A child support assessment will continue until there’s a change of circumstances that causes it to end. We call this a terminating event.
Please make sure you keep us up to date about any changes to your circumstances.
Changes relating to the child
Your assessment will end if any of the following occur:
- the child turns 18, unless they’re still in secondary education, and we accept an application to extend the assessment
- the child marries or starts living in a marriage like relationship
- someone else adopts the child
- the child dies.
Your assessment will also end if all of the following occur:
- the child is no longer in Australia
- the child is no longer an Australian resident or citizen
- the person entitled to get child support is not a resident of a reciprocating jurisdiction.
Find out more about child support when your child turns 18.
Changes relating to care
Your assessment will end if all of the following occur:
- we’re notified of a care change more than 26 weeks after it occurs
- a parent or non-parent carer stops having 35% care or more
- the other parent starts having 35% care or more.
Your assessment will also end if both of the following occur:
- both parents have less than 35% care of the child
- there’s no non-parent carer entitled to receive child support.
Changes relating to the parents
Your assessment will end if any of the following occur:
- we accept the receiving parent’s application to end the assessment form
- we accept a binding child support agreement that ends the assessment
- one of the parents in the assessment dies and there is no non-parent carer entitled to receive child support
- the parents have been reconciled for 6 months or more
- both parents stop being residents of Australia.
Your assessment will also end if we accept an application to end the assessment. Either parent can apply to end the assessment while the agreement is suspended. This applies only when the assessment was started by a child support agreement. We may have suspended your agreement if if your care arrangements for a child change.
Other reasons your assessment will end are if any of the following occur:
- someone else starts caring for the child under a child welfare law in South Australia or Western Australia
- we get written notice that the receiving parent is now a resident of New Zealand
- the paying parent stops being a resident of Australia or of a reciprocating jurisdiction
- another ongoing child support liability, such as an overseas child support liability, is registered for the same parents and child.