Updating child support for children up to the age of 25 is one of the issues that most worries fathers and mothers at the beginning of each year. It’s a time when many doubts arise, such as whether or not child support should be updated and, if so, which criteria to use or how to calculate it.
It is therefore important to debunk some of the myths that proliferate around this time and to take precautions in certain situations, in order to better protect the interests of the children and avoid conflicts between parents.
1. Is child support always updated annually?
In Portugal, there is no legal rule establishing the annual and automatic updating of child support, nor the respective criteria. As such, child support will only be updated if it is expressly provided for in the parental responsibilities regime, whether it is the result of an agreement between the parents or decided by the court.
The express clause providing for the adjustment of child support should also set out the respective adjustment criteria, as well as the timing and frequency of the update. There is nothing to prevent, for example, a monthly maintenance update, as long as this has been agreed between the parents or decided by the judge.
Remember: if the update of child support is not provided for in the regulation, the parent obliged to pay child support is not legally obliged to increase it and the amount will remain the same until the regime is altered. If the parent obliged to pay it chooses not to update it, this will not constitute a breach and it will not be possible to recover the difference between the amount set and the updated amount through the courts.
It is therefore very important to ensure that such a clause is included in the parental responsibilities regime – otherwise, only by modifying the parental responsibilities regulation will it be possible to establish an annual update of child support, which will only take effect from the date on which the action is brought before the court or the date on which the application for approval of the modification agreement is submitted to the Civil Registry Office.
2. When stipulated in the regulation for the exercise of parental responsibilities, based on what criteria is this increase made?
When the update is provided for in the agreement or fixed by the judge, the criteria on the basis of which the increase is to take place must also be stipulated.
The most common criteria is the so-called “inflation rate”. This term refers to the average annual change in the consumer price index over the previous year, as published by the National Statistics Institute for the previous year, as explained in 5.
In these cases, the clause on child support may appear in the parental responsibilities regulation as follows:
“3. As child support, the father will contribute the total amount of €400.00 (four hundred euros) per month, of which €200.00 (two hundred euros) will be paid to each child, by bank transfer, to the mother’s account, whose IBAN he is already aware of, by the 8th of each month, at no cost to her.—
4. The aforementioned amount will be updated annually, in accordance with the inflation rate to be published by the National Statistics Institute, by reference to the previous year.—”
Or as follows:
“b) The mother will pay child support of €100.00 (one hundred euros) per month, which will be transferred to the father’s account by bank transfer or deposit or any other suitable means. This amount will be increased annually in line with the inflation rate, if any. –”
The criteria for updating child support may also correspond to a fixed rate, determined by the court or by the parties in the event of an agreement, which may be as follows:
“a) The child’s father will contribute a monthly sum of €150 (one hundred and fifty euros) to the child support owed to his son, to be deposited in the mother’s bank account by the 8th of each month, an account that the father is already aware of.
b) This amount will be updated annually in January at a rate of 2%, starting in 2024;”
This is just one example of other criteria, apart from the inflation rate, that the courts use to calculate the amount of the child support update.
But there are others and they depend on the circumstances of each specific case. In some specific cases it may make sense, for example, for the update to be based on the increase in salaries of a certain professional category, such as civil service workers or teachers, if the debtor parent belongs to one of these categories, or, in others, on a percentage of the salary of the parent who pays it.
3. When is child support updated?
Just like the updating criteria, the timing of the increase should also be defined in the parental responsibilities regime.
The most common, as can be seen from the examples of court decisions reproduced above, is for the update to take place at the beginning of each year, in January, in which case it will happen every year in the same month.
When this is the case, at the beginning of each year, you will have to consult the official portal of the National Statistics Institute in order to find out the percentage of the average annual variation recorded in the previous year and update it accordingly. Every year, we publish this information on our website, and you can check last year’s inflation rate here.
However, the update can be set at a different frequency or, even if it is annual, other months or times can be set for the update, depending on the specific case.
A typical example of annual updates at other times of the year are cases where the amount of maintenance is also set in the middle of the year. So, for example, if the agreement to regulate the exercise of parental responsibilities was reached in November 2024, it may not make sense for the child support to be updated in January 2025, a few months later – especially since, as a rule, when the amount is set, it already takes into account the increase in living costs in the previous months, so updating it in January would have unfair results for the parent obliged to pay it.
In this case, the clause would look something like:
“10th – The amount of maintenance shall be updated annually in accordance with the inflation index for the previous year published by the INE, with effect from November 2024. —”
Even if the timing of the update is different, if the regime continues to refer to the rate of inflation, the criterion for updating will continue to be the average annual variation recorded in the consumer price index in the previous year. Thus, the percentage used to calculate the updated amount of maintenance will be identical, regardless of whether the update takes place in January or October.
4. Is the child support update automatic?
Unless the regime in place provides otherwise, the update operates automatically, and the updated amount is due from the stipulated day, without the need for the other parent to make a request for payment or resort to legal means.
In other words, if the agreement regulating the exercise of parental responsibilities stipulates that the amount will be updated from January 2025, the updated pension will be due from that month, without the non-debtor parent having to inform the other parent.
Therefore, in January 2025, if an update is due, the debtor parent must transfer the already updated child support to the other parent’s bank account on the day stipulated in the agreement or court ruling, and they must be the one to calculate this amount.
If the inflation rate has not yet been published on the date that the updated child support would be due, or if, for some reason, it is not yet possible to calculate it, the debtor parent must pay the amount that has not been updated, paying the updated amount as soon as it is available (i.e. from January 15th).
5. What does updating based on the inflation index for the previous year actually mean?
Although legal operators generally refer to the inflation rate as a criterion for updating alimony, what is actually meant is the so-called average annual variation rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), calculated by the National Statistics Institute.
The CPI, which refers to the prices of a set of goods and services that represent the expenditure of families living in Portugal, changes throughout the year. So, in order to calculate how much these prices have varied in a given year, the INE averages the different rates of change in these prices over the year, arriving at an overall figure which is generally referred to as the inflation rate – since it is usual for the prices of goods and services to increase from year to year, even if this variation is low. For more information on this concept, we recommend reading the Bank of Portugal’s page on the subject.
By updating child support on the basis of the CPI, it is ensured that the parents’ contribution to their children’s expenses keeps pace with increases in the prices of goods and services available to the consumer, ensuring that the children’s expenses continue to be equitably distributed between both parents.
We would remind you that the update is only calculated on the basis of the CPI in cases where the regulation of the exercise of parental responsibilities expressly dictates this.
6. So in reality, how is the child support update calculated?
Once you have identified the criterion for updating child support, the next step is to calculate the new amount to be paid accordingly.
If the update is stipulated, as in most cases, on the basis of the inflation rate (i.e. the average change in the Consumer Price Index in a given year), then the updated amount will be calculated by multiplying the previous year’s alimony by the average annual rate of change in the Consumer Price Index calculated for the previous year by INE, using the following formula:
Amount paid in the previous year x (1 + inflation rate (as a percentage) for the previous year) = updated amount of child support
For example, for a child maintenance payment of €250 in 2024, and assuming an average annual rate of change in the Consumer Price Index of 2.5%, the calculation would be as follows:
250 x (1 + 2,5%) =
250 x (1 + 0,025) =
250 x 1,025 = 256,25€
In other words, the step-by-step mathematical calculation is as follows:
1. You convert the previous year’s inflation rate as a percentage into a decimal number by dividing it by 100
Thus, 2.5% equals 0.025.
2. Add this decimal number to the number 1.
In this case, we arrive at a value of 1.025.
3. Finally, multiply the amount of child support paid the previous year by that sum.
So we multiply the amount of €250.00 by 1.025, arriving at the final result.
You can also use a calculator that does percentage calculations (like most standard calculators) and directly add the initial child support amount to the percentage corresponding to the respective update rate:
250 + 2,5% = 256,35€
7. Are child support updates cumulative over the years?
Yes. As explained, the purpose of updating child support is to ensure that both parents continue to contribute equally to their children’s expenses, a goal that can only be achieved if child support keeps pace with the increase in living costs.
So, if we assume that in 2020 the maintenance payment was set at €100, with annual updates in January of each year according to the inflation rate, in order to calculate its value from January 2025 we would have to start by researching the different inflation rates over the years.
According to the information provided by the INE, the average annual change in the CPI in 2020 was zero (corresponding to 0%), then 1.3% in 2021, 7.8% in 2022, 4.3% in 2023 and, finally, 2.4% in 2024. To calculate this, we would do the following:
100 x 1 = 100,00€ (amount to be paid as of january 2021)
100 x 1.003 = 101,30€ (amount to be paid as of january 2022)
101,30 x 1.078 = 109,20€ (amount to be paid as of january 2023)
109,20 x 1.043 = 113,90€ (amount to be paid as of january 2024)
113,90 x 1.024 = 116,63€ (amount to be paid as of january 2025)
As we’ve seen, updating child support raises a lot of questions, especially at the beginning of each year. We hope to have demystified some of the beliefs that revolve around this topic and to have made it easier to manage on a daily basis.
This information is intended to promote legal dissemination, simplifying it and making it accessible to the public, and is not a substitute for consulting a lawyer you trust.