Child support and your Family Tax Benefit Part A

If you or your partner receive child support, these payments can affect your FTB. If the amount of child support you receive changes, your FTB payments may change too.

Why you need to apply for child support while you get FTB Part A

Where possible, parents should take primary responsibility for the cost of looking after their children. This is why we ask you to apply for child support, also known as maintenance.

How child support affects FTB Part A payment rates

The more child support you receive or are entitled to, the less FTB you may get. This is called the Maintenance Income Test.

What happens if you change how you transfer child support

If you change how you collect child support, it could impact your FTB Part A. It could also impact our ability to recover underpayments of child support.

What happens if we update your child support assessment

If circumstances change for you or the other parent, we’ll update your child support assessment. This means your FTB payments may change too.

When you have a child support agreement while you get FTB Part A

You need to know how this affects your FTB.

FTB Part A balancing and child support

If you get Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A and child support, we’ll check you got the right amount of FTB when we balance your payments.

When your circumstances change

If your circumstances change we may need to change your assessment.