What Is Missouri Form 14?
It is the worksheet that produces the presumed child support amount in every Missouri case. Its official name is Civil Procedure Form No. 14, the Child Support Amount Calculation Worksheet, and the number it generates is presumed correct unless a court makes a written finding that it is unjust or inappropriate.
That last clause is the part almost nobody explains. Missouri Form 14 is not advisory and it is not a guideline in the loose sense. It produces a presumption, and a presumption has to be rebutted on the record before a judge can depart from it.
So the practical questions are what goes into the worksheet, and what it takes to move off the number that comes out. The chapter behind it is public at the Missouri Revisor of Statutes and in the Chapter 452 index.
Where Does the Presumption Come From?
From Supreme Court Rule 88.01 and from the statute that told the Supreme Court to write it.
Rule 88.01(b) is the operative sentence. “There is a rebuttable presumption that the amount of child support calculated pursuant to Civil Procedure Form No. 14 is the correct amount of child support to be awarded in any judicial or administrative proceeding.”
Rule 88.01(a) sits above it. “When determining the correct amount of child support, a court or administrative agency shall consider all relevant factors, including all relevant statutory factors.”
The statute behind the rule is Section 452.340 RSMo. Subsection 8 directs the Supreme Court of Missouri to keep guidelines in effect containing “specific, descriptive and numeric criteria which will result in a computation of the support obligation”, and to review them “not less than once every four years”.
The presumption itself is in subsection 9, not subsection 8. That subsection provides that “There shall be a rebuttable presumption, in any judicial or administrative proceeding for the award of child support, that the amount of the award which would result from the application of the guidelines established pursuant to subsection 8 of this section is the correct amount of child support to be awarded.”
It is worth getting that pin right, because the two subsections do different jobs.
What Statutory Factors Sit Behind the Number?
Six of them, in Section 452.340.1 RSMo, and the worksheet is how they get expressed arithmetically.
- The financial needs and resources of the child
- The financial resources and needs of the parents
- The standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved
- The physical and emotional condition of the child, and the child’s educational needs
- The child’s physical and legal custody arrangements, including the amount of time the child spends with each parent and the reasonable expenses associated with the custody or visitation arrangements
- The reasonable work-related child care expenses of each parent
The same subsection says a court may order support “without regard to marital misconduct”, which is a point people raise more often than it helps them. Note that it is the support award the statute insulates from misconduct. Conduct during the marriage remains a property division factor under Section 452.330.1.
What Goes Into the Worksheet?
Income first, then adjustments, then the schedule, then the extra costs of raising the children, then credits.
The worksheet runs in a fixed order down a set of numbered lines, with a column for each parent and a combined column.
- Monthly gross income. For each parent, plus any court ordered maintenance being received
- Adjustments. Other court ordered child support being paid, court ordered maintenance being paid, and a calculated allowance for other children primarily residing with a parent
- Adjusted monthly gross income. Income plus maintenance received, less the adjustments, for each parent and combined
- Each parent’s proportionate share. Each parent’s adjusted income as a percentage of the combined figure
- The basic child support amount. Read from the support schedule using the combined adjusted income and the number of children
- Additional child rearing costs. Work related child care, health insurance for the children in the case, uninsured extraordinary medical costs, and other agreed or court ordered extraordinary costs
- Credits. Credit for additional costs a parent is already paying, and an adjustment for the time the paying parent has the children overnight
- The presumed child support amount. What is left after those credits
Gross income is the line where most Missouri Form 14 disputes actually live. For a self employed parent it is not simply the net profit on a tax return. The Directions carry a comment at that line, headed Self-Employment Income, providing that “expense reimbursements or in kind payments by the business to pay for expenses of the parent that are personal in nature and not business related may be income to the parent”. Our FAQ on a business paying personal expenses covers how far that actually reaches, and the answer is less far than it sounds.
Two other lines produce more argument than their size suggests. The overnight adjustment turns on the parenting schedule, and the extraordinary cost lines turn on what counts as extraordinary.
Is Missouri Form 14 the Same Form It Was Last Year?
No. A new Form 14 took effect on January 1, 2026, and anything written before then may describe the old one.
By order of the Supreme Court of Missouri dated March 4, 2025, the Court directed that “effective January 1, 2026, Civil Procedure Form No. 14, entitled ‘Child Support Amount Calculation Worksheet,’ along with the directions, comments for use, and examples for completion thereto, be and the same are hereby repealed and a new Civil Procedure Form No. 14” is adopted in its place.
The practical instruction is simple. Use the form the court is currently publishing rather than a copy saved from an earlier case, and treat online walkthroughs written before 2026 with care. The self employment comment quoted above did carry across unchanged, but the schedule and the guideline amounts are what a saved copy gets wrong. Note also that Rule 88.01 itself was not amended by that order and its last amendment remains 2002.
How Do You Move Off the Form 14 Number?
By persuading the court to make a finding, and Rule 88.01(b) says exactly what the finding has to say.
Rule 88.01(b) provides that “Unless a request is filed pursuant to Rule 73.01(c), a written finding or a specific finding on the record by the court or administrative agency that the child support amount under a correctly calculated Form No. 14, after consideration of all relevant factors, is unjust or inappropriate shall be sufficient in a particular case to rebut the presumption that the amount of child support so calculated is correct.”
Read the words correctly calculated. The rebuttal step comes after the worksheet has been done properly. Arguing that the number is wrong because the inputs are wrong is not rebuttal, it is arithmetic, and it is a different and usually easier argument.
So there are really two distinct fights available. Whether the worksheet was filled in correctly, and whether the correctly calculated result is unjust or inappropriate on these facts. The statute adds that where a court departs, the finding “shall detail the specific relevant factors that required a deviation from the application of the guidelines.”
Does a Missouri Form 14 Calculator Give the Real Answer?
It gives an estimate, and its accuracy depends entirely on whether the inputs match what a court would find.
A calculator applies the schedule faithfully. It cannot decide what a self employed parent’s gross income is, whether a cost is extraordinary, or how many overnights a parenting plan actually produces. Those are findings, and they are where cases turn. A Missouri Form 14 calculator is a planning tool, and the presumption in Section 452.340.9 RSMo attaches to the worksheet a court accepts rather than to the estimate.
Our FAQ on child support in Missouri covers the wider process, and our child support page covers how we handle it.
What Does Missouri Form 14 Not Decide?
Three things, and each of them gets read into it.
It does not decide custody. The worksheet takes the parenting schedule as an input rather than producing one, so equal parenting time does not by itself remove a support obligation. Our FAQ on what a parenting plan is covers that side.
It does not decide maintenance. Maintenance is a separate analysis under Section 452.335 RSMo, and it appears on the worksheet only as an input. Our FAQ on alimony in Missouri covers it.
And it does not decide the property division, which is final once entered under Section 452.330.5 RSMo while support remains modifiable. Our FAQ on modifying a divorce decree covers that difference.
Who Can Help With Missouri Form 14 in St. Louis?
Most people meet Missouri Form 14 as a number somebody else produced, and they either accept it or argue with it in general terms. Neither is the useful move. The useful move is to check the inputs line by line first and then decide whether there is a rebuttal argument worth making.
Bardol Law Firm practices only family law, in St. Louis County, St. Louis City, St. Charles County and Jefferson County. We prepare and challenge Form 14 worksheets on both sides, and we work the income question carefully where a parent is self employed. Bring your last two years of returns, your pay records and the parenting schedule as it actually runs. You can read more across our family law questions and answers.
You should not have to chase your attorney to find out how a support number was reached. Every client here has a named paralegal on the file, and we generally return calls within one business day.
Family Law, Simplified.
If a Form 14 has landed in your case, have the inputs checked before you argue about the total. Contact Bardol Law Firm or call 314.918.0100 to go through it.
This page is general information about Missouri law and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.