MAP Home Loans Family support & borrowing estimator

A planning tool — not advice

See how earning more shifts your family support — and what you could borrow.

Move the sliders for your income and how the children's care is shared. Watch your child support, Family Tax Benefit, take-home pay and estimated borrowing capacity update together — so the trade-offs are visible before you make a decision.

Your situation

Everything below updates live as you drag.

$28,600

Your own earnings — wage, casual or business income you'd declare.

237 nights · 65%
Less care 50/50 · 183 Mostly you · 237 Primary · 292

Care sharing is the biggest lever on child support — it barely moves between 65% and 80%, then drops sharply as you approach an even 50/50 split.

$156,000

A rough figure is fine — when your income is much lower, this barely changes the child support result.

Borrowing assumptions

Borrowing is estimated over a 30-year loan and assessed at your rate + a 3% safety buffer (as lenders are required to). Living expenses cover you and the children.

What it means

Your yearly resources and the loan they could support.

Household total / year

$79,100

Take-home pay + child support + Family Tax Benefit

Estimated borrowing capacity

$310,000

Indicative — a real assessment goes deeper

Child support / yr

$38,300

You receive

Family Tax Benefit / yr

$12,200

Part A + Part B

Take-home pay / yr

$27,600

After income tax

Total support / yr

$50,500

Child support + FTB

The catch when you earn more

If you earned $10,000 more, your household would be about $3,800 better off — you keep roughly 38c in the dollar, because support tapers away and tax steps in.

Your support cushion as your income rises

The gap between the two lines is the support topping up your wage. It narrows as you earn more — this is why lifting income alone is slower than it looks.

Total household resources Wage alone (after tax) Where you are now

How to read this

  • Care sharing moves child support most. It stays fairly flat across most arrangements, then falls sharply near an even 50/50 split.
  • Family Tax Benefit and child support aren't added twice. More child support reduces the Part A payment — the tool already accounts for this.
  • Borrowing capacity is an estimate. It turns your take-home pay plus support, minus living costs, into the loan a 30-year repayment could cover — buffered the way lenders assess.
  • Earning more helps, but partly claws back. The clawback figure shows how much of the next $10,000 you'd actually keep.
Please read
  1. This is a guide only — not financial, legal or Centrelink advice, and not a loan offer.
  2. Built on current 2026 Services Australia and ATO figures, rounded. Rates re-index each year, and Services Australia makes the real child support and Family Tax Benefit assessment.
  3. Lenders often discount or exclude family payments, and look at your full income, debts, expenses and credit history — so your real borrowing power will differ.
  4. Not modelled: Parenting Payment, any family-trust income effects, or a family-law property settlement. Those need your accountant, solicitor and broker.

Want to run it on your real numbers?

These figures are a starting picture. Your broker can pressure-test them against real lender policy and show what's genuinely achievable — including keeping the home.