Child maintenance is money to help pay for your child’s living costs. It’s paid by the parent who doesn’t usually live with the child to the person who has most day-to-day care of the child and therefore is the main carer. It’s also called ‘child support’.
A child means someone who’s under 16, or under 20 if they’re in approved education or training.
You can get child maintenance if:
The main carer is usually a parent, but can also be the child’s grandparent or guardian.
You’ll have to pay child maintenance if you:
The money is usually a regular payment towards your child’s everyday living costs. It could also be a payment towards things like bills or rent for the home where your child lives.
You won’t need to pay tax on any child maintenance you get. If you’re a taxpayer you won’t get any tax relief on the child maintenance payments you make.
Child maintenance won’t affect any benefits you get. For example, you won’t get less Universal Credit if you also get child maintenance.
If you’re entitled to Council Tax Reduction, you might get less help if you also get child maintenance. You will need to check with your local council.
You’ll still have to pay child maintenance if you claim certain benefits or you’re part of a new partner’s benefit claim for a means-tested benefit like Universal Credit.
There are 3 different ways to arrange child maintenance. Some people arrange maintenance voluntarily with each other, others have maintenance calculated and collected under a government scheme, and some have arrangements made by a court order.
If you can, it’s best for you to arrange child maintenance directly with your child’s other parent. It’s called making a private or ‘family-based’ arrangement. You might be able to do this if you get on with your child’s other parent and know where they live.
You might be able to make arrangements for child maintenance as part of the process for ending your relationship. You can ask the court to put this in a court order called a ‘consent order’.
If a private arrangement isn’t suitable for you, you can apply to the Child Maintenance Service. You’ll need to pay a £20 fee unless you’re under 19 or have experienced domestic violence or abuse.
You can apply to the Child Maintenance Service if you:
You won’t get any child maintenance under this scheme if the other parent is:
You should tell the Child Maintenance Service if you find out the other parent has left prison or is no longer a full-time student with no income. The Child Maintenance Service will then look at your case again.
You might have to go to court to arrange maintenance. You’ll have to do this if the parent paying maintenance:
You’ll also have to go to court to ask for more maintenance if you have to pay for extra things like the cost of your child’s disability or their education. This is because the Child Maintenance Service doesn’t take these extra costs into account in its calculation.
Once a court order is in place, the court can force the other parent to pay maintenance if they don’t pay what’s been agreed in the order.