Imputing Income for Child Support in Florida

When parents get divorced in Florida, one usually has to pay child support. These orders are based mostly on parental income. Most parents comply without question. But there's always a few who try to evade their obligation, often by purposely lowering their income or sometimes even trying to hide it. Florida law provides judges with a way to stymie those efforts by "imputing income" to the parent. Here's how that works.

How a Parent's Income Affects Child Support

Like all states, Florida has guidelines for calculating child support. The foundation of the guidelines is the principle that both parents are legally obligated to support their children, and that the level of support should be based on a share of both parents' income, as if the family were still together.

Usually, the parent who has the child less than half the time under a court-approved parenting plan will pay child support to the other parent (called the custodial parent in most states, although Florida uses the term "primary residential parent"). But that doesn't mean custodial parents have no support obligation. The law assumes they're already contributing their fair share by paying for items such as housing, clothing, food, and other costs of raising the children.

Learn all about how child support works in Florida.

What Does Imputing Income Mean?

When a judge determines that it's necessary to impute income to a parent in a case involving child support, it means the judge will decide how much that parent is capable of earning and use that amount instead of the parent's actual income to calculate child support.

When Can Florida Judges Impute Income to a Parent?

Florida's child support guidelines allow judges to use imputed income in calculating child support when a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed. There are exceptions for situations where the parent is physically or mentally incapacitated, or in other circumstances which the parent has no control over.

Voluntary Unemployment

Voluntary unemployment means a parent is capable of working but simply chooses not to. This arises in circumstances such as where a parent:

• quits a well-paying job
• is terminated on purpose (such as exhibiting bad behavior in order to get fired), or
• refuses to apply for another job after losing theirs.

Voluntary Underemployment

Voluntary underemployment is a situation where a parent could be earning more, but refuses to. Some examples of scenarios that potentially could give rise to a finding of underemployment are:

• the parent turned down a promotion
• the parent reduced their work hours without a medical reason
• the parent delayed receiving a bonus or commission, or
• the parent historically earned a much higher salary.

How Do Judges Decide on the Amount of Imputed Income?

Once a judge has decided to calculate child support based on a parent's imputed income, the judge will then determine how much that imputed income should be, based on factors such as:

• the parent's recent work history
• the parent's occupational qualifications, and
• the prevailing earnings level in the community (if such information is available).

Florida law states that income shall be automatically imputed to a parent if:

• the information concerning a parent's income is unavailable
• a parent fails to participate in a child support proceeding, or
• a parent fails to supply adequate financial information in a child support proceeding.

In these situations, there's a rebuttable presumption that the parent has income equivalent to the median income of year-round full-time workers as found in current reports published by the United States Bureau of the Census.

It's important to note that the court has the discretion to refuse to impute income to a parent if the court finds that it's necessary for that parent to stay home with the child who's the subject of the child support calculation.

The parent who's requesting that the court impute income to the other parent has the burden of showing solid evidence that the unemployment or underemployment is voluntary, and that the other parent could earn the imputed amount. That parent must also identify the amount and source of the requested imputed income, by presenting evidence of available employment the other parent is suitably qualified for. You can usually do that by looking at things such as the parent's education and experience.

(Fla. Stat. § 61.30(2)(b)(1) (2025).) (Dottaviano v. Dottaviano, 170 So. 3d 98 (Fla. 5th DCA 2015).)

Additional Rules that Apply to Imputing Income

Other than the basics of imputing income referred to above, there are certain rules that apply to the income imputing process. Some of these are:

• You can't use income records that are more than five years old at the time a court hearing on imputed income takes place.
• You can't seek to impute income to a parent that's higher than the parent has earned in the past. However, that may not apply if the parent has since achieved a status that could increase the parent's earning capacity, such as getting a higher education degree or obtaining a professional license.
• You can't treat a parent's incarceration as voluntary unemployment.
• You have to exclude from a parent's income public assistance the parent receives.

(Fla. Stat. § 61.30(2)(b)(2) (2025).)

Do You Need a Lawyer in Cases Involving Imputing Income?

You can certainly file a motion (written legal request) with the court on your own, seeking to modify an existing court order with an eye to imputing income to the other parent. The Florida Court System maintains an informative website to help those who want to file a child support modification action themselves.

But income imputing can be a tricky path to navigate. In some cases the evidence leaves no doubt that a parent is suppressing or hiding income. But many situations aren't necessarily clear-cut, and there may be valid reasons why a parent isn't earning to capacity.

An experienced family law attorney can evaluate your case and help gather and present the kind of evidence you'll need to convince a judge of your argument for or against imputing income. A judge's decision can impact the amount of child support you'll pay or receive for many years to come, so paying a lawyer could be well worth it.