How is child maintenance calculated?

There is no formula and no standard amount. Anyone who tells you that maintenance is a fixed percentage of a salary is guessing. Under the Maintenance Act 99 of 1998, a court works out what the child reasonably needs each month, and then divides that cost between the parents in proportion to what each of them can actually afford.

This guide is part of our Maintenance in South Africa: the complete guide, which links every guide on the topic.

That is the whole method. Needs on one side, means on the other. Everything else is detail about how you prove each of them.

Both parents owe the duty

Both parents have a legal duty to maintain their child. It does not depend on whether you were married, whether you live together, or whether you see the child. It is not something a parent can trade away in exchange for giving up contact.

The duty is shared in proportion to means, not split down the middle. A parent who earns considerably more will usually be expected to carry a considerably larger share of the child's costs.

The parent the child lives with is also contributing. Courts recognise that daily care, housing the child, cooking, transport and time off work have real value, even though no money changes hands. That contribution is weighed in the balance.

Step one: the child's reasonable needs

The starting point is a monthly budget for the child, not for the household. You list what the child actually costs and you prove it. Typically that includes:

• food and household groceries attributable to the child
• clothing and school uniforms
• school fees, registration, books, stationery and outings
• aftercare or a creche
• transport to school and back
• medical aid contributions and expenses the medical aid does not cover
• toiletries, hair and personal care
• cellphone and data where the child is old enough to need one
• sport, extramurals and equipment
• a share of rent or bond, water, electricity and domestic help

The last one is the item people forget. A share of the household costs is properly part of the child's needs, because the child has to be housed.

"Reasonable" is doing work in that phrase. The court looks at what this child needs, given the standard of living the family can sustain, not at the most expensive version of every item.

Step two: each parent's means

Means is wider than a payslip. A court will look at your income from all sources, your reasonable living expenses, your assets, and your earning capacity.

Earning capacity is important. A parent who resigns, works cash in hand or arranges to be paid through a company to look poor on paper is not usually believed. Courts can look at lifestyle, at the car in the driveway and at bank statements, and can draw conclusions where the numbers do not add up.

Your own reasonable expenses are taken into account, but your child's needs generally rank ahead of your discretionary spending. New debt taken on after separation rarely reduces a maintenance obligation.

Step three: apportioning the cost

Once the court knows the monthly cost of the child and what each parent can afford, it divides the cost in proportion to means. If one parent's income makes up roughly two thirds of the parents' combined available income, that parent would usually be expected to carry roughly two thirds of the child's monthly costs, adjusted for the care the other parent provides in kind.

There is no fixed answer, because there is no fixed input. Two families with identical salaries can end up with different orders because their children's needs differ.

Our maintenance estimator can help you sanity check your own figures and build the budget you will need at court. Treat the result as illustrative only. It is a working tool for your own planning, not a prediction of what a magistrate will order.

A worked example

Take a made-up family. Lindiwe and Bongani have one child, Amahle, who is nine and lives with Lindiwe. The numbers below are round figures chosen to show the method. They are not a formula, and a court is not bound to reason in exactly this way.

Lindiwe builds Amahle's monthly budget from statements and receipts: school fees, aftercare, a share of the rent and electricity, groceries, clothing, medical aid and transport. It comes to R6 000 a month. She proves it with a school fee statement, a lease, till slips and a medical aid certificate.

Lindiwe's net salary is R12 000 a month. Bongani's is R24 000. Their combined income is R36 000, of which Bongani earns two thirds. Applying proportion to means as a starting point, Bongani's share of Amahle's costs would be around R4 000 and Lindiwe's around R2 000. Lindiwe already meets much of her share in kind, by housing and caring for Amahle every day, so the order that might follow is a monthly cash contribution from Bongani in the region of R4 000, perhaps with school fees or medical costs dealt with separately.

Change any input and the answer changes. If Bongani shows he pays R3 000 a month towards a child from an earlier relationship, his available means are lower. If Amahle starts at a school with higher fees, her needs are higher. This is why there is no percentage and why proof matters more than argument.

How to apply, for free

You apply at the Maintenance Court, which sits in the Magistrates' Court, in the district where you or the child lives. The process is free. You do not need an attorney and you do not need to have been married.

Take with you:

• your identity document
• the child's birth certificate
• proof of your income, usually three months of payslips and bank statements
• your monthly budget for the child, with receipts, invoices and statements
• the other parent's full name, address, identity number and employer if you know them
• any existing court order or written agreement

A maintenance officer opens the file and investigates. A maintenance investigator can obtain financial information about the other parent. If the two of you agree on an amount, it can be made a consent order there and then. If not, the matter goes to a formal enquiry before a magistrate, who hears both sides and makes an order.

An order can generally be backdated to the date you applied, so applying sooner rather than later matters.

A realistic timeline

On the day you apply, the clerk takes your details and opens a file. Within a few weeks the other parent is summoned to attend, and both of you are usually asked to complete a statement of income and expenses. If you reach agreement at that first appearance, a consent order can be made the same day. If you do not, the matter is set down for a formal enquiry, which can take a few more months depending on how busy the court is and whether either parent asks for a postponement to gather documents. Because an order can be backdated to the application date, the wait does not cost the child the money in the meantime.

Common mistakes

Arriving without proof. A budget with no receipts, statements or invoices is a list of opinions. The parent with the paperwork usually gets the order that reflects reality.

Claiming for the household instead of the child. The court wants the child's share of the rent, not the whole rent. Overclaiming damages your credibility on the items that are genuine.

Hiding or understating income. The maintenance investigator can obtain bank records, and lifestyle evidence is admissible. A parent caught doing this loses the court's trust on everything else.

Linking payment to contact. Refusing to pay because you are not seeing the child, or refusing contact because you have not been paid, harms the child and your own case. They are separate legal duties.

Agreeing informally and never getting an order. A WhatsApp promise cannot be enforced. Have even an agreed amount made a consent order.

What to do this week

1. Start a folder, paper or digital, for every receipt and statement relating to the child.
2. Write out the child's monthly budget line by line, and mark which lines you can already prove.
3. Get three months of your own payslips and bank statements together.
4. Note everything you know about the other parent: identity number, address, employer, vehicle.
5. Run the figures through the maintenance estimator to check the budget hangs together, remembering that it is illustrative only.
6. Go to the Maintenance Court at your nearest Magistrates' Court and open a file. Do not wait until the folder is perfect.

Changing an order later

Maintenance is not fixed forever. Either parent can go back to the same Maintenance Court and apply to increase, reduce or substitute the order when circumstances change, for example a new job, a retrenchment, a new school or a serious illness.

Do not simply stop paying or start paying less because you think the amount is wrong. The order stands until a court changes it, and arrears build up in the meantime. See what to do if maintenance is not being paid.

When maintenance ends

Maintenance does not stop automatically on the child's eighteenth birthday. The duty continues while the child is not yet self-supporting, which often covers a child still at school or studying. A child over 18 can approach the Maintenance Court in their own name.

The duty ends when the child becomes self-supporting, and that is a question of fact rather than a birthday.

If you cannot afford an attorney

You do not need one. The Maintenance Court process is designed to be used without representation, and the maintenance officer is there to help you. If your matter is complicated, Legal Aid South Africa on 0800 110 110 applies a means test and takes on some maintenance matters, and university law clinics in most large centres help for free. Where the other parent is also abusive, a protection order is a separate free process at the same Magistrates' Court, and the GBV Command Centre on 0800 428 428 can help you plan.