If you're behind making your child support payments, you may be charged penalties. But here's what you can do to get back up to date.
Contact us straightaway
It’s best to sort out any child support debt as soon as possible. If you cannot pay in full, let us know how much you can pay. You can either send us a message in your myIR account or call us to make a payment plan.
Otherwise, we may follow up the overdue amounts, including collecting them from your employer or bank account.
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Setting up a payment plan
Payment plans help when you cannot pay all your overdue child support at once.
It’s important to contact us when you set up your payment plan. We’ll add it to your records so that we stop trying to collect the overdue payment.
Employer deductions and payment plans
If your employer already takes your child support payments from your salary or wages, contact us to work out a payment plan. We’ll agree on an extra amount for your employer to take from your wages and pay to us.
If you do not contact us, we may automatically contact your employer anyway.
Making your own payment plan
If you’re self-employed and make your own payments and you get behind, you can set up a payment plan by:
- calling us
- filling out a child support payment plan in myIR.
If you get salary or wages, you cannot make your own payment plan for overdue child support. Any extra payments need to come through your employer.
Late payment penalties
If your child support is not paid in full and on time, penalties are charged on the overdue amount.
Penalties are charged at:
- 2% of the unpaid child support, the day after the due date
- 8% of the unpaid child support 28 days after the due date.
No penalties for 60 days
You get a 60-day grace period after you become a paying (liable) parent. This means we will not charge any late payment penalties for 60 days after:
- you first become a paying parent
- you become a paying parent again after your child support stopped
- you start to pay child support after being a receiving carer – for example, if a child moves out of your home and into the other parent’s.
The 60-day grace period starts on your first due date. This is to give you time to organise your payments. Although we will not charge penalties during this period, we will still follow up any missed payments.
After the grace period ends, you’ll be charged penalties on any child support that still has not been paid.
Ongoing penalties for old debt
We do not charge ongoing monthly late payment penalties on any overdue payments after 1 April 2021. You still need to pay any penalties that were charged before this date.
We may be able to reduce or remove the penalties if you pay the overdue child support or set up a payment plan. Contact us to find out how we can help with penalties.
Collecting overdue child support
If you do not arrange to pay your overdue child support, we will collect it from:
- your salary or wages - up to 40% of your after-tax income
- your benefit or ACC payments
- your bank accounts
- any other money you might be owed, like a trust account or superannuation payout.
Depending on your income, we might set up regular repayments or take the whole amount in one go. It's always better to contact us and work out an amount together.
We may take you to court
We may take legal action if we cannot sort out your overdue child support in any other way. However, we'll always try to agree on a payment plan with you before taking any legal action.
Tax refunds go to overdue child support
If you have an income tax refund owing, we'll always use this to pay your overdue child support, even if you have a payment plan with us.
Living overseas
If you live overseas, we may ask the country you live in to collect payments on our behalf. For example, we have child support agreements with Australia and many other countries.
We can also take legal action against you, such as restricting overseas travel.
Overseas child support
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