By Jason Kohlmeyer, Family Law Attorney
You can get child support reduced in Minnesota, but you have to prove a substantial change in circumstances since the last order was entered. Courts do not revisit child support simply because the paying parent disagrees with the amount.
To successfully modify an order, you generally need to show a significant income change or another qualifying life event, and the difference between your current obligation and what the guidelines would produce today must meet a specific numeric threshold. This article explains how that process works in practice.
Minnesota courts will consider modifying a child support order when circumstances have changed materially since the order was entered. The most common qualifying changes I see are a significant drop in the paying parent’s income, job loss, involuntary underemployment, serious illness or disability, and a significant increase in the receiving parent’s income. A change in parenting time can also qualify, because the amount of time each parent spends with the children directly affects the support calculation.
What does not qualify: voluntarily quitting a job, taking a lower-paying position to avoid support, or temporary income dips likely to reverse. Courts look at whether the change is genuine, involuntary, and expected to continue. If a judge suspects the paying parent deliberately reduced income, the court can impute income and calculate support based on earning capacity rather than actual earnings.
This threshold is the part most people do not know about before they file. Under Minn. Stat. § 518A.39, a rebuttable presumption of substantial change arises when the existing support order differs from what the guidelines would produce today by at least 20 percent and at least $75 per month. Both conditions must be met.
In practice, a real income drop may still not be enough to modify support if the resulting change is modest. If your income falls slightly and the guideline recalculation produces a figure only 12 percent lower than the current order, a court is unlikely to grant the modification.
Running the numbers through the Minnesota Department of Human Services child support calculator before filing helps you assess whether the 20 percent threshold is in reach. If it is not, you may need to wait for circumstances to shift further before the motion is viable.
Minnesota child support is based on gross income, as defined under Minn. Stat. § 518A.29. Gross income includes wages, salaries, bonuses, commissions, self-employment income, and most other regular sources of money. It does not include public assistance or Social Security disability payments received on behalf of the child.
When income drops, a court looks at whether the drop is real and sustainable. A parent who has been unemployed for several months after losing a salaried position has a stronger case than someone whose claimed self-employment income dropped right after a support order was entered.
Courts also consider whether the paying parent took reasonable steps to replace lost income. Seasonal fluctuations generally do not support a modification unless the pattern represents a clear, permanent shift in earning capacity.
Yes. Minnesota’s child support formula includes a parenting expense adjustment that reduces the paying parent’s obligation when that parent has the children for a substantial share of overnights. If your parenting time has increased significantly since the original order was entered, that change alone may justify a modification even if your income has not changed.
The parenting time adjustment works on a sliding scale under the guidelines. A parent who goes from every-other-weekend to a near-equal parenting schedule could see a meaningful reduction in support. If you have informally shifted to more parenting time but never updated the court order, you should address both the custody arrangement and the support obligation together in a single modification motion. Courts will not apply a parenting time adjustment retroactively to the period before the motion was filed.
Child support orders are court orders, and only a court can change them. You cannot reduce payments on your own simply because circumstances have changed. To modify the order, a parent files a motion with the district court that issued the original order, along with a financial declaration and a proposed child support worksheet.
The motion must be properly served on the other parent. If the case is being enforced through the county, the county child support office is typically a party and must also be served. In Blue Earth County, where many of my Mankato-area clients have their cases, the Blue Earth County Child Support Enforcement Unit is notified of any modification motion when there is an open IV-D enforcement case.
Missing this service step causes delays and can result in a motion being dismissed on procedural grounds unrelated to the merits. An attorney familiar with local court practice can prevent those problems before the hearing.
For forms and procedural guidance, the Minnesota Courts self-help center provides instructions for filing a modification motion.
Your obligation to pay does not pause because you filed a motion. You remain legally required to pay the current ordered amount until a court signs a new order. Support that goes unpaid during the modification process becomes arrears, and arrears cannot be retroactively forgiven in Minnesota for any period before the motion was filed.
Even after a motion is filed, a court can only modify support back to the date of filing, not earlier. If you are struggling to pay while waiting for a hearing date, document your efforts and keep records of partial payments. Paying something is better than paying nothing, and it matters when the judge evaluates your good faith.
Parents can agree to a different support amount, but an informal agreement does not change the legal obligation under the existing order. If your co-parent verbally agrees to accept less and you stop paying the full ordered amount, you are technically in arrears under Minnesota law. If the relationship sours later, the other parent can pursue you for the unpaid balance despite the earlier agreement.
The correct approach is to put the agreement in writing as a stipulated modification and submit it to the court for approval. Once a judge signs the modified order, it becomes the new enforceable amount. The modification statute at § 518A.39 applies to stipulated modifications the same way it applies to contested ones, so the paperwork still needs to go through the court.
About the author: Jason Kohlmeyer is a Minnesota family law attorney with over 25 years of experience and a partner at Kohlmeyer Hagen Law Office in Mankato and Rochester. He has practiced family law exclusively since 2010 and has handled hundreds of Family Law cases across southern Minnesota. He is the author of The Divorce Survival Guide: Getting Divorced in Minnesota and has spoken on family law topics for the American Bar Association, Minn. State Bar associations and American Trial Lawyers Association. He is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association and has been recognized by Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers of America for many years.
