How to File for Child Support in NY: Forms, Filing, and Hearing

To file for child support in New York, you submit a petition and a financial disclosure form at the Family Court in the county where you or the other parent lives, arrange for the other parent to be served with the summons, and appear before a Support Magistrate who sets the amount using the state’s income formula. There is no filing fee.¹ Both parents owe support until the child turns 21, whether or not they were married.² The steps are straightforward; the paperwork is where cases stall.

Where to File

Your petition belongs in the Family Court of the county where you live or the county where the other parent lives at the time of filing.³ If you live in different counties, choose whichever courthouse is easier for you to get to. Filing in the wrong county will not end the case, but it triggers a transfer that can add weeks or months.

If the other parent lives out of state, New York can still take the case if that parent has a sufficient connection to New York, for example by having lived here with the child or having conceived the child here. Otherwise, New York’s child support agency can work with the other parent’s state under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act to open a case there.

Forms You Need to Fill Out

Two forms carry the case. Both are available at any Family Court clerk’s office or on the NYCourts.gov forms page.⁴

Form 4-3: The Support Petition

This is the document that opens the case. It asks for the full legal names and current addresses of both parents, Social Security numbers for both parents and each child, and the children’s dates of birth.⁵ Missing information sends you back to the clerk’s window before the case can proceed.

Form 4-17: Financial Disclosure Affirmation

Every party in a child support case must file this form. It captures gross wages, self-employment income, public assistance, investment income, and other money coming in, along with deductions like Social Security tax. It also asks whether you have health insurance available through your employer that could cover the children.⁶

Fill in every line. Blank or vague answers give the Support Magistrate room to estimate your income from whatever else is on file, and those estimates tend to run against the parent who did not disclose.

Documents to Attach

Form 4-17 lists the records you have to attach and exchange with the other parent:

Your most recently filed federal and state tax returns, with all schedules and W-2 wage statements
A current, representative paycheck stub
Information about any health insurance plan available to you that could cover the children, including the cost of adding them

Both parents have to exchange these records so each side can challenge the other’s numbers.⁶

If you or the other parent is self-employed, bring more than tax returns. Profit and loss statements, business bank records, and any financial statements prepared for lenders belong in the file. The court can look past reported business expenses and consider the actual economic benefit a parent gets from the business, including a company car or paid meals.⁷

Filing the Petition

There is no filing fee.¹ You can file in person at the Family Court clerk’s office, where the clerk will review your paperwork for completeness and enter it on the docket. In courts that accept electronic filing for support cases, you can also file through the New York State Courts Electronic Filing system (NYSCEF): create an account, select the support case type, and upload your completed forms as PDFs. The system gives you instant confirmation of receipt.⁸

Once your paperwork is accepted, the case is active and the court issues a summons for the other parent.

Serving the Other Parent

You cannot deliver the court papers yourself. Someone at least 18 years old who is not a party to the case has to hand the summons and petition directly to the other parent at least eight days before the scheduled court date.⁹

Whoever serves the papers then fills out an Affidavit of Service, a sworn statement of when and how the papers were delivered. File that affidavit with the court before the hearing. Without proof of service, the case cannot move forward, because the other parent’s right to notice has not been established.

If the other parent is dodging service or you cannot locate them despite real effort, you can ask the court for permission to use an alternative method. Bring documentation of your attempts: dates, times, and locations. Courts take this seriously because orders entered without proper notice can be challenged later.

Asking for Temporary Support

You do not have to wait for the final order. The court can order temporary child support while your case is pending, and you do not need to show an emergency to get it.¹⁰ The magistrate can set a temporary amount from whatever financial information is available, even before full disclosure is complete.

Temporary support runs from the date you request it. Any difference between the temporary amount and the final order becomes retroactive arrears the paying parent owes. Asking early protects you and locks in a payment obligation from day one rather than from the final hearing.

What Happens at the Hearing

A Support Magistrate handles the hearing. Support Magistrates are attorneys with at least five years of experience, appointed specifically to decide support cases.¹¹

Both parents testify about income, expenses, and the children’s needs. The magistrate reviews pay stubs, tax returns, rent receipts, medical bills, and any other evidence either side brings.¹² After examining the evidence, the magistrate applies the state formula, adds required amounts for health insurance and childcare, and issues an order with a payment schedule.

Thorough disclosure and organized documents move the hearing quickly. Show up without the records and the magistrate fills the gaps with estimates or the other parent’s evidence, and you lose control of the outcome.

If the Other Parent Doesn’t Appear

When the other parent has been properly served but fails to appear, the court can enter a default order based entirely on your testimony and evidence. The absent parent loses the chance to contest income figures or argue for deductions. Default orders are enforceable immediately and are hard to undo later. The court may also issue a warrant for a respondent who repeatedly fails to show.

Objecting to the Order

A Support Magistrate’s order is not the last word. Either parent can file written objections with a Family Court judge, who reviews whether the magistrate applied the law correctly to the facts already presented.¹³ This is a review, not a second hearing with new evidence. Objections must be filed promptly after the order is issued. The judge can affirm, modify, or reverse the decision.

How the Amount Will Be Calculated

Knowing what the magistrate will do with your numbers helps you fill in the forms accurately. New York uses the Child Support Standards Act formula. The court combines both parents’ incomes, subtracts certain deductions (such as Social Security taxes and city income tax), and applies a fixed percentage based on the number of children:

One child: 17% of combined parental income
Two children: 25%
Three children: 29%
Four children: 31%
Five or more: at least 35%

That basic obligation is then split between the parents in proportion to their individual incomes. If you earn 60% of the combined income, you owe 60% of the calculated amount.⁷

These percentages apply automatically to combined parental income up to $193,000 for 2026. Above that threshold, the court can apply the same percentages or weigh other factors like the child’s standard of living and each parent’s resources.¹⁴

Very low-income parents are protected by a self-support reserve, which is $21,546 for 2026 (135% of the federal poverty guideline for one person, $15,960). If the noncustodial parent’s income is at or below the poverty level, the minimum order is typically $25 per month.¹⁴

The percentage is not the whole obligation. On top of the basic amount, the court divides several add-on costs between the parents proportionally: health insurance for the children, reasonable unreimbursed medical expenses, and childcare while the custodial parent works or attends school.⁶ The court can also order a share of educational expenses at its discretion. These add-ons can push the total up by hundreds of dollars a month.

After the Order Is Entered

Support runs until the child turns 21, unless the child becomes emancipated earlier by marrying, becoming self-supporting, joining the military, or leaving the parents’ home between ages 17 and 21 while refusing to follow reasonable household rules. In any of those situations, the paying parent can petition to end the obligation early.²

You can petition to modify the order using Form 4-11 if you can show a substantial change in circumstances, such as a major job loss, a change in custody, or a serious shift in the children’s needs. New York also allows modification without proving a specific life event when three years have passed since the order was entered or last changed, or when either parent’s gross income has changed by 15% or more since then. Incarceration is a recognized basis as well.¹⁵ File as soon as your circumstances change. A modification is only effective from the date you file, not from the date the change happened.

If the other parent does not pay, New York’s Support Collection Unit has enforcement tools that trigger automatically, including income withholding through the employer, driver’s license suspension, and interception of state and federal tax refunds. Unpaid support also accrues interest at 9% per year.¹⁶

1
N.Y. State Courts – NYCourts.gov. Filing Fees – N.Y. State Courts
2
NYCOURTS.GOV. Child And/Or Spousal Support FAQs
3
New York State Senate. New York Family Court Act FCT 421 – Venue
4
NYCOURTS.GOV. Child Support Forms
5
NYCOURTS.GOV. Family Court Forms
6
NYCourts.gov. Form 4-17 Financial Disclosure Affirmation
7
New York State Senate. New York Family Court Act FCT 413 – Parents Duty to Support Child
8
New York State Courts. Electronic Filing in Family Court
9
New York State Senate. New York Family Court Act FCT 427
10
New York State Senate. New York Domestic Relations Law 236
11
Cornell Law School. N.Y. Comp. Codes R. and Regs. Tit. 22 205.32 – Support Magistrates
12
NYCOURTS.GOV. Support
13
New York State Senate. New York Family Court Act FCT 439
14
NY.Gov Child Support Services. Child Support Standards Chart LDSS 4515
15
NY.Gov Child Support Services. Modify Order
16
NY.Gov Child Support Services. Enforce Order