About child support reviews

You can apply for a child support review when you think the amount we have worked out in our formula assessment does not take your special circumstances into account.

There will be a hearing where you, and the other parent or carer, can share your points of view and any evidence to support it. If we agree that you have special circumstances, we’ll adjust your child support assessment and the amount you pay or receive.

Child support reviews are free and can take up to 10 weeks to complete.

Grounds for review

Your special circumstances must fit under at least 1 of the 11 grounds available. These cover things like having another child or person in your care, unexpected costs or inability to earn income.

Each ground has a list of the information we need to consider your application. Any information you provide can be shared with the other parent or carer, so make sure you’re comfortable with them seeing it before you send it in.

Grounds for child support reviews

Who can apply

Either the paying (liable) parent or the receiving carer can apply for a review. The other parent or non-parent carer involved in the child support assessment can choose to respond with their point of view.

Review hearings

When we have everything we need, we’ll arrange for a hearing with a review officer. Review officers are experienced people who do not work for Inland Revenue except to make recommendations on child support reviews.

You can choose if you will attend the hearing or not.

Hearings take up to 30 minutes and are:

• informal compared to court hearings
• held separately with each person involved
• for clarifying information provided and discussing everyone’s circumstances.

Making decisions

Decisions are made after the hearing. Depending on what information is provided, the decision may have the opposite result of what you intended.

We'll let you know the outcome in writing, usually within 3 weeks of the hearing.

Learn more about how review decisions are made and how they might affect you.

Decisions for child support reviews

Ongoing payments

Your payments will continue until a decision is made. Paying parents can apply to reduce payments during the review, but you would need to have a very good reason for this to happen. For example, if there were unusual delays in reaching a decision.

If you think your payments should stop during your review, talk to us about how you can request this.

When reviews will not help

Reviews exist so that we can consider special circumstances and help make sure that child support payments are as fair as possible. However, family life can be complicated, and we can only make decisions based on ongoing arrangements. Then, we can only enforce payments in line with the assessment.

We cannot:

• control what parents may or may not pay outside of the child support assessment
• take every detail into account.

If our review officers think your situation is too complex, they may choose not to make a recommendation. In this case, you would also need to go to the Family Court.

Apply for a child support review
Respond to a review