Use the Child Support Service

In some cases, you may be able to use the online Child Support Service (CSS) to change child support where there has been a change to the payor parent’s income.

The government calculates the amount of child support to be paid using the new income information. They then mail you and your partner a Notice of Recalculation that tells you how much child support must be paid.

But sometimes you cannot use the CSS to change child support. For example, if any of these are true:

• you used CSS to decide or change the child support amount less than 6 months ago
• you or your partner live outside of Ontario
• the payor parent earns more than 20% of their income from self-employment, rental income, or investment income
• you have shared parenting time or split parenting time

Shared parenting time used to be called shared custody or shared care. Split parenting time used to be called split custody.

Only one parent needs to ask to change child support online. The other parent does not need to agree. They get a notice in the mail from the Ministry of the Attorney General that says the other parent applied to change child support online and the CSS agrees that it can make the change.

That payor parent can disagree if the information the other parent gave was wrong. If they do not respond within 25 days of the notice being sent, the CSS might change their support payment without their response. So it is important to respond to a notice from the Ministry of the Attorney General if you don’t agree with the change.

You can talk to a lawyer about whether you should use the CSS.