Use the Child Support Service

In some cases, you may be able to use the online Child Support Service to change child support when the payor parent's income has changed.

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

In certain situations, you cannot use the service to change child support. For example, you cannot use the service if any of these are true:

• you used the service to decide or change the amount of child 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.

The parent that did not ask for the change gets 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 service would like their response.

The parent who got the notice can then disagree if the information the other parent put in the application was wrong.

If the parent who got the notice does not respond within 25 days of the notice being sent, the service might change their support payment without their response. So it's important to respond to a notice from the Ministry of the Attorney General if you do not agree with the change.

For more information, see Can I use Ontario’s online Child Support Service to change child support?

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