Free Online Tool
Maintenance Increase
Calculator (CPI)
See what your maintenance should be today after annual inflation increases, how much has been lost if it was never increased, and what it will be in the years ahead.
Latest headline CPI: 4.4% (August 2026). Use your order's rate if it sets one.
Leave blank if it has never been increased
Should be paying now
per month
Lost to inflation so far
since the order
Year by year
| From | Monthly | Increase |
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Estimate only, not legal advice. Increases are applied once a year on the anniversary, compounding, at the same rate every year. The next 3 years are projected at the same rate.
Why an order without increases shrinks every year
At around 4-5% inflation, prices double roughly every 15 years. An order for R 3,000 a month made five years ago buys what about R 2,400 bought then, while the child's costs have only gone up: school fees, food, transport and clothing all rise with age as well as with inflation.
If your order has an escalation clause, the increased amount is what is owed. Unpaid increases are arrears - use the maintenance arrears calculator with the same annual increase to see what has built up.
If it has none, you can apply to the maintenance court to substitute the order. Read should child support increase each year? and how to adjust maintenance payments, then build an updated schedule of what the child costs today.
FAQs
Maintenance increase FAQs
Only if the order or agreement says so. Many orders include an annual escalation clause, usually linked to CPI (the consumer price index published by Stats SA) or a fixed percentage, applied on the anniversary of the order. If yours has no escalation clause, the amount stays the same until it is changed by agreement made an order of court, or by the maintenance court.
Use the rate your order specifies. Where it refers to CPI, that is normally Stats SA's headline consumer price index for the relevant month before the anniversary. The latest headline CPI is 4.4% for August 2026.
Yes, by applying to the maintenance court to substitute the existing order (Form B, J107) under section 6 of the Maintenance Act. You will need to show that circumstances have changed, for example that the child's costs have gone up with inflation, school fees or age, or that the paying parent now earns more. A calculation like this one, plus an updated maintenance schedule, is useful evidence.
If the escalation is part of a court order, the increased amount is what the order requires, and unpaid increases count as arrears that can be enforced like any other unpaid maintenance.
It is an estimate. It applies one rate for every year, while actual CPI changes from year to year. For an exact figure, apply each year's published CPI to the amount on each anniversary.
Asking for an increase? Show what the child costs today.
Build an itemised maintenance schedule from today's real expenses, with court-ready PDF and Excel exports.
Free to create. R149 per schedule to export.
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