Arrangements between Australia and New Zealand

The country where the receiving parent lives makes the child support assessment.

The country where the paying parent lives may collect payments on behalf of the other country.

Paying child support to a parent in New Zealand

If you live in Australia and the other parent lives in New Zealand, Inland Revenue New Zealand (IRNZ) may refer your case to us. If they do, we’ll collect your child support payments and transfer them to IRNZ.

If IRNZ haven’t sent your case to us for collection, you should continue to pay them or contact them directly.

We don’t charge you a fee for this.

Changing your New Zealand assessment

Contact IRNZ if you want to change a New Zealand child support assessment.

How to pay us

You can pay by either:

• deduction
• EasyPay – credit or debit card
• BPay
• Australia Post BillPay
• mail.

You pay in Australian dollars.

Deduction

We can deduct child support from either:

• your wages
• payments from Centrelink or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

There’s no extra cost to you.

Contact us on our Child Support Enquiry Line if you don’t want us to do this.

EasyPay

Pay safely online 24/7 through Australian Government EasyPay. You can use your credit or debit card.

There’s a small card payment fee.

BPay

Pay from your bank account through BPay:

• use biller code 201509
• give your 16 digit payment reference number - it’s on your payer account statement.

Australia Post Billpay

Pay at any branch of Australia Post.

You’ll need to give your 16 digit payment reference number - it’s on your payer account statement.

Mail

Post us a cheque or money order:

• put Services Australia – Child Support as the payee
• include your payment slip - it’s on your payer account statement.

Send it to:

Call the Child Support Enquiry Line to discuss how to pay.

If you don’t pay

We’ll contact you to talk about why you haven’t paid and work out a payment plan. We’ll work with you to get the best result.

If we can’t agree on a payment plan with you, we can try to collect the overdue amount in other ways. We can:

• deduct money from your wages
• take legal action
• stop you leaving Australia
• take money from your Australian tax refund.

Late payment penalties

If Inland Revenue New Zealand (IRNZ) refer your case to us, it may include New Zealand penalties for collection.

We also charge Australian penalties for outstanding child support payments. You pay these to the Australian Government. They don’t come directly to us, the other parent or IRNZ.

If you pay the overdue child support in full we may waive the Australian penalties.

If you have questions about the New Zealand penalties, please contact IRNZ.

Receiving child support from a parent in New Zealand

You can either:

• arrange for the other parent to pay you directly
• ask us to collect payments for you.

Payments through Private Collect

This is where the other parent pays you directly. We’ll tell you the amount of child support payable but you arrange the payments privately.

Read about Private Collect.

Payments through us

If you ask us to collect payments for you:

• we’ll usually send your case to IRNZ
• they register the case and start collecting payments.

It can take up to 6 months for payments to start.

Contact us if you don’t receive a payment within 6 months.

Overdue payments

If the paying parent doesn’t pay on time, IRNZ will collect the overdue amount using their laws.

Disbursement of payments collected by New Zealand

IRNZ will forward collected payments to us and we’ll pay these amounts to your bank account by the last working day of the month.

Tell us about changes

If things change that may affect your child support you must tell us. This includes:

• new contact details
• a new address
• new bank details
• a change of income
• a change in the care of the children.

If you have a New Zealand assessment you’ll need to contact IRNZ about changes in your circumstances

Changes to your circumstances may affect your child support assessment and the amount of child support we collect on your behalf. In some cases, we may only take changes affecting payment amounts from the day you tell us.

Read about changes of circumstances.

Moving between Australia and New Zealand

You must let us know as soon as either parent moves between Australia and New Zealand.

We have special arrangements with New Zealand that mean you pay child support through New Zealand or Australia but not through both.