Establishing orders

The child support office or a parent may ask the court to issue a support order. The support order may be an interim, temporary, permanent or modified court order. It may be part of a divorce, paternity, child custody, or separate child support action, legal separation or order for protection.

The court reviews both parents' abilities to provide financial support for their children when ordering a child support obligation. Child support includes basic support, medical support and child care support.

Support orders may also address birth-related expenses and past child support for up to two years. In these situations, a parent may owe past due support, called arrears, when the order is signed.

Types of support
Basic support

Basic support is for expenses relating to the child's basic needs, housing, food, clothing and transportation. The amount is determined by applying the parents' combined parental income for determining child support (PICS) and the number of joint children to the basic support guidelines table. PICS is a calculated amount of gross income minus deductions for nonjoint children.

The basic support obligation does not include payment towards arrears.

A court may consider the parents' circumstances and the child support guidelines when determining how much basic support a parent should pay.

Medical support

In Minnesota, the court must address medical support. The court may order a parent to do one or more of the following when ordering medical support:
- Provide health care coverage, which may include dental and vision coverage
- Pay support each month toward the cost of health care coverage, medical and dental expenses, or costs paid by Medical Assistance
- Pay a portion of uninsured or unreimbursed medical or dental expenses.
Child care support

The court must review child care costs incurred when the child lives with a parent who works or goes to school. The court decides each parent's portion of financial responsibility for child care.
Determining amount of child support
In most cases, the court will use the child support guidelines to determine the appropriate amount of support. In some cases:
- The court may deviate from the guidelines when determining the amount of child support.
- The court may order the child support to be reserved for a designated period of time. This means no monthly support is due until the case is reviewed again, usually at a set time in the future.
- If the parties have an agreement, the court reviews the agreement to make sure the guidelines are applied correctly and the child support amounts are appropriate.
- When parents share custody or have relatively equal parenting time, the court often will use the guidelines to determine support. Given the uniqueness of these cases, the court may deviate from the guidelines to determine the amount.
Minor parents

When parents are under age 18 or legally declared a minor, the court appoints a guardian ad litem for each parent. The guardian ad litem represents the interests of the minor parents. Depending on their circumstances, minor parents may be ordered to pay a minimal amount of child support or the support may be reserved.
Multiple obligations
If a parent owes current child support to more than one other parent, the state sends a portion of each payment it receives to each parent.

Child support for multiple obligations is calculated using child support guidelines.
- The first obligation is determined by calculating both parents' parental income for determining child support, or PICS, and applying this information along with the number of joint children to the guidelines.
- To determine a parent's second obligation, the court may deduct the parent's first support obligation from the parent's income. The adjusted income is then used to determine the second obligation in the same manner as above.
- Additional obligations are calculated the same way.