Divorce in New York With Children: What Changes When You Agree
Key facts: an agreed New York divorce with children in 2026
- There's no separate custody case. New York decides custody, parenting time, and child support inside the same divorce, and DRL 170(7) won't let the judge sign a no-fault judgment until all three are resolved.
- Your settlement agreement carries the terms. New York's own courts publish no custody or parenting-plan form, so the written agreement you and your spouse sign, notarized like a deed, is where custody and parenting time actually get spelled out.
- Child support follows the CSSA (DRL 240(1-b)): a statewide guideline percentage applied to your combined parental income, computed on the Child Support Worksheet (UD-8(3)) and disclosed to your spouse on a chart served with the summons.
- Health coverage gets its own order. A Qualified Medical Child Support Order keeps the kids on a parent's group health plan after the divorce.
- There's no extra waiting period. New York sets no clock after you file at all, with or without children, and the case still finishes on the papers with no hearing in the normal case.
Having kids doesn't move you off the agreed, uncontested track in New York, and it doesn't open a second court case either. If you and your spouse already know how you'll share decisions about the children, how much time each of you will have with them, and how support will work, you're still filing one case in your county's Supreme Court, and you still face no state-imposed waiting period once that case is filed. What changes is the size of the packet: a handful of worksheets and one order that turn an agreement you've already reached into paperwork a judge can sign. This guide walks through what those documents ask for, in New York's own vocabulary, so nothing catches you off guard when you sit down to fill them out.
Why custody and support are decided inside your divorce
New York's no-fault ground is unusual in a way that matters a great deal once children are involved. The law lets one spouse swear the relationship has broken down irretrievably for at least six months, but it will not let a judge sign the judgment on that swearing alone. The statute (DRL 170) adds a hard condition: the economic issues, meaning property, debts, and spousal support, and the custody and support of any children of the marriage, all have to be resolved between you or decided by a court before the judgment can be granted. Put plainly, a New York no-fault divorce with children simply does not finish without an answer on custody and support written down somewhere in the case.
For an agreed couple, that "somewhere" is the settlement agreement. New York's court system doesn't publish a custody form or a parenting-plan attachment the way some states do. Instead, the written agreement you and your spouse sign carries the terms, and the judge's Findings of Fact and the Judgment of Divorce simply restate what that agreement already settled. Get the agreement right and the rest of the packet mostly follows from it.
Custody and parenting time, in New York's own words
New York's own forms and instructions talk about "custody and visitation" as one connected decision rather than splitting it into separately labeled boxes for who decides and who the kids live with. The Findings of Fact and the Judgment of Divorce restate whatever custody and visitation terms your case already sworn to or agreed on, and the settlement agreement itself groups the question as "custody and parenting time," treating the arrangement and the schedule as two parts of the same article rather than two different forms.
What that means in practice is that your settlement agreement is where you write down who has custody, how the two of you will handle decisions about the kids, and what your parenting time looks like, whose home is the anchor, which days or weeks belong to the other parent, how holidays split. There's no statewide preset schedule to adopt the way some states publish one, so an agreed couple is writing its own parenting-time terms into the agreement rather than checking boxes on a form. That's more drafting work up front, and it's also why the agreement, not a separate custody form, is the document worth getting right.
The Joint Divorce Program with children
New York also runs a statewide Uncontested Joint Divorce Program for couples who already agree, and it carries its own with-children version. Instead of one spouse filing against the other and serving papers, you and your spouse file one shared packet together, and because there's no defendant to serve, the service step disappears entirely. The with-children packet bundles the same custody, parenting time, and child support terms an agreed family needs into that one joint filing, including its own child-support worksheet.
The tradeoff is the sign-off. New York's usual UD-series forms are signed as affirmations under penalty of perjury with no notary involved, but the joint packet's core affirmation of facts and agreement is the one document in the whole New York process that still has to be signed in front of a notary, printed right on the page as an instruction to stop and find one before signing. If your family already agrees on everything and you'd rather skip service on your spouse entirely, the joint track is built for exactly that trade: one shared, notarized filing instead of a summons and a response.
Child support under the CSSA
New York doesn't leave child support to negotiation from a blank page. The Child Support Standards Act, codified at DRL 240(1-b), sets a statewide guideline formula the court applies to your combined parental income, and the Child Support Worksheet (UD-8(3)) is where that formula actually gets computed. The worksheet starts from the same net annual income figures each of you already reported on the Annual Income Worksheet (UD-8(1)), adds in the number of children, which parent the children live with, and any maintenance or child-care and health-insurance costs, and runs the guideline calculation from there.
The formula itself is a percentage of your combined parental income, and the percentage rises with the number of children the order covers: 17 percent for one child, 25 percent for two, 29 percent for three, 31 percent for four, and 35 percent for five or more. That percentage applies up to a combined-income cap of $193,000. Below that line, the CSSA also builds in two protections for a lower-earning parent, a Self-Support Reserve of $21,546 and a federal poverty income standard of $15,960, along with minimum support floors of $600 and $300, so the guideline doesn't push a parent with very little income below what the law treats as a bare minimum to live on.
Whenever there are children in the case, New York also requires the Child Support Standards Chart (LDSS-4515) to be served alongside the summons, so your spouse sees the state's own guideline chart before the case even reaches the point of agreeing on a number. And once a support case is part of the record, a separate Child Support Summary Form (UCS-111) is filed with the judgment purely for the Office of Court Administration's own statistics, it carries no signature and stays out of your actual case file.
Health insurance for the kids
Support and health coverage are handled as two separate questions in a New York case. Where support sets the dollar figure, keeping the kids actually enrolled on a health plan runs through its own order: the Qualified Medical Child Support Order, built under DRL 240(1) and the federal ERISA rules that govern group health plans. It's what tells a parent's health insurer to keep the children covered on that plan after the divorce, and because it's a court order rather than something either spouse simply signs, a judge or referee is the one who signs it, not you.
The information behind that order, which spouse's employer offers a group health plan and what it covers, is the same information both of you already put on record earlier in the case, so the order mostly carries forward facts your case has already established rather than asking you to gather anything new. If neither of you currently has employer coverage available for the kids, that's a conversation for your settlement agreement rather than something this order can invent on its own.
The rest of the children's paperwork
A few more pieces show up specifically because children are part of the case, mostly data sheets rather than negotiated terms. The RJI Addendum (UCS-840M) has to accompany your Request for Judicial Intervention whenever a child under 18 is subject to the case, a requirement laid out in the court system's own uncontested divorce instructions, and it's almost entirely a data sheet: both parents' names, recent addresses, and a table listing each child, nothing to negotiate, just information the court wants on file.
How the support itself actually gets paid also has its own set of documents. If support runs through your county's Support Collection Unit rather than being paid directly between you, the case carries a Support Collection Unit Information Sheet (UD-8a) and either the Child Support Enrollment Form (LDSS-5258) or the shorter opt-in Application for Child Support Services, depending on how much of that process you need. Support that's withheld straight from a paycheck instead runs through an Income Withholding Order (LDSS-5037), which, like the medical order, is signed by the judge and sent on to the paying parent's employer. None of these change what you and your spouse agreed to, they just route the payment through the mechanism your case actually uses.
When this isn't a simple agreed case
Everything above assumes you and your spouse are genuinely on the same page about your kids. Two things point at situations where that assumption doesn't hold, and both deserve honesty rather than a workaround.
- You disagree on custody, parenting time, or support. DRL 170(7) itself won't let a no-fault judgment through until those issues are resolved, by agreement or by a court deciding them. If you and your spouse can't reach an agreement, your case needs a judge's decision or an attorney's help getting there, not a self-help document service.
- Safety concerns are part of the picture. The consent form a cooperating spouse signs to skip formal service runs its own records check, orders of protection, findings of child abuse or neglect, and sex offender registration, before a case can move to the uncontested calendar. If any of that describes your situation, talk to a family law attorney rather than relying on this guide.
If neither applies and you're simply turning an agreement you've already reached into the paperwork the court requires, that's exactly what this guide, and our New York online divorce service, are built for.
Timeline and cost
Children don't add a waiting period that wasn't already there, because New York doesn't run one in the first place. There's no statutory cooling-off clock after you file, with or without kids, and the case still finishes on the papers with no hearing in the normal case. What can add real time is getting the CSSA worksheet, the medical support order, and, if you're using it, the Support Collection Unit paperwork complete and consistent the first time, since a packet that's missing a required piece doesn't move through review any faster for having children in it. See our full New York divorce timeline guide for the complete breakdown of every stage.
Cost follows the same pattern as any agreed New York divorce: the state's fixed court-fee schedule plus whatever you spend preparing the paperwork, since custody and support terms you've already agreed on don't require paid experts or a contested hearing to resolve. Our New York divorce cost breakdown covers the filing fees, the fee waiver, and where an attorney-drafted case runs higher. For a personalized estimate across every path, the national divorce cost calculator has a New York option built in.
Frequently asked questions
What is "custody and visitation" in a New York divorce with children?
New York's forms and instructions treat custody and visitation as one connected decision rather than splitting it into separate legal-custody and physical-custody boxes the way some other states do. Because New York publishes no standalone custody form, your written settlement agreement is where the actual terms, decision-making, where the children live, and the parenting time schedule, get spelled out, and the Judgment of Divorce simply restates what that agreement already settled.
Can we write our own parenting time schedule in New York?
Yes, and in an agreed case you generally have to. New York doesn't publish a statewide preset visitation schedule the way some states do, so the parenting time terms, whose home anchors the children, which days or weeks belong to the other parent, how holidays split, get drafted directly into your settlement agreement. That gives agreeing parents real flexibility, and it also means the agreement itself is the document worth getting right.
How is child support calculated in a New York divorce?
New York uses the Child Support Standards Act, a statewide guideline percentage of your combined parental income that rises with the number of children, 17 percent for one child up to 35 percent for five or more, applied up to a $193,000 combined-income cap. The Child Support Worksheet (UD-8(3)) runs the calculation from both parents' net income, and a Self-Support Reserve and poverty-level floor protect a lower-earning parent from an unaffordable result.
Does a New York divorce handle health insurance for the kids?
Yes, as its own order. A Qualified Medical Child Support Order, built under DRL 240(1) and federal ERISA rules, keeps the children enrolled on a parent's group health plan after the divorce. It's a court order rather than something either spouse signs, so a judge or referee signs it using the group health plan information your case has already put on record.
Can we use New York's Joint Divorce Program if we have children?
Yes. New York's statewide Uncontested Joint Divorce Program has its own with-children packet, letting you and your spouse file one shared set of papers together instead of one of you serving the other, which removes the service step entirely. The tradeoff is the sign-off: unlike most New York divorce forms, the joint packet's core affirmation of facts and agreement has to be signed in front of a notary.
Does having children make a New York divorce take longer?
Not because of a waiting period, since New York doesn't run one after filing either way. What can add time in practice is getting the child support worksheet, the medical support order, and any Support Collection Unit paperwork complete and consistent the first time, since a packet missing a required piece doesn't move through the court's review any faster because children are part of the case.
Do I need a lawyer if my spouse and I already agree on custody and support?
Not necessarily. New York lets you represent yourself in an uncontested divorce, custody and support terms included, and the court reviews and signs it the same way it would with an attorney involved. New York's no-fault ground won't even reach judgment until those issues are resolved, so if you and your spouse genuinely disagree, the case is contested, and a family law attorney can protect your position in ways self-help paperwork isn't built for.