Australian Government: Attorney-General's Department
Australian Government: Attorney-General's DepartmentAchieving a Just and Secure Society

International child and spousal maintenance

What is Child Support?


In recognising that children require financial support for their day to day living, and general care and welfare– schemes have been set up in order to provide mechanisms that afford children the right to be financially supported by their parents, even when the family is no longer in tact. The long term care and welfare of a child should be borne, financially by both parents.


Key legislation


All applications for international child maintenance matters are dealt with in accordance with the relevant provisions of the following key legislation:


How does International Child Support Maintenance operate?


In recognising that parents need to fulfil their responsibilities in providing child support even when they do not live in the same country as their child–Australia has become a party to a number of reciprocal arrangements with overseas jurisdictions for the purposes of recognising and enforcing international child support liabilities.


A list of reciprocal countries outlines those jurisdictions included under this arrangement in the Family Law Regulations (FLR).


Furthermore, New Zealand and the United States of America have separate bilateral agreements with Australia that determine the processing of incoming and outgoing applications to and from these countries.


Where a country is not included under the Family Law Act or under a bilateral agreement, applications may be made pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance or (UNCRAM). A list of Convention countries is listed in Schedule 4 to the FLR.


Who is responsible for the administration of International Child Maintenance Matters?

Sometimes there may be occasions when parents will avoid paying child support. In these instances, administrative and legal tools will be used to enforce collection.
There are two main bodies that deal with International Child Maintenance Matter applications according to different interventions.


Child maintenance matters can be dealt with either (i) administratively (Australian Child Support Agency–CSA)or (ii) administratively and legally (Attorney-General’s Department–AGD)


THE CSA


The CSA is Commonwealth government department and acts as the main central authority for the administration of most International Child Maintenance cases. The CSA administers child support cases where one party lives overseas and one party lives in Australia.


The roles of the CSA are outlined below:

  • Register and enforce an overseas maintenance order
  • Register and enforces a overseas registered maintenance agreement
  • Register and enforce an overseas administrative assessment
  • Register and enforce an agency reimbursement liability
  • Register an amount in arrears under an agency reimbursement liability
  • Issue an administrative assessment in overseas cases
  • Transmit an application for the registration and enforcement of a maintenance liability overseas
  • Transmit an application for the variation of a liability made in a reciprocating jurisdiction, and
  • Assist overseas authorities with location and service requests.


For information about how CSA works, your options, the type of information that you need, payment options when paying child support outside of Australia and the objection process if you do not agree with a CSA decision, please visit www.csa.gov.au or contact:

Child Support Agency


International Stream
Telephone: +61 3 6216 0864
Solicitors Helpline: 1800 180 272 (from within Australia only)
Facsimile: +61 3 6216 0899
E-mail: csaoverseas@csa.gov.au
Website: www.csa.gov.au

Australia is a party to a number of international agreements and conventions about international maintenance obligations. The CSA is the agency primarily responsible for the administration of arrangements under the following agreements.

Bilateral Agreement between Australia and USA
Bilateral Agreement between Australian and NZ
Arrangements under the UNCRAM
Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Relating to Maintenance Obligations

Bilateral Agreement between USA and Australia


The Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America for the Enforcement of Maintenance (Support) Obligations came into force on 12 December 2002. It replaces the former non-treaty arrangements between Australia and some individual states of the USA.


For Australia, the agreement applies in Australia, Norfolk Island and the territories of Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. For the USA, the agreement applies in the fifty states, American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands and any other jurisdiction of the United States participating in Title IV-D of the Social Security Act.”


The agreement applies to maintenance obligations arising from a marriage or parentage, including a maintenance obligation towards a child born out of wedlock. However a maintenance obligation towards a spouse or former spouse where there are no minor children will be enforced in the United States under this Agreement only in those States and other jurisdictions of the United States that elect to do so.


The agreement:

  • deals with the enforcement of court orders and administrative assessments
  • provides for a liability to be created in and varied in the country in which the payee is resident except where the liable parent has had no or little connection with Australia. In these cases the individual State where the liable parent resides would claim personal jurisdiction where a new liability is sent to them and the payee in Australia would have to petition the USA requesting a liability be established in the USA. Where a US liability is registered in Australia and the payee still lives in the State where the liability was initiated, that State will claim continuing jurisdiction over the liability. Therefore the USA cannot recognise an Australian court variation to the liability in spite of this being available to the liable parent in Australia and recognised in Australia
  • obliges each country to assist in locating payers, serving notices and providing advice, and
  • provides for the protection of privacy and for information sharing.


Agreement between Australia and the United States of America


Bilateral Agreement between NZ and Australia


The governments of Australia and New Zealand entered into an agreement (the Australia–New Zealand Agreement) to facilitate the collection of liabilities under administrative assessments of child support from 1 July 2000. Under the agreement, the New Zealand Inland Revenue Child Support and CSA can collect child support liabilities assessed by the other authority.


Under Article 7, a decision made by an administrative or judicial authority of a Contracting State (the State of origin) is entitled to recognition and enforcement by operation of law in the territory of the other Contracting State (the State addressed).


The agreement limits the jurisdiction of the two contracting states (ie Australia and New Zealand). The contracting state where the payee is habitually resident will issue and administer the assessment, and the other contracting state where the payer resides will be responsible for collection. The agreement provides that a child support assessment made in one contracting state will end from the date that contracting state receives written notice that the payee is habitually resident in the other contracting state. The notice can be from the payer, payee or the other contracting state.


The full text of the agreement appears at schedule 1 of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) (Overseas-related maintenance obligations) Regulations.


Arrangements under the UNCRAM


The United Nations Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance (UNCRAM) was signed in New York on 20 June 1956. It aimed to overcome the legal and practical difficulties involved in establishing claims for maintenance abroad where other reciprocal arrangements did not exist.


Australia is a contracting party to the convention, which operates in Australia through provisions in the Family Law Act (section 111) and Family Law Regulations (regulations 40-56). The text of the convention appears at schedule 3 to the Family Law Regulations.


A payee in an UNCRAM country can make an application to another UNCRAM country in which the liable parent resides for that country to establish a maintenance liability on their behalf. A few UNCRAM countries, but not including Australia, will register an existing liability under this convention but only where their domestic law allows. The current active UNCRAM members are listed in schedule 4 of the Family Law Regulations. Wherever possible, Australia will use other arrangements in place with a reciprocating jurisdiction in preference to making applications under UNCRAM.


A payee may need to make an UNCRAM application if they are seeking maintenance from a payer in an UNCRAM country, but cannot do so under reciprocal arrangements (e.g. because the laws of the reciprocating jurisdiction do not currently allow that jurisdiction to recognise a child support assessment). Legal Aid in each Australian state and territory can assist a payee to prepare an UNCRAM application for a liability to be created (Article 3) or for recognition of an existing child support assessment or court order (Article 5). CSA will transmit the application to the relevant country along with a copy of the child support assessment (or court order, if a child support assessment cannot be made).


A court in the receiving UNCRAM country (i.e. where the payer resides) will decide the level of maintenance payable under the relevant law in that jurisdiction (Article 6 of the convention). It may take into account the information provided by CSA in making that decision.


Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Relating to Maintenance Obligations


On 1 February 2002 Australia became a contracting state to the Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Relating to Maintenance Obligations 1973 (Convention #23). The other signatories to the Hague Convention are mainly European countries that Australia previously had no reciprocal arrangements with and relied on applications to be sent under the United Nations Convention (see below). The convention applies to both spousal and child support obligations. It has the effect of establishing bilateral reciprocal agreements with other contracting states to recognise and enforce maintenance decisions made by judicial or administrative authorities in convention countries.


Like the New Zealand agreement, the Hague Convention provides for the recognition of administrative assessments (rather than just court orders or court registered agreements). The convention provides for the relatively simple and speedy enforcement of existing Australian liabilities by overseas courts and administrative authorities. However, a contracting state will only recognise a decision of an administrative authority such as CSA if the laws of that state support that recognition.


The Hague Convention


THE AGD


The Australian Government has entered into arrangements with a number of countries to enable residence parents and carers to obtain child support from non-residence parents internationally. Section 110 of the Family Law Act 1975 provides that regulations may be made to establish mechanisms to enforce Australian court orders for child support and maintenance in other countries that are declared by regulation to be reciprocating jurisdictions.


The Attorney-General’s Department (AGD) is responsible for transferring matters in, in some instances, enforcing particular orders.


The roles of the AGD are outlined below:

  • Transmits application for the confirmation of a provisional order
  • Transmits applications for the confirmation of a provisional variation order
  • Variation or order applications
  • Enforcement proceedings for incoming overseas maintenance entry liabilities (OMELS) which are non-periodic maintenance liabilities
  • Requests for paternity testing, and
  • Cancellation of court registered maintenance orders.


Making an Application


The AGD deals with outgoing applications. The AGD transmits sufficient documentation to the overseas jurisdiction where the liable parent resides, with the aim of enabling an order for maintenance to be obtained and enforced in that country.


The AGD also assists with incoming applications. The AGD facilitate the making of an order in an Australian court by transferring the majority of cases to the CSA.


The CSA will facilitate the enforcement of an order against the liable parent who resides here. The effectiveness of these procedures depends on co-operation between State and Territory Agencies in Australia and the Receiving and Transmitting Agencies abroad. Although some applications are determined by proceedings in an Australian court, the majority are settled by way of negotiation between the parties.


i) Where the applicant lives in Australia


Where a person is liable to pay child support in Australia and that person is resident in, proceeding to or present in a reciprocating jurisdiction listed in Schedule 2 of the FLR, an application may be made to request that jurisdiction to enforce the payment of maintenance.


The person seeking child support (the applicant) must have a maintenance order from an Australian court requiring another person (the respondent) to pay maintenance for the child. This can be either an order made under Part VII of the Act where the CSA was unable to assess child support or, if a CSA assessment has been made and the person has subsequently left Australia, a provisional order made under Regulation 29. In all cases a maintenance order must be available to be enforced.


The applicant should apply to the Registrar of the court which made the maintenance order for them to forward the following documents to the relevant Central Authority:

  • 3 certified copies of the order
  • a certificate stating what moneys and arrears are due, payable and accruing under the order
  • a certificate signed by the Registrar that the order is, at the date of the certificate, enforceable in Australia
  • such information and material (if any) as the registrar possesses for ascertaining the identity and the whereabouts of the person against whom the order was made, and
  • a request in writing that the Secretary should seek to have the Australian order made enforceable in that overseas jurisdiction.


The Central Authority will then forward the appropriate documents to the reciprocating jurisdiction requesting that the order be enforced. Each jurisdiction had its own requirements and methods of enforcement and additional information may be required, either with the initial application or after the request has been made by the Central Authority.


It is usual for the respondent to be given the opportunity to address the application in the reciprocating jurisdiction before it will be enforced, including submitting evidence and requesting alternative orders or opposing any order for maintenance. This may involve the applicant be required to provide additional information in support of the application and to reply to any claims made by the respondent.


Once the reciprocating jurisdiction accepts the Australian order then it will be enforced according to the laws of that country.


ii) Where the applicant lives in a reciprocating jurisdiction


Where a person is liable to pay child support under the laws of a reciprocating jurisdiction and that person (the respondent) is resident in, present in or proceeding to Australia, then the person who is entitled to child support under the laws of the reciprocating jurisdiction (the applicant) may apply through the relevant Central Authority in that country to have the Australian courts enforce a maintenance order in their favour. In these cases, respondents would be entitled to appear and be heard in any court proceedings considering whether the maintenance order should be enforced against them.


iii) Enforcement action


At the same time as the court serves the payer with notice of registration of the order, it will usually start enforcement action against the payer. The court Registrar or the State/Territory Collector of Maintenance is empowered to take enforcement proceedings (Regulation 30 of the FLR).


The procedures for enforcement are governed by the FLR made by Judges of the Family Court (Order 33). In practice the court issues a summons to the payer requiring him or her to attend the court on a certain date. It is a criminal offence to fail to attend and a warrant can be issued by the court for the payer’s arrest if he/she fails to attend.


Where the payer cannot be located the court will notify the Attorney-General, which will take the steps referred to above to locate the payer. The court hears the matter. Sometimes the payer will challenge the registration, oppose enforcement of the order or seek a variation of the order (the variation and discharge of overseas orders is governed by Regulations 36 and 38 of the FLR).


The court can proceed in the payee’s absence, although the payee can appoint a lawyer to represent him/her at the hearing they wish.


The Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department does not participate in the proceedings although in rare cases the Australian Attorney-General will intervene under s91 of the Family Law Act 1975. The court makes orders as to the rate of payment by the payer of the arrears and future maintenance.