SCJE · FAMILY LAWChild maintenance calculator (Spain)

Child maintenance follows no closed formula. Article 146 of the Civil Code requires it to be set in proportion to two variables: the needs of the child and the means of the person who must pay it. Two cases with identical incomes may therefore end with different awards if the children’s ages, their educational or medical needs, or the actual division of time spent with each parent differ.

On that basis the courts apply certain settled criteria. The first is the subsistence minimum: however scarce the payer’s income, a symbolic amount is usually set, because the maintenance obligation does not disappear through lack of means, although it may be suspended temporarily in extreme cases. The second is the distinction between ordinary expenses, which the maintenance payment covers, and extraordinary expenses, which are normally shared equally and require prior agreement or judicial authorisation. The third is that shared custody does not automatically remove maintenance: where there is a significant income imbalance between the parents, a payment compensating that difference is maintained.

Maintenance is updated annually in line with the consumer price index unless otherwise provided, and may be varied through proceedings to modify measures where a substantial and lasting change of circumstances is established: loss of employment, the birth of further children, a child reaching majority with financial independence, or a change in the living arrangements.

• All calculators and tools
• Severance pay
• Traffic accident compensation
• Guide to the Spanish Criminal Code