Child support: how to read the Düsseldorf table

What the table is and what it is not

The Düsseldorfer Tabelle (Düsseldorf table) is not a statute. It is a guideline published by the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf in agreement with the other Higher Regional Courts, and it is applied the same way across Germany. Only the statutory minimum maintenance is set by law (§ 1612a BGB); the table builds on it and grades upward.

For proceedings in Frankfurt, the maintenance guidelines of the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main also apply. On some points they differ from those of other Higher Regional Courts, which is one reason a sample calculation found online does not always work here.

Above all, though, the table states the need, not the amount payable. If you read off the figure and transfer it, you will almost always pay too much or too little.

Step 1: Adjust the income

What decides the income group is not the net pay on your payslip but the adjusted net income of the parent who owes support. The adjustment works in both directions.

Deductions include work-related expenses, debts that can be taken into account, and additional retirement provision within certain limits. Added back is whatever the income does not show but still funds the standard of living. That means tax refunds, benefits in kind such as a company car you may use privately, rental income, and the benefit of living in a property you own.

This is the step people argue about in practice. The table is fixed; the adjusted income is not. It rests on the mutual duty to provide information (§ 1605 BGB). A calculation without verified figures misses the real case.

Step 2: Read off the need

The adjusted income gives the income group, and the child’s age gives the age band: up to 5, 6 to 11, 12 to 17, and 18 and older. Where the two meet, you find the need. Two corrections belong to this step:

• Number of dependants. The table assumes two people entitled to maintenance. If there are more, the group moves down; if there are fewer, it can move up.
• Needs control amount. It keeps a fair balance between what the paying parent keeps and what those entitled receive. If what the paying parent keeps falls below it, the group moves down.

Step 3: Deduct child benefit

Kindergeld (child benefit) is deducted from the need (§ 1612b BGB). What the statute looks at is not age but care. Half is deducted if one parent meets their maintenance obligation by caring for the child; in all other cases, the full amount.

In practice, this leads to a familiar rule of thumb. For a minor child in the residence model, half the child benefit is deducted; for an adult child whom no one cares for in that sense anymore, the full amount. Behind it is a simple idea: economically, child benefit belongs to both parents, even if it is paid to only one of them.

What remains after this deduction is the amount payable: the amount you actually transfer.

This amount only becomes enforceable once it is set down in an enforceable title. A dynamic title makes sense: it is linked to the minimum maintenance and adjusts on its own, so nothing has to be renegotiated with every change. At the youth welfare office, it can be certified free of charge; otherwise a notary or a court in proceedings can do so.

Step 4: Check the protected minimum and the order of priority

Whatever happens, the paying parent keeps a protected minimum. Toward minor children and privileged adult children, it is set lower than toward everyone else entitled to maintenance. Here the law is deliberately strict with parents of minor children (§ 1603 (2) BGB).

If the income is not enough for all claims, it is a shortfall case. Then § 1609 BGB sets the statutory order of priority. Minor children and the privileged adult children treated like them come first, then spouses who care for children or were married for many years, then everyone else. What is left is shared proportionally among those of equal rank.

Adult children: the roles change

Support does not end when the child turns 18: as long as the child is in education or training, the claim usually continues. What changes is its basis. Until then, the parent who looks after the child meets their share through daily care, and the other pays cash support. From 18, both parents owe cash support, in proportion to their incomes. Child benefit is deducted in full, and the claim belongs to the child, no longer to the parent who looked after them.

The exception is privileged adult children: unmarried, under 21, living in the household of their parents or one parent, and in general school education (§ 1603 (2) BGB). They are treated like minor children, both in rank and for the stricter protected minimum.

What the table does not cover

Two separate categories sit alongside ongoing support. Additional needs are a lasting, regular increase in need, such as daycare or tutoring costs. Special needs are a one-off, unforeseeable expense (§ 1613 (2) BGB). Neither is included in the table figure; both are claimed separately, as a rule in proportion to both parents’ incomes.

Shared care also breaks the logic of the table: if both parents look after the child roughly half the time, cash support can no longer be assigned to one parent alone. More on this in shared care in Frankfurt.

What comes next

Child support is one of three claims that run side by side after a separation; the full picture is on separation and maintenance. Maintenance between spouses follows its own rules; see separation maintenance: who gets how much and post-marital maintenance.

And because every calculation rests on figures that have to be disclosed: how far the duty to provide information reaches is explained in disclosure of your spouse’s assets.