Section 7 expenses in Ontario — what they are and how they are split

TL;DR. Section 7 expenses — also called "special or extraordinary expenses" — are the bills that get split on top of your monthly child support table amount, in proportion to each parent's income. Daycare, post-secondary tuition, orthodontics, competitive sports, and necessary medical costs are the usual ones. If you earn $80,000 and she earns $40,000, you pay two-thirds of every section 7 bill and she pays one-third — even though you are already paying the full Federal Child Support Tables amount. Most Ontario fathers underestimate how much section 7 actually adds; for a parent paying $700/month in table support, section 7 routinely adds another $300–$800/month once daycare and activities are in.

The table amount covers food, clothing, shelter, and ordinary day-to-day costs. Section 7 covers the bills that are too big or too child-specific to bury inside the table — and section 7 is where most child-support disputes in Ontario actually live.

What does section 7 actually cover?

Section 7 of the Federal Child Support Guidelines — applied in Ontario through O. Reg. 391/97 — lists six categories of expense that can be added on top of the table amount:

1. Childcare that one parent needs because of work, school, illness, or disability (daycare, before/after-school care, day camp during summer).
2. Medical and dental insurance premiums for the children, when paid separately from a family benefit plan.
3. Health-related expenses above $100/year per child that are not covered by insurance — orthodontics, prescription glasses, counselling, speech therapy, hearing aids.
4. Extraordinary school expenses — private school tuition, French immersion bussing, tutoring for a documented learning need.
5. Post-secondary education — university or college tuition, residence, books, mandatory fees.
6. Extraordinary extracurricular activities — competitive sports with travel costs, music conservatory programs, anything materially more expensive than ordinary activities.

The word that does the work here is "extraordinary." Soccer at the local club is not section 7. Provincial-level competitive hockey with $4,000/year fees and travel is. The Ontario test, set out in Bear v. Thompson and refined since, looks at the amount of the activity relative to the parents' incomes, the child's involvement and aptitude, what the family did before separation, and whether the cost is genuinely beyond what the table amount is meant to cover.

How is section 7 split between you and your ex?

In proportion to income — and "income" here means line 15000 (formerly line 150) of your most recent tax return, with adjustments under Schedule III of the Guidelines. After the cost has been reduced by any tax credits, subsidies, or insurance reimbursement.

Worked example. Your line 15000 is $90,000. Her line 15000 is $45,000. Combined: $135,000. Your share is 90/135 = 66.7%. Daycare is $1,200/month, the federal Canada Child Care Expense Deduction gives her a refund worth roughly $300/month, so the net daycare cost is $900/month. You pay 66.7% of $900 = $600/month. She pays $300/month — even though she's the one writing the daycare cheque every month, because she'll get the deduction at tax time.

A few mechanical points that catch men out:

• The net cost is what gets shared, not the gross. Always strip out the tax savings and subsidies first. The Canada Child Care Expense Deduction, the Canada Workers Benefit, RESP grants, employer benefits — all of these reduce the section 7 number before you proportion it.
• The income used is the most recent. If your income just dropped or jumped, you can ask for a recalculation. Most Ontario agreements include a yearly exchange of tax returns by July 1 for exactly this reason.
• You both have to agree the expense qualifies before it gets added. A parent who unilaterally signs the kid up for $5,000-a-year travel hockey and then asks the other parent to chip in 67% is going to lose that argument. Section 7 is a shared decision; if you cannot agree, the parent proposing the expense is the one who pays it.

If you have not run the support numbers yet, run them through the calculator — it shows you the table amount and lets you stress-test what section 7 adds on top.

What expenses are NOT section 7?

Most of what your kid costs is not section 7. The table amount in the Federal Child Support Tables is calibrated to cover food, clothing, shelter, transportation, school supplies, school-trip costs, ordinary recreation (rec-league soccer, swimming lessons, art class), basic medical and dental costs under $100/year, and the household share of utilities. Adding any of these on top as section 7 is a common mistake — and the court will not back it.

Specifically, in Ontario the following are NOT section 7 and stay inside the table amount:

• Birthday parties, gifts for friends, allowance, phones (unless medically necessary).
• Ordinary clothing and back-to-school clothes.
• Family vacations.
• Driver's-ed (the case law is mixed but the trend is no — it's an ordinary teen expense).
• Standard recreational activities under roughly $1,000/year — soccer at the local club, swim lessons, piano lessons with the neighbour. The line moves with income and family history, but $1,000/year is a useful working number for a middle-income Ontario household.

The way to think about it: the table amount is a basket. If you are about to add something to the basket on top of the table, ask whether the basket was already supposed to include it. If yes, no claim. If no — and the cost is real and necessary and beyond the ordinary — section 7.

How do you handle section 7 inside a separation agreement?

A well-drafted Ontario separation agreement does five things on section 7:

1. Names the income ratio. "Father's proportion: 66.7%. Mother's proportion: 33.3%, based on 2024 line 15000 incomes." Updated yearly.
2. Lists the current section 7 expenses with dollar amounts. Daycare $900/month, orthodontics $4,800 over 18 months, hockey $3,200/year — actual numbers, not categories.
3. Sets the disclosure date. "By April 30 each year, each parent shall provide their previous year's Notice of Assessment and a section 7 reconciliation." Yearly, not when-someone-asks.
4. Sets the consent rule for new expenses. "Neither parent shall enrol a child in an extracurricular activity costing more than $500/year without the other parent's written consent."
5. Sets the payment mechanism. Either monthly contribution to the parent who pays the bill, or a shared section 7 bank account both parents fund. Whatever it is, name it — "we'll figure it out" is what produces the next round of lawyers.

The agreement should also handle the post-secondary problem: how section 7 applies once the child is over 18 and in university. Most Ontario agreements name a contribution formula (often after the child's own contribution from RESP, summer earnings, and scholarships), and a cap (often equivalent to the cheapest Ontario residence-and-tuition combination).

For the full picture of how the table amount and section 7 combine into a monthly total, see how is child support calculated in Ontario — section 7 is half of the answer and most online calculators only give you the other half.

What if you cannot agree on a section 7 expense?

This is the most common live dispute in post-separation Ontario co-parenting. The usual paths:

• Mediation. Most family mediators will take a single-issue section 7 dispute (one $800 mediation session vs. a $15,000 motion).
• Family Responsibility Office. FRO only enforces support amounts already named in a court order or filed separation agreement. They do not arbitrate whether a new expense qualifies — that goes to the court or to the agreement's dispute mechanism.
• Motion to change. If the agreement is silent and you cannot agree, the parent claiming the expense can bring a motion under the Children's Law Reform Act to vary the section 7 schedule. Steps to Justice's child support guide walks through how the motion-to-change works in Ontario.

Practical advice: every section 7 fight gets resolved faster when both parents are sitting on the same income data. Exchange tax returns by July 1. Reconcile section 7 once a year, in writing. Sign a one-page section 7 amendment each January with the new ratio and the new monthly figure. The discipline saves more than it costs — section 7 disputes that drift become equalization-level lawyer bills.

The one thing to do this week

Pull your last filed tax return and find line 15000 — the same line your ex's lawyer will use against your spousal-support number. Then estimate the same number for her based on what you know. Compute the proportion. That ratio is the lens you will look at every section 7 expense through for the next ten to fifteen years; it is worth ten minutes to know it.

Where Cairn helps next

This article gives you the framework. The free calculator turns it into your specific numbers — what you'd actually pay each month, what would hit your account every two weeks. No email. No account.

• Your real Ontario support numbers in two minutes
• The cash-flow comparison with and without a tax adjustment
• A six-page PDF report you can email to yourself
• 14-day money-back promise if you take it further into a paid plan

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