How Much Is Child Support for One Kid in Ontario?

There is no single dollar answer, and anyone who gives you one without asking about income is guessing. For one child in Ontario, the base amount is the table amount under the Federal Child Support Guidelines, read from the paying parent’s gross annual income. Updated federal tables took effect on October 1, 2025, so amounts for periods from that date onward come from the 2025 tables, while earlier periods use the 2017 tables. Special expenses such as daycare or braces are added on top of the table amount and shared in proportion to each parent’s income.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

Start With the Table Amount

Child support for one child in Ontario is built in three steps, and the first two are mechanical. Step one: find the paying parent’s gross annual income, before tax. Step two: look that income up in the Ontario table under the Federal Child Support Guidelines for one child. The figure the table returns is the monthly base amount, called the table amount. Step three is where the judgment starts: adjust for special expenses, parenting time and the handful of situations where the Guidelines allow a different number.

We deliberately do not print sample dollar figures on this page. The table amount changes with every income level and with table updates, and a made up example has a way of becoming the number someone anchors a settlement to. Look up the real figure for the real income, then talk about the adjustments.

The Income Number Matters More Than Anything

Nearly every genuine child support fight for one child is actually an income fight. The Guidelines start with total annual income, the Line 15000 figure on the tax return, and then apply specific adjustments. For salaried employees that is usually clean. It stops being clean the moment the payor is self employed, paid in cash, running income through a corporation, or splitting income with a new partner: deductions that make sense to the CRA do not necessarily reduce income for support purposes, and personal expenses run through a business can be added back.

Section 19 of the Guidelines gives courts the power to impute income where a parent is intentionally underemployed or unemployed, exempts income from tax improperly, or simply fails to disclose. In practice that means a parent who quits a solid job before a support hearing, or who claims poverty while living visibly well, can be treated as earning what they should be earning. Full, documented financial disclosure is not a courtesy in these cases. It is the case.

Parenting Time Can Change the Math

The table amount assumes the child primarily lives with one parent. When each parent has the child for at least 40 percent of the time over the year, section 9 of the Guidelines applies, and the calculation opens up. The common outcome is a set off: work out each parent’s table amount for one child, and the higher earner pays the difference. Courts can then adjust for the real costs of running two full households, so a 50/50 schedule rarely means zero support unless incomes are genuinely similar.

Two cautions. Counting time is its own battleground, since 40 percent measured in overnights, hours or school days can land differently. And a schedule adopted to reduce support, rather than to parent, tends to get noticed. How parenting schedules are actually built is covered on our parenting time page, and the support math should follow the schedule, never the other way around.

What the Table Amount Covers, and What Gets Added

The table amount is meant to cover the ordinary costs of raising a child: housing, food, clothing, transportation, the everyday load. On top of it, section 7 of the Guidelines adds special or extraordinary expenses, shared between parents in proportion to their incomes. The recurring list looks like this.

• Child care needed so a parent can work or attend school
• Medical and dental insurance premiums attributable to the child
• Health expenses insurance does not cover, such as orthodontics, glasses, counselling or prescriptions
• Extraordinary school expenses and extraordinary extracurricular activities
• Post secondary education

The fights here are rarely about whether daycare counts. They are about what is reasonable given the family’s means, what is extraordinary rather than routine, and what receipts actually exist. A properly drafted agreement names the expenses, the sharing ratio and the proof required, which prevents years of e transfer arguments.

When the Amount Can Be Different

The table is presumptive, not absolute. The Guidelines allow different numbers in a few defined situations. Where the payor earns more than $150,000 a year, section 4 lets the court apply the table to the first $150,000 and then assess what is appropriate on the excess, though in most cases the table amount simply continues. Undue hardship is a narrow escape valve that requires proving both hardship and a lower standard of living than the other household, and it fails more often than it succeeds. And where each parent has a child from the relationship living primarily with them, the calculation runs both ways. None of these are do it yourself arguments; they are exactly where a child support lawyer earns their fee.

Married or Common Law: Two Laws, Same Table

Married parents who divorce deal with child support under the federal Divorce Act. Parents who were never married, or who separate without divorcing, use Ontario’s Family Law Act. Functionally it does not matter for the amount: Ontario adopts the same child support tables for both routes, so the table amount for one child is the same number regardless of which statute the claim travels under. What changes is the court paperwork and how the claim fits alongside divorce, property and parenting issues, which is procedure, not money.

Is Child Support Taxable?

No. For any child support set on or after May 1, 1997, the recipient does not declare it as income and the payor gets no deduction. It moves after tax. Spousal support follows different tax rules, which is one of several reasons the two should never be blurred together in an agreement. A handful of pre 1997 arrangements still carry the old tax treatment, so if your order is that vintage, have it reviewed.

How Long Support Lasts

Support for one child does not switch off at 18. It continues where the child remains dependent: enrolled in full time education, including college and university, or unable to withdraw from parental care because of illness or disability. It can also end earlier in rare situations where a younger child becomes genuinely independent. The practical point is that duration is governed by the order or agreement and by the child’s actual circumstances, and either parent can apply to vary when those circumstances change: a graduation, a move, a diagnosis, a real change in income.

Getting a Number You Can Rely On

Here is the honest structure of every one child support case: confirm the real income, read the current table, then negotiate the adjustments. Do it in that order and most files settle. Do it out of order, or from a stale table, and you get agreements that unravel and arrears fights years later, because support can also be claimed retroactively when income was hidden or understated.

Our family team handles this daily, from clean consent agreements to imputation fights. Start with our child support overview, meet the broader practice at our family law hub, or go local with our Markham family lawyer team serving York Region.

Child Support for One Child: FAQ

This article is legal information for Ontario, not legal advice or a calculation for your situation. It reflects the Federal Child Support Guidelines and Department of Justice materials as of the time of writing, including the tables in effect October 1, 2025. For advice on your file, call 647-588-3234.