Georgia practitioners are entering more child support orders that award nothing to either parent. The outcome is legitimate. O.C.G.A. § 19-6-15 permits it. The problem is not reaching zero. The problem is that a zero order which is thinly documented becomes a weak order, and the weakness does not surface until a party files for modification or contempt two years later.
Start with how the worksheet gets there. Georgia uses an income shares model. The court determines each parent’s gross monthly income under subsection (f), applies the adjustments on Schedule B for self-employment tax, preexisting orders, and theoretical orders for other qualified children, and combines the two adjusted figures. That combined figure is applied against the basic child support obligation table in subsection (o), and the resulting obligation is pro-rated between the parents according to each parent’s share of combined income. The parent with the smaller share of parenting time is designated the noncustodial parent and carries the payment obligation.
The 2026 amendments changed the middle of that sequence. Effective January 1, 2026, SB 454 added a mandatory parenting time adjustment calculated on Child Support Schedule C. What was formerly a discretionary parenting time deviation under Schedule E is now a required step. The adjustment reduces the noncustodial parent’s share of the basic obligation to account for expenses that parent incurs during court-ordered parenting time. Parenting days must total 365, and the noncustodial parent must have 182.5 days or fewer. The practical consequence is that as parenting time approaches an even split and incomes approach parity, the adjusted basic obligation compresses toward nothing. The same amendments replaced the low-income deviation with a low-income adjustment, which operates by formula rather than by argument.
Near zero is not zero. Schedule D adds work-related child care and health insurance premiums back into the calculation, and those additions produce the presumptive amount of child support. In a case where one parent carries the family policy or pays daycare, Schedule D can restore a meaningful number that Schedule C had erased. Counsel who assume that equal parenting time and equal income yield a zero presumptive amount are frequently wrong.
Two routes reach an actual mutual zero. The first is split parenting, where each parent has primary physical custody of at least one child. Two calculations are run and offset. Where incomes are close and the children are divided evenly, the net approaches nothing. The second is a deviation on Schedule E, which is where most negotiated zeros land.
The second route carries the risk. Parents cannot contract around § 19-6-15, and a consent provision reciting that neither party will pay support does not bind the court. When the final amount departs from the presumptive amount, the order must contain written findings stating the reasons for the deviation, the amount of child support that would have been required under the presumptive amount, and how application of the presumptive amount would be unjust or inappropriate and how the deviation serves the best interest of the child. An order that recites agreement without those findings is vulnerable on appeal and unhelpful to whichever judge inherits the case later.
That leads to the drafting. First, attach the worksheet and, where deviations apply, Schedule E, to the final order. The statute requires it, and the attachment is what a later court reads.
Second, state both parents’ gross and adjusted monthly incomes on the face of the order rather than leaving them buried in the worksheet arithmetic. Modification under subsection (k)(1) requires a substantial change in either parent’s income and financial status or in the needs of the child. That standard is comparative. A movant who cannot show what the parties earned when the order was entered cannot show change, and a zero figure standing alone supplies no baseline at all. A well-drafted zero order is the most income-explicit order in the file, not the least.
Third, state the parenting day count used on Schedule C. Parenting time now drives the calculation directly, so the assumed schedule is a finding of fact worth preserving. Subsection (k)(2) bars a petition to modify within two years of a final order on a previous petition to modify by the same parent, subject to three exceptions: the noncustodial parent has failed to exercise court-ordered parenting time, has exercised more parenting time than the order provided, or the motion rests on an involuntary loss of income under subsection (j). Two of those three exceptions turn on a comparison to the ordered schedule. Recording the day count converts a later credibility contest into a factual comparison.
Fourth, do not let the zero absorb the collateral obligations. Health insurance coverage and the pro rata allocation of uninsured health care expenses are separate requirements and survive a zero support figure. Allocate them expressly. Address the dependency exemption as well, recognizing that a Georgia decree does not override federal filing rules without the custodial parent’s execution of IRS Form 8332.
Fifth, omit any language purporting to waive future modification. It is unenforceable, and its presence signals that the drafter misread the statute.
A mutual zero order is still an order. Its value lies almost entirely in the record it preserves.
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