How to Apply for Child Support in Texas: Steps, Paternity, and Payments

To apply for child support in Texas, submit an application to the Office of the Attorney General’s Child Support Division online at childsupport.oag.texas.gov, by phone at (800) 252-8014 to request a paper form, or in person at a local child support office. There is no upfront application fee. Once your case is opened, the agency locates the other parent, establishes paternity when needed, and works to get a support order in place through either a negotiation meeting or a court hearing.

The Three Ways to Submit an Application

The online portal is the fastest option. You create a profile at childsupport.oag.texas.gov, and the application itself takes about an hour. You can save your progress, return later, and use the same account afterward to check case status and manage the case.¹

If you prefer paper, call (800) 252-8014 and request that an application be mailed to you. You can also walk into a local child support office and hand your paperwork to a caseworker. Online applications are processed faster than paper ones. Whichever route you take, the Office of the Attorney General assigns a case number when your submission is accepted, and every future letter and payment references that number.²

What to Gather Before You Start

The more you can supply on the application, the faster your case moves. Pull together as much of the following as you can:

Full legal names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and driver’s license numbers for both parents and every child on the case.
Current and past addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for the other parent. Contact information for their friends, relatives, or workplaces helps if the agency has to locate them.
Employer names and addresses, recent pay stubs, and tax returns for both parents.
Health and dental insurance details, including policy numbers and providers for any coverage already on the children.
Copies of any existing court orders — divorce decrees, custody orders, or prior support orders from any state.
Attorney names and contact information if either parent has legal representation.

Income records carry extra weight because Texas sets support as a percentage of the paying parent’s net resources. Insurance information matters because the final order will assign one parent responsibility for the children’s medical and dental coverage.²³

Who Can Apply

Texas Family Code Section 102.003 gives standing to a parent (custodial or noncustodial), a court-appointed guardian, a court-authorized representative acting for the child, a man claiming to be the father, and certain governmental entities including the Department of Family and Protective Services and the Title IV-D agency itself.⁴

Establishing Paternity If the Parents Weren’t Married

A court cannot order support until the legal father is identified. If the parents were married when the child was born, the husband is presumed to be the father and no separate step is needed. For children born outside of marriage, paternity has to be established first.

The simplest path is a voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity. Both the mother and the man claiming to be the father sign the form under penalty of perjury, either at the hospital after birth or later through the Office of the Attorney General, a local birth registrar, or another designated location. Once filed with the vital statistics unit, the AOP has the same legal effect as a court order establishing paternity.⁵

When paternity is disputed, either parent can ask for genetic testing, which the agency arranges through a competitively procured laboratory. If you are not receiving public assistance, the state may charge a reasonable fee for the test. If the alleged father denied paternity and the results confirm he is the father, the agency can seek to recover the testing cost from him.⁶

What the Agency Does After You Apply

Once your case is open, the Child Support Division starts by finding the other parent if their location isn’t known. Staff pull from state and federal databases, including employment records, tax information, and public records, then serve the other parent with legal notice of the child support action.

From there, most cases move into the Child Support Review Process, a negotiation meeting with both parents and a child support officer that typically lasts 60 to 90 minutes. If the parents agree on the monthly payment, medical support, and dental support, the resulting order goes to a judge for signature.⁷

If no agreement is reached, the case is set for a court hearing. You’ll receive notice of the date, time, and location by mail or be formally served. At the hearing, an Assistant Attorney General presents the case to a judge, who issues the final order. Court cases can involve long waits and sometimes more than one appearance before every issue is resolved.⁷

How the Payment Amount Is Set

Texas uses a percentage-of-income model. The court starts with the paying parent’s monthly net resources, which is gross income minus federal income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, health insurance premiums for the child, and union dues. Then it applies a guideline percentage based on the number of children:

1 child: 20% of net resources
2 children: 25%
3 children: 30%
4 children: 35%
5 children: 40%
6 or more children: not less than 40%

These percentages apply to monthly net resources up to $11,700. For income above that cap, the court has discretion to order additional support based on the child’s needs. If the paying parent has a legal duty to support children from another relationship, the percentages are adjusted downward.⁸⁹

Beyond the base payment, the order usually names one parent to carry health insurance for the child, and both parents generally split uninsured medical expenses equally.¹⁰

How Payments Reach You Once the Order Is in Place

Roughly 80 percent of child support in Texas moves through wage withholding. After the order is entered, the Office of the Attorney General sends an income withholding order to the paying parent’s employer, which deducts the amount from each paycheck and forwards it to the Child Support Division. The Division processes the payment and distributes it to the custodial parent.¹¹

If wage withholding isn’t workable, for example when the paying parent is self-employed, the state accepts payments online, by phone, by bank autodraft, by mail, and in cash at TouchPay kiosks. The Texas State Disbursement Unit’s Smart e-Pay system takes bank drafts, most credit and debit cards, and platforms including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, and PayPal. Payments can take up to seven days to post.¹²

If You Have Safety Concerns About the Other Parent

The application includes questions designed to identify domestic violence risks. If you answer yes to any of them, the Child Support Division adds a Family Violence Indicator to your case, which alerts every staff member who touches the file.¹³

After the indicator is set, the agency sends you a Request for Nondisclosure form. Once you return it, your physical address and other contact information will not appear on Child Support Division documents, and agency attorneys will ask the court to keep that information out of the order itself. Your case is also routed straight to the court process so that you and the other parent are not required to sit in the same negotiation meeting.¹³

If the Other Parent Lives Outside Texas

You can still apply through the Texas Office of the Attorney General if the other parent lives in another state or country. The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, adopted by every state, lets child support agencies work across state lines to locate parents, establish paternity, set up orders, and enforce them. You use the same online portal, and the Texas Child Support Division coordinates with the other jurisdiction on your behalf.¹⁴

Under UIFSA, only one state’s order controls the obligation at a time, and only one state can modify it. Usually that’s the state that issued the original order, as long as the paying parent, the custodial parent, or the child still lives there.

Fees You May See Later

Opening a case is free, but federal law requires a $35 annual service fee on any case where the family has never received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits and the state has collected at least $550 in support during the federal fiscal year. The fee comes out of collected support after the first $550, or you can pay it separately, or it can be recovered from the other parent.¹⁵¹⁶

1
Texas Child Support Portal. Create Online Profile
2
Office of the Attorney General. How to Apply for Child Support
3
Administration for Children & Families. What Documents Do I Need to Bring to the Child Support Office
4
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 102-003 – General Standing to File Suit
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State of Texas. Texas Family Code Chapter 160 – Uniform Parentage Act
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eCFR. 45 CFR 303.5 – Establishment of Paternity
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Office of the Attorney General. Understanding the Legal Process
8
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 154-125 – Application of Guidelines to Net Resources
9
Office of the Attorney General. Monthly Child Support Calculator
10
Office of the Attorney General. Changes in Medical and Dental Coverage
11
Office of the Attorney General. Wage Withholding
12
Office of the Attorney General. How to Pay Child Support
13
Office of the Attorney General. Child Support and Family Violence
14
Office of the Attorney General. Out of State Parents
15
Office of the Attorney General. Child Support Fees
16
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 654 – State Plan for Child and Spousal Support