Federal Guidelines

The federal regime for the determination of child support is different than the Quebec regime. If the custodial parent lives in the province of Quebec and the other parent, the non-custodial parent, lives outside of the province of Quebec, in another Canadian province or in another country, then the federal child support tables will apply.

The main principal of the federal regime, which differs from the Quebec regime, is that only the income of the non-custodial parent is taken into consideration, and as an exception, the income of the other parent or the situation of the children, in general, could be taken also into consideration.

The amount of child support calculated according to the federal guidelines is generally higher than the amount calculated in the same case scenario according to the Quebec tables for child support.

If we use the same example that we used to illustrate the Quebec regime, namely that the father is the non-custodial parent and his gross annual income is of 50,000.00 $ and he lives outside of the province of Quebec, that the mother has a gross annual income of 30,000.00 $, that she is residing in the province of Quebec and she has the custody of the two minor children of the parties.

In this example, according to the federal child support tables, only the income of the father is taken into consideration, and the father has to pay the mother-child support for two children in the amount of 755.00 $ per month (instead of 648.00 $ per month if both parents reside in the province of Quebec).