Calculate maintenance for free

What is free and what costs money?

Calculating is free. You create a free account for it — name, email address and password. No BSN, no payment details. Want to know how the calculation works? See how calculating maintenance works step by step, or go straight to child maintenance or spousal maintenance.

Why a free account?

This page gives a first indication without an account, above. The full calculation does require an account, and for a reason: your calculation is kept as a case. You can recalculate later if your income or the care arrangement changes, you can retrieve earlier versions, and your report stays available.

What is needed: name, email address and password. What is not needed: BSN, date of birth, address or payment details. There is no subscription and you are not automatically tied to anything.

What is in the full report?

Around twelve pages, in six parts. Each step cites the source it rests on — the Dutch maintenance guidelines report (Rapport Alimentatienormen) and the statutory article — so that you can check the calculation and discuss it with the other party, a mediator or a lawyer.

1. Financial summary — the outcome, the net disposable income of both parties and the set of guidelines used.
2. Capacity and tests — the three measures side by side: what the payer can spare (capacity), what the recipient needs (need) and the financial balance check (jusvergelijking: the test that the recipient is not left with more than the payer), showing which of the three is limiting. The lowest determines the outcome.
3. Scenario comparison — the monthly contribution under the guidelines alongside two alternatives: a lump-sum settlement (one single payment) and a transfer of assets (for example a larger share of the home equity), with the tax effect per year and the advantages and disadvantages for both parties.
4. Child maintenance per child, per year — a projection with indexation, split into the maintenance duty up to age 18 (art. 1:404 Dutch Civil Code) and the continued duty for 18- to 21-year-olds (art. 1:395a), with cumulative amounts.
5. Full reasoning per step — nine steps, each with its source:
   • net disposable income per party, including tax and tax credits (Appendix 1);
   • net disposable family income including the child-related budget (§2.1 and §2.4);
   • own share of the costs of the children via the needs table (§3.2 and Appendix 4);
   • capacity and care discount, with the formula used (§4.3 and Appendix 5);
   • spousal maintenance: Hofnorm, neediness, priority of child maintenance (art. 1:400) and grossing-up;
   • income-change test and indexation (§4.5, art. 1:402a);
   • tax effect for both parties: deduction benefit and additional tax (arts. 6.3, 6.2a and 3.101 Income Tax Act 2001);
   • assets and grounds for deviation (art. 1:157(1) and (7), §4.6);
   • tax notes and the legal side of a lump-sum settlement.
6. Assumptions used — everything that determines the outcome in one place: calculation year and set of guidelines, the care arrangement, the build-up of child and spousal maintenance, and what was entered per scenario. Change one assumption and the outcome changes — which is why they are all listed.

The report is an indicative calculation, not a court ruling. The Trema guidelines are recommendations; a court may depart from them with reasons. This is also stated on every page of the report itself.

Calculate yourself or instruct a lawyer?

Calculating yourself makes sense if you want to know roughly where you stand, if you want to check a proposal from the other party, or if you want to prepare for a meeting with a mediator. You arrive well prepared and pay no hourly rate for gathering figures.

A lawyer or mediator is advisable with a business whose profit fluctuates, with assets or a family home in dispute, in an international situation, or as soon as proceedings are under way. The calculation remains useful as substantiation, but the assessment is human work.

Your indication in 3 steps

It is as simple as this: