Child Support Services: How to Get Help

1Step 1: Know what the agency can do for you

Child support agencies are run by states, counties and tribes, with funding and oversight from the federal Office of Child Support Services, which does not handle individual cases. Your local agency offers six services:

• Locating a parent, using employment, tax and other records.
• Establishing legal parentage, including genetic testing when it is disputed.
• Establishing a support order, which can include health coverage.
• Collecting payments and passing them on through a central payment system, so every payment has a record.
• Enforcing the order when payments are late or missed.
• Reviewing and changing the order when circumstances change.

Either parent can sign up, including a parent who pays and wants an order set at a fair amount or a record of payments. Grandparents and other caregivers raising a child can apply too.

If you receive TANF cash assistance or Medicaid for a child, you are generally referred automatically and must cooperate, for example by naming the other parent. Families on TANF also sign over their right to support to the state, which can keep some or all collections to repay the assistance, though some states pass part of it on to the family. If contact with the other parent could put you or your child at risk, tell your caseworker: you can be excused for good cause. Our TANF guide explains the cash program.

2Step 2: Apply to your state or tribal agency

Find your agency through the federal child support office's contact page; many let you apply online. Gather:

• the children's birth certificates;
• any existing order, divorce decree or separation agreement, and records of payments;
• what you know about the other parent: an address, employer or Social Security number;
• proof of your income and of costs such as child care and health coverage.

For families not on public assistance, federal law caps the application fee at $25, and some states charge less or nothing. Families who have never received TANF may also be charged an annual fee of $35 once the agency collects at least $550 in support for them in a year. Using the agency is a choice, not a requirement, unless you receive TANF or Medicaid: you can also go to court on your own or hire a family law attorney. After you apply, keep your caseworker informed when your address, job or the children's living arrangements change.

3Step 3: Establish parentage, if needed

When parents are not married, a support order usually requires legal parentage first. The simplest route is a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity, a form both parents sign, often at the hospital or later at a birth records office or the agency. Once signed, it has the force of a court order after a 60-day period in which either parent can withdraw it. If parentage is disputed, the agency can arrange genetic testing, usually a cheek swab.

Legal parentage matters beyond support: it can give the child rights to health coverage, inheritance, and Social Security or veterans' benefits through that parent.

4Step 4: Get an order set

Each state has guidelines, usually a formula or table, that weigh both parents' incomes, the number of children and often the time the children spend with each parent, plus costs such as child care and health coverage. A court or an administrative process issues the order. Courts can depart from the guideline amount when following it would be unjust, but they must explain why.

Bring accurate income information. If the other parent does not provide theirs, the agency may estimate it, which can produce an order that fits neither household.

Orders usually also say which parent provides health insurance for the children, or how medical costs not covered by insurance are shared. If neither parent has affordable coverage, the children may qualify for Medicaid or CHIP.

5Step 5: Let the system collect and record payments

Most new orders include income withholding, so support is deducted from the paying parent's wages and sent to the state's payment center, which passes it on, usually by direct deposit or a state debit card. When the parents live in different states, a uniform interstate law lets an order from one state be enforced in another, and your agency handles the contact with the other state's agency.

Paying through the payment center protects both parents. Cash handed over without a record can be disputed later, and informal agreements with no order cannot be enforced.

6Step 6: Enforce the order when payments stop

When payments are still missed, agencies can use other tools:

• intercepting federal and state tax refunds;
• placing liens on property and seizing some bank accounts;
• suspending driver's, professional or recreational licenses;
• reporting past-due support to credit bureaus;
• denying a U.S. passport when more than $2,500 is owed.

Changing jobs does not escape withholding for long: employers report new hires to a national directory, which lets agencies send the withholding order to the new employer. Details of the other tools vary by state. Moving does not end an order; see our guide to moving to another state.

7Step 7: Ask for a review when life changes

Either parent can ask the agency to review an order after a job loss, a large raise, a change in custody or a change in health coverage costs. If the change is large enough under state rules, a new order is entered. A parent who goes to prison can also ask for a review, because incarceration is not treated as choosing not to work.

Until a court or agency changes an order, the existing amount remains owed, and past-due support generally cannot be reduced later. Do not stop paying; ask for a review as soon as the change happens.

8Child support, taxes and other benefits

Child support is not taxable income to the parent who receives it, and it is not deductible for the parent who pays. Which parent can claim the children for tax credits depends on where they live, not on who pays support; see our guide to the Child Tax Credit. Support received generally counts as income for programs such as SNAP, while support a parent is legally required to pay can be deducted when SNAP figures that parent's income. When a paying parent retires or becomes disabled, the children may qualify for Social Security benefits of their own on that parent's record.

10What your agency decides

Rules, fees, guidelines and enforcement tools are set by states and tribes, and cases involving more than one state have additional steps. This article is general information and not legal advice; for complicated custody or safety issues, legal aid or a family law attorney can help.