How are child care costs treated by child support in Maryland?
Due to the high costs of child care for a single payment, Maryland has specialized guidelines that consider child care costs separately from the general costs of raising a child for the purposes of calculating child support payments.
Maryland treats child care costs as a “mandatory deduction” for basic child support. This means that if the non-custodial parent pays child care costs, the portion of the total monthly child care costs attributed to the custodial partner are deducted from the noncustodial partner’s monthly child support payment. If the custodial parent pays for child care, the non-custodial parent must pay their share in addition to basic child support.