Shared care and child maintenance: how the nights add up
The Child Maintenance Service reduces a paying parent's maintenance according to how many nights a year the child stays overnight with them. The reduction is banded, not gradual — cross from 103 nights to 104 and the reduction jumps. That makes your schedule a financial decision as well as a practical one, which almost no advice on co-parenting schedules mentions.
The bands #
For the reduced and basic rates, the CMS applies these reductions:
| Overnight stays per year | Reduction to the maintenance calculation |
|---|---|
| Fewer than 52 | None |
| 52 to 103 | 1/7 (14.29%) |
| 104 to 155 | 2/7 (28.57%) |
| 156 to 174 | 3/7 (42.86%) |
| 175 or more | 50%, plus a further £7 a week |
Payments cannot fall below £7 a week.
Why the bands matter more than the total #
Because they're steps, not a slope. A schedule that produces 103 nights and one that produces 104 differ by a single night and by a whole band.
Two things follow, and they pull in opposite directions:
If you're the paying parent, a pattern that lands just under a threshold is costing you the whole band. Worth knowing before you agree it.
If you're the receiving parent, this is exactly why shared-care disputes sometimes feel like they're about money rather than the children. Sometimes they are. Naming that out loud, in mediation, is usually more productive than pretending otherwise.
Neither of those is a reason to build a schedule around the bands. Your children's routine should decide the pattern. But you should know what the pattern costs before you agree to it, rather than eighteen months later.
What common UK patterns produce #
Approximate annual overnights, before holidays are adjusted:
| Pattern | Nights/year | Band |
|---|---|---|
| Alternate weekends (Fri–Sun) | ~52 | 1/7 |
| Alternate weekends + one midweek overnight | ~104 | 2/7 |
| Alternate weekends (Fri–Mon) + one midweek | ~130 | 2/7 |
| 2-2-3 rotating | ~182 | 50% + £7 |
| Week on, week off | ~182 | 50% + £7 |
| 60/40 | ~146 | 2/7 |
| 70/30 | ~110 | 2/7 |
These are estimates from the regular pattern alone. Holidays change them significantly — a fortnight in the summer plus half of Christmas can move a family up a band on its own. So can a single recurring midweek night.
Counting properly #
Some specifics that catch people out:
- It's overnights, not days or hours. A child collected at 8am and returned at 9pm isn't an overnight, however long the day was.
- The CMS normally counts the 12 months ahead, based on the arrangement you have — not last year's.
- Holidays count. So do the extra nights from swaps, if they're part of the pattern rather than one-offs.
- Equal shared care with Child Benefit split is a different situation again — if care is genuinely equal, the CMS may decide no maintenance is payable. Check with them directly.
- If the arrangement is disputed, the CMS decides the number based on the evidence both parents give.
That last point is why a neutral record matters. "We had them 140 nights" versus "it was more like 95" is a common and unwinnable argument. A calendar that recorded every night as it happened, including swaps, turns it into a fact.
What maintenance doesn't cover #
Maintenance is a formula based on income and overnights. It is not a shopping list, and this is where most money arguments between separated parents actually live.
Uniform. School trips. Football boots. Music lessons. The school photo. The birthday present for a party at the other parent's end of town. Phone contracts. Childcare in the summer holidays.
None of that is in the CMS calculation. All of it needs agreeing between you — ideally in advance, in writing, with a split you both signed up to.
How OurPath helps #
Your OurPath calendar is built from your parenting plan and records every night, including swaps as they're agreed. That gives you an accurate overnight count for any 12-month period rather than a guess — and a record of it that neither parent can revise afterwards.
For the costs that sit outside maintenance, OurPath lets you agree a split, ask for approval before spending, and keep a running balance. The argument about the £68 school shoes happens before the shoes are bought, which is the only time it's ever a short argument.
Questions #
Does the CMS use my parenting plan? Not directly. The CMS works from the arrangement it's told about and, if that's disputed, from the evidence. A written plan and a contemporaneous record are both useful evidence; neither binds them.
What if the other parent doesn't stick to the nights? Tell the CMS. They can look at the actual arrangement rather than the intended one. A calendar record of what actually happened is considerably more persuasive than recollection.
Can we just agree it between ourselves? Yes — that's a family-based arrangement, and it's what most separated parents do. It's free, it's flexible, and either of you can go to the CMS later if it stops working. Family-based arrangement vs CMS →
This guide explains how the CMS shared-care rules work in general terms. It isn't financial or legal advice, and we're neither financial advisers nor lawyers. For your own calculation use the official GOV.UK child maintenance calculator.