An income and expense declaration for child support is the sworn financial form both parents file so the court can run the state’s child support guideline calculation. It lists what you earn, what you spend, what you own, and what you owe. You sign it under penalty of perjury, and the numbers on it directly determine the support amount the court orders, so accuracy matters more than most parents expect.
What Your State Calls the Form
The document goes by different names depending on where you live. California calls it an Income and Expense Declaration (Form FL-150). Florida and many other states call it a Financial Affidavit. New Jersey uses a Case Information Statement. Some states simply call it a Financial Declaration or Financial Statement. The core content is the same everywhere: income, expenses, assets, and debts. Download the correct version from your state’s judicial branch or court self-help website, which usually includes line-by-line instructions.
Documents to Gather Before You Start
Pull your paperwork together before you open the form. Courts don’t want estimates when records exist, and guessing is how parents get into trouble.
For income, you need your two most recent pay stubs and your federal tax returns from the last two years, including all schedules. Then account for every other source of money coming in:
- Commissions, bonuses, and overtime, which count even when they fluctuate
- Side work or freelance income earned outside your primary job
- Government benefits such as unemployment, disability, and workers’ compensation
- Investment and rental income, including dividends, interest, and rent collected
For expenses, compile records of your actual recurring monthly costs:
- Housing: rent or mortgage, property taxes, and homeowner’s or renter’s insurance
- Utilities: electricity, gas, water, phone, and internet
- Health insurance premiums you pay for yourself and the children
- Childcare costs that allow you to work
- Debt payments on car loans, student loans, and credit card minimums
If You Are Self-Employed
Self-employed parents face extra scrutiny because self-employment income is easier to understate than wage income, and judges look closely at whether claimed business expenses are truly necessary. Gather two to three years of personal and business tax returns (including Schedule C), profit and loss statements, bank statements for all personal and business accounts, 1099 forms, and records of any cash transactions. If your income swings significantly year to year, the court will likely average it over several years rather than rely on a single good or bad one.
Filling Out the Form Section by Section
Each section of the form maps to the records you just gathered.
Income. Enter your gross monthly income. If your earnings vary, most forms instruct you to add up all income received in the last 12 months and divide by 12 to get a monthly average. Do this for each category of income separately, not just your total. Don’t skip categories because a source feels minor or temporary. The court wants the full picture.
Deductions. This section covers specific items that reduce your disposable income for child support purposes. Common line items include mandatory retirement contributions (not voluntary 401(k) deferrals), health insurance premiums, union dues, and support you already pay for children from other relationships. There’s usually a separate line for necessary job-related expenses your employer doesn’t reimburse, like required tools or uniforms. Be ready to document anything you claim here.
Expenses. Break your monthly spending into the listed categories (housing, transportation, food, healthcare) using actual amounts from your bills, not rounded guesses. Some forms also ask about other adults in your household, including their income and whether they contribute to shared expenses, so the court can see your real obligations.
Assets and debts. Most forms close with sections for listing bank accounts, real estate, and vehicles on one side and mortgages, loans, and credit card balances on the other. These give the court a full view of your financial position.
Filing and Serving the Form
Review every entry, then sign. Your signature is a declaration under penalty of perjury that everything in the document is true and correct. Attach copies of your pay stubs for the last two months and any proof of other income. Some courts also require you to bring your most recent federal tax return to the hearing itself.
File the original with the court clerk and keep at least two copies: one for yourself and one for the other parent. The disclosure itself doesn’t carry a separate filing fee, but it’s almost always filed alongside a motion or petition that does. If you can’t afford the fee, ask the clerk about a fee waiver application. Every state offers some form of waiver for parents who meet income thresholds.
After filing, you must formally serve a copy on the other parent or their attorney. You cannot do this yourself. The person who serves the documents must be at least 18 and not a party to the case. A friend, relative, or professional process server can handle it; professional servers typically charge between $45 and $95. The server fills out a Proof of Service form confirming when, where, and how the documents were delivered. Check your local rules on whether to file that Proof of Service with the court or keep it in your records, since practices vary.
Deadlines
Don’t wait until the last minute. Most courts require the disclosure to be filed and served well before the hearing so both sides and the judge have time to review the numbers. Your court order or local rules will give the exact number of days. Missing the deadline can mean a continuance at best, or at worst the court calculating support based only on the other parent’s figures.
How the Numbers Get Used
Federal law requires every state to maintain child support guidelines that produce a specific dollar amount from numeric inputs, and the guideline figure is presumed to be the correct order. Your disclosure is what feeds the calculation. The key inputs are each parent’s gross income, allowable deductions (like health insurance premiums for the children and mandatory retirement contributions), and the percentage of time each parent has physical custody. The court plugs those numbers into its guideline formula or calculator software, which produces a presumptive support amount. In most cases, that figure becomes the final order.
Either parent can argue for a different number based on specific circumstances (special needs, significant shared parenting time, extreme income disparity, high travel costs between homes), but the parent asking for a deviation carries the burden of showing why the guideline result would be unjust.
Consequences of Inaccurate Information
Because you sign under penalty of perjury, intentionally lying on the form carries serious consequences. A parent caught hiding income or inflating expenses can face monetary sanctions, an order to pay the other parent’s attorney fees, and adverse support rulings. Perjury on a financial declaration can lead to criminal charges in some cases. Courts can also set aside a support order entirely if it was based on fraudulent information, reopening the case with a potentially worse outcome for the dishonest parent. A finding of dishonesty also follows that parent through custody and other issues in the case.
Honest mistakes cause problems too. If you spot an error after filing, correct it immediately by filing an amended declaration. A prompt correction looks far better than having the other side expose the discrepancy at the hearing.
Keeping the Disclosure Current
Filing isn’t a one-time event. Many courts treat a disclosure as current only if it was completed within the last three months and no material facts have changed since. If your income, expenses, or living situation shifted after you filed, submit an updated version before the hearing.
After a support order is in place, either parent can request a review when circumstances change substantially. Federal guidance allows parents with cases handled by a child support agency to request a review at least every three years, or sooner when there’s a substantial change such as job loss or a significant income increase. A modification request means filing a new disclosure with updated numbers, starting the document-gathering process over.
Protecting Sensitive Information
The form contains some of the most sensitive personal information you have: Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and detailed income data. Federal court rules allow filers to redact sensitive identifiers, showing only the last four digits of Social Security and financial account numbers. Most state family courts follow similar rules; check your local requirements before filing.
If you’re filing electronically, remember that covering text with a black box in a word processor doesn’t permanently remove the underlying data. Use dedicated redaction tools in PDF software that actually strip it, and search the final PDF for sensitive numbers before submitting. The court and the other parent are entitled to the financial information itself, not to your full account numbers.