculate can make your own conversation easier.

• The Child Maintenance Service can work out an amount, arrange payments and take action if a parent does not pay, or you can arrange maintenance privately if you both agree (gov.uk).
• The CMS bases the amount on the paying parent's gross yearly income, taken from HMRC records, converted to a weekly figure and banded into rates, with reductions if your child stays overnight with the paying parent at least 52 nights a year (gov.uk).
• Applying to the CMS is free; the old £20 application fee was scrapped from 26 February 2024 (gov.uk).
• Direct Pay (parent to parent, with the CMS just setting the amount) has no collection fees; Collect and Pay (the CMS collects the money) adds 20% to what the paying parent pays and takes 4% off what the receiving parent gets (gov.uk).
• Often misunderstood: child maintenance payments do not affect any benefits you or your children get, including Universal Credit, and you do not pay tax on them (gov.uk).

Checked August 2026 against gov.uk.

Child maintenance is money towards a child's everyday living costs, usually paid by the parent the child lives with less of the time.

• You can agree an amount privately, use an online calculator as a guide, or apply to the statutory service if you cannot agree.
• Amounts are based on income, the number of children, and how many nights they stay over.
• Keep a clear record of what is agreed and paid.
• ParenThing can log payments so both of you have the same record.