Who can apply for child support? 277-51020010

The child must be:

• in the person's actual care at least 35% of the time, and
• under 18, and
• not a member of a couple, and
• in Australia, or an Australian citizen, or normally in Australia (temporarily overseas)

The paying parent must be:

• a natural or adoptive parent of the child, or if the child was born as the result of an artificial conception procedure, a parent of the child under section 60H of the Family Law Act, or if the child was born because of a surrogacy arrangement, a parent of the child under section 60 HB of the Family Law Act, and
• not living as a partner with the person claiming child support, and
• an Australian resident or residing overseas in a country that has a reciprocal agreement with Australia for child support

The payee or the payer can ask Child Support to continue a child support assessment (and collection of child support) until the last day of secondary school in the year the student turns 18. They must apply to Child Support before the student turns 18.

Customers need to have the child in their actual care at least 35% of the time as assessed for Family Tax Benefit (FTB) to apply for a child support assessment.

This means that customers with less than 35% care of a child do not need to take action to receive child support for that child. However, maintenance income received for the child is assessed under the Maintenance Income Test.

The level of shared care is one of the factors used to calculate child support entitlement.

From 1 July 2008, if parents share the care of a child or if each has one or more children in care, Child Support registers only one child support case instead of two. The system will only establish an electronic link with one Centrelink customer (the child support payee) at the time the link is established. This means that information will not be received electronically from Child Support to show that the other party (generally the payer) has met the MAT.

If both parents are FTB customers, manual coding is required on the other parent's record to reflect the MAT status and prevent the paying parent's FTB Part A rate being restricted to base rate. See Maintenance Action Test (MAT) for customers with shared care.

In these cases, the person applying for a child support assessment must be a parent or relative of the child.