Completing the Form F37 - Child Support Affidavit

Last revised April 24, 2025

Form F37 – Child Support Affidavit is used in divorce matters to tell the court about child support amounts. This form is required when there are children of the marriage, and its purpose is to tell the court the amount that the federal support guidelines suggest be paid from one spouse to the other.  It needs to be filled out even when there’s an existing agreement or when no child support will be paid at all.  

Filling in The F37

1. There are twelve options on the form, all of which must be filled in.
2. Some options have [specifics] in square brackets. You won’t be able to provide that information when selecting your options but will be asked to later in the form.
3. The names of the Claimant(s) and Respondent (if any), or if filing jointly, then the names of Claimant #1 and Claimant #2. These are the parties. Make sure to choose the correct party identifiers from the dropdown menus since this will fill fields later in the form.
4. Identify which of the above parties is filling out the form.
5. Select the number of children.
6. Tell the court whether your notice of family claim (F3), or notice of joint family claim (F1), or counterclaim (F5) did or did not include a request for a child support order. You may need to refer to your filed copies of any of those forms if you are uncertain. You will usually only have filed one of the three forms listed here.
7. Select which of the party’s incomes you will report on this form. Check (c) if the two parties have reached an agreement about child support which you are attaching. Sections 15-20 of the Child Support Guidelines describe how income is determined.
8. This section has two check boxes which are used differently. 

Box 1: This box will add a field to input the amount the Child Support Guidelines suggest should be paid by one spouse to the other. The court needs this information even if the parties have agreed to a different amount. Use the Federal Child Support Table Look-up to find this amount.  

Box 2: This box is used to attach fact sheets that provide the court with more information about certain circumstances, referenced in the Child Support Guidelines.  A child support fact sheet is used for each of the following that apply:

• Child Support Guidelines section 8 (sheet C, split custody),
• Child Support Guidelines section 9 (sheet B, shared custody)
• Child Support Guidelines section 10 (sheet E, undue hardship)
• A child over the age of 19 (sheet D)
• One party has an income over $150,000 (sheet F) 

7. Choose only one of the options.

i) Select the first option if you are asking for an amount of child support that agrees with the amount suggested by the Child Support Guidelines.

ii) Select the second option if the parties agree on an amount of child support (even if this amount is zero), but that amount is different from the amount suggested by the Child Support Guidelines.

iii) Select the third option if you are asking for a different amount than the Guidelines suggest, but also have special circumstances, such as the order being temporary, or you have other terms and conditions.

iv) Select the fourth option if the parties have an agreement (attached) about the amount of child support. Although this option refers to section 4(c), that is a reference to a section on the finished form, not to option 4 on this list above (you actually find this as option 5(c) above).

v) Select the fifth option if you are not asking for a child support order but have other arrangements for support you will describe to the court.

8. Tell the court whether this form will include any special or extraordinary expenses, as defined in section 7 of the Child Support Guidelines.

9. Select one or more of the check boxes that tell the court if the child or children have any medical insurance coverage available through either party.

10. Tell the court if there are any previous orders for child support. If there are any you will need to attach a copy to this form.

11. Tell the court if there are any previous agreements between the parties about child support amounts. Note that if you indicated that you have an agreement in options 5 or 7 earlier on the form you will need to attach it.

12. Tell the court whether one party currently owes the other any outstanding child support.  Usually this would involve there being a previous order concerning child support.  

Press the “Generate Form” button once you have selected all twelve options. The form will then build itself based on the options you selected above. This assembled form is where you can fill in the specifics of any additional order terms and finish the form. Note that the form will add a blank paragraph 12 at the end. This is used to provide the court with any other information that is not covered above but can be left blank if you have nothing to add.

Content reviewed April 24, 2025