Child Support What is Child Support? Can I get child support? How do I apply for child support? I’m a child and don’t like how my child support money is being used, can I get the money directly? Do I have to pay child support? How much child support do I have to pay? When can I stop paying child support? What happens if I don’t pay my child’s child support? Can I come to a voluntary agreement with the child’s other parent on child support?
When parents separate, a child or young person may spend more time living with one parent than the other. The Child Support Scheme makes sure that both parents take financial responsibility for the costs of raising the child or young person.
Parents are responsible for looking after their children, even if they are separated and/or are not living together with their children. If you have a child who isn’t living with you, you might have to pay Child Support to the person your child is living with, to help with the costs of raising your child. The Child Support Scheme is managed by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD)
You can get child support if you are living with and taking responsibility for raising a child. Child support can be provided to carers who care for the child for 35% or more of the time.
If you are caring for a child for 35% or more of the time, you can make an application to the IRD to receive child support from parents who do not care for the child 35% or more of the time. Child support money is paid to the IRD, who passes it onto the person looking after the child. If you are on a benefit, you only get paid child support if the child support money received is more than your benefit.
If you need to apply for child support, you can find more information on the Child Support website. You can fill in a Child Support Formula Assessment Application form (IR101) and post it (along with the required documents) to:
Child support
PO Box 39010
Wellington Mail Centre
Lower Hutt 5045
If you are a child or young person whose parent is paying child support, you don’t get the money yourself. The money is provided to your parent/guardian who cares for you and, generally, they will make decisions on your behalf about how best to spend the money. If you don’t like how the money is being used, you should discuss this with your carer(s).
If you have a child who you don’t live with for more 76% of the time, you usually have to pay child support to help whoever they are living with to support your child financially. Even if you have no income, there is a minimum amount of child support you must pay annually, and this amount can come out of your benefit.
If your child has been legally adopted by someone else, you don’t have to pay any child support. The adoptive parents take over all legal responsibilities for the child they adopt.
The IRD have a formula to calculate how much child support a person has to pay. This depends on how much they earn in a year, how much they need to support themself and any children living with the carer, how many children the carer is supporting, and what the carer’s percentage of care for the child(ren) is.
A parent who has care of a child for more than 76% of the time won’t have to pay child support.
Your obligation to pay child support stops when your child:
You can also apply to stop paying child support if you are in prison or hospital for at least 13 weeks; if you are under 16; or if you are a mother paying child support for a child that was a result of a sexual offence.
If you stop paying your child’s child support, IRD can order for payments to be made directly from your employer, accident compensation payments and/or bank accounts. If these things don’t work, the IRD might recommend that the carer takes legal action in the Family Court.
If you end up going to Court and still refuse to pay, the Family Court has ways to get money from you, like selling your property. If the Family Court believes you might leave New Zealand without paying, they can issue an arrest warrant to stop you from leaving.
Yes, you and others who are paying/receiving child support can come to your own agreement about how much you pay/receive. If you have this kind of agreement, it needs to be in writing and the IRD needs to accept it. If the IRD accepts it, you can follow the voluntary agreement instead of paying/receiving the amount calculated by the IRD. An agreement must be for at least $10 per week.
If the main carer is on a benefit, the IRD can only accept a voluntary agreement if the amount paid is at least as much as their formula assessment. You can find the application for a voluntary agreement here.