To get a child support overpayment refund in Texas, first confirm the underlying obligation has legally ended and that you owe no back support, then request the excess from the recipient or through the Office of the Attorney General; if the recipient refuses to return it, you can sue under Texas Family Code Section 154.014, and the court must order the recipient to pay the refund along with your attorney’s fees and court costs.1State of Texas. Texas Family Code Chapter 154 – Section 154.014
First Confirm the Obligation Actually Ended
Payments only count as overpayments if they were made after the child support order legally terminated. Under Texas Family Code Section 154.006, the obligation ends on one of the following events, unless the order or a written agreement says otherwise:
- The child marries.
- The child turns 18 and is no longer enrolled in high school, or turns 18 and fails to meet the enrollment and attendance requirements under Section 154.002.
- The child dies.
- Genetic testing excludes the obligor as the biological father and a court terminates the parent-child relationship under Section 161.005.
- The child enlists in the armed forces and begins active service.
- The obligor and obligee remarry each other, unless a nonparent or agency has been appointed conservator.
Only payments made after one of those triggering events are candidates for a refund.2State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 154.006 If your child just turned 18 but is still in high school full-time, the order has not ended, and money paid during that stretch is not overpaid.
Confirm You Are Not in Arrears
This is where most overpayment claims collapse. Section 154.014 only requires the recipient to return excess payments if the payer “is not in arrears.” Any outstanding child support balance, even a small shortfall from years earlier, defeats the refund provision. In practice the state will apply an apparent overpayment to any existing balance before treating anything as excess.1State of Texas. Texas Family Code Chapter 154 – Section 154.014
Before you do anything else, pull your complete payment ledger from the Office of the Attorney General. Compare every payment received against every amount ordered, month by month, from the beginning of the case. Any period where you underpaid offsets what looks like a surplus later. You only have an actionable overpayment once every ordered dollar has been accounted for.
Start With the OAG
The OAG’s Child Support Division processes payments through the State Disbursement Unit in San Antonio. Where an overpayment is identified before the funds go out to the recipient, the agency has room to fix it administratively. Once the money has been disbursed, the agency generally cannot pull it back on its own.
Contact the OAG through the Texas Child Support Portal or its customer service line. Have your ten-digit OAG case number ready. Ask for a full payment ledger, state clearly that you believe an overpayment exists, identify which payments are at issue, and ask what steps apply to your case. Even when the funds are already in the recipient’s hands, the OAG can confirm the overpayment on the record and produce the documentation you will need if you have to go to court.
Stop the Wage Withholding Before It Grows
Most overpayments happen because the obligation ended but wage withholding kept running. Every paycheck adds to the total, so cutting off the deductions is as important as recovering what has already gone out.
As the Title IV-D agency, the OAG is required to establish procedures for reducing or terminating income withholding when the support obligation ends. On the agency’s request, the court clerk issues a judicial writ to your employer that reflects the termination or modification.3Texas Public Law. Texas Family Code 158.401 – Modifications to or Termination of Withholding by Title IV-D Agency Until that writ actually reaches your employer, deductions continue: employers follow the last order they received and face penalties if they stop withholding without authorization.
Contact the OAG as soon as the obligation ends and ask specifically that withholding be terminated. If you can document that one of the Section 154.006 termination events has occurred, submit that documentation with the request. The sooner the writ issues, the smaller the eventual overpayment.
Sue to Recover the Excess Under Section 154.014
Once the obligation has ended and you are not in arrears, Texas law says the recipient “shall return” any child support payment that exceeds the amount ordered. That applies whether the excess was paid before, on, or after the termination date, and the word “shall” makes it mandatory rather than discretionary.1State of Texas. Texas Family Code Chapter 154 – Section 154.014
In reality, most recipients do not write the check on their own. Some do not know the obligation has ended; others dispute the math. Section 154.014(b) provides for that: you can file suit to recover the excess. If the court finds the recipient failed to return an overpayment, the statute requires the court to order the recipient to pay your attorney’s fees and all court costs on top of the refund. The failure to return the excess is also treated as a violation of a court order, which gives the judgment enforcement power that ordinary debts lack.1State of Texas. Texas Family Code Chapter 154 – Section 154.014
Where and How to File
File your motion in the court with continuing jurisdiction over your child support case. Filing fees for post-judgment motions in Texas family court vary by county but generally run in the range of $80 to $100. Your case has to establish three things: that the obligation has terminated under Section 154.006, that you have no arrears, and that your payments exceed the total amount ordered. The OAG’s official payment ledger is your best evidence on the last two, because courts rely on the state’s own records.
Post-Judgment Interest
Once the court enters a money judgment, interest starts running on the unpaid balance. Texas adjusts its post-judgment interest rate periodically; as of early 2026 the rate is 6.75% per year, and it continues to accumulate until the judgment is paid in full.4Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner. Interest Rates
If the Overpayment Came Out of a Tax Refund
Some overpayments happen through the federal tax refund offset program. If you had past-due support at some point, the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service may have intercepted an IRS refund and sent it to the state; when those intercepted funds push your total payments over what was owed, the excess came from your refund rather than your paycheck.
Section 154.014 still governs the recovery, but the logistics run through Texas, not the IRS. The IRS’s position is that once a refund has been offset for a non-federal debt like child support, you must deal with the creditor agency that received the funds.5Taxpayer Advocate Service. How to Prevent a Refund Offset That means the Texas OAG. The IRS’s Offset Bypass Refund option, which can sometimes release funds before they are applied to federal tax debts, does not apply to child support offsets even in hardship cases.
Is the Refund Taxable?
No. Child support payments are not taxable income to the recipient and not deductible for the payer, and a refund of overpaid support follows the same logic: you are getting back money you already paid with after-tax dollars.6Internal Revenue Service. Publication 4449 – Tax Information for Non-Custodial Parents You do not report the refund as income, and the recipient does not get a deduction for returning it. That is true whether the money comes back through the OAG administratively or through a court-ordered judgment.