Making care arrangements for your children

It’s up to parents to manage care arrangements that are in the best interests of the children. The child support formula recognises the care each parent has of their children.

Your child’s care arrangements

To make sure we have the same information about care from both parents and can calculate your payments correctly, we recommend you have one of the following in place:

• a written parenting plan
• an agreement (oral or written) with the other parent about the level of care
• a court order about care, which you have supplied to us.

When there are changes to care

Where possible, try to make a new parenting plan or agreement. For child support purposes, small changes in care (less than one night a fortnight) don’t significantly change the costs that parents meet, so it might not change child support payments.

This gives parents more flexibility about small changes in care without worrying about the effect on child support. If the children’s care arrangements change call us on 131 272.

If care arrangements don’t work out or parents don’t agree

If one parent doesn’t meet their care obligations and doesn’t seek a new agreement, parenting plan, or order despite the other parent’s efforts, we can change the assessment to reflect the actual care.

If parents cannot agree on care levels, and have not made a parenting plan or obtained a court order, then care levels used in your assessment are determined by us and Centrelink after talking to both parents (where possible).

Go to Spending time with your children for information about dispute resolution and other services that may assist.

Print this page Top of page