If you don’t pay child support in Texas, the state does not wait quietly for you to catch up. The Office of the Attorney General can garnish your paycheck, drain your bank accounts, seize your tax refund, place liens on your property, suspend your driver’s and professional licenses, block your passport, wreck your credit, and ask a judge to jail you. The unpaid balance also grows at 6% simple interest every year it sits.1Justia. Texas Code Family Code 157.265 – Accrual of Interest on Child Support The longer you fall behind, the more tools come off the shelf.
The Debt Grows Every Year You’re Behind
Unpaid child support accrues 6% simple interest per year from the day each payment becomes delinquent until the day it is paid.1Justia. Texas Code Family Code 157.265 – Accrual of Interest on Child Support The same rate applies once arrearages are reduced to a money judgment. A parent $20,000 behind adds $1,200 in interest every year on top of whatever current support keeps coming due. Doing nothing is not a neutral choice; the balance climbs on its own.
Money Taken Directly From Your Paycheck and Accounts
Texas law requires courts to order income withholding in every case where child support is ordered, modified, or enforced.2State of Texas. Texas Code Family Code 158.001 – Income Withholding; General Rule Your employer deducts the support amount from each paycheck before you see it, and the order follows you if you change jobs.
Withholding is only the start. The state can place a child support lien on almost everything you own: real property other than your homestead, bank and financial accounts, retirement plans including IRAs, insurance proceeds, settlement awards, and even oil and gas royalties.3State of Texas. Texas Code Family Code 157.317 – Property to Which Lien Attaches Once a lien attaches, you can’t sell or transfer the property without clearing the debt first.
Other money gets intercepted before it ever reaches you. Federal and state tax refunds are reduced by the amount of overdue support. Lottery winnings and personal injury settlements can be seized. These happen administratively, without a new court hearing.
Your Credit Report Takes a Hit
Federal law requires states to report delinquent parents and the amounts they owe to consumer credit reporting agencies.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 666 – Requirement of Statutorily Prescribed Procedures to Improve Effectiveness of Child Support Enforcement A child support arrearage sitting on your credit report can sink your score and block you from mortgages, car loans, apartment leases, and credit cards. The entry stays until the debt is resolved.
Licenses You Can Lose
When you owe past-due support equal to or greater than three months of your ordered amount, have been offered a chance to comply with a repayment schedule, and have failed to follow it, the Attorney General can move to suspend or deny your state-issued licenses.5Office of the Attorney General of Texas. License Suspension That reach is broad:
- Your driver’s license, which may make it harder to get to the job that pays the support.
- Professional licenses in fields like medicine, law, real estate, and cosmetology, which can shut down your livelihood entirely.
- Recreational licenses, including hunting and fishing permits.
A court or the Attorney General can stay the suspension if you agree to a reasonable repayment schedule and actually keep up with it.6State of Texas. Texas Code Family Code 232.008 – Order Suspending License for Failure to Pay Child Support
Passport Denial
When your past-due child support exceeds $2,500, your case is automatically forwarded to the U.S. State Department for passport denial.7Administration for Children and Families. How Does the Passport Denial Program Work? Any application to issue or renew a passport will be denied, and the block stays in place until the arrearages are addressed. For anyone whose job requires international travel, this consequence alone can end a career.
Jail Through Civil Contempt
If you deliberately violate a child support order, the Attorney General or the other parent can file a motion for enforcement and ask the court to hold you in contempt. A judge who finds civil contempt can jail you for up to six months for each separate missed payment. Each payment is treated as its own violation, so twelve missed months can mean twelve separate contempt findings. Judges often allow release once you pay a lump sum toward the arrearages, using continued confinement as leverage.
You can raise an affirmative defense of inability to pay, but it is narrow. You must show that you lacked the financial ability to make the payments, had no property that could be sold or pledged to raise the money, tried and failed to borrow it, and knew of no other source from which the funds could have been obtained.8State of Texas. Texas Code Family Code 157.008 – Affirmative Defense to Motion for Enforcement of Child Support All four elements. Losing a job alone doesn’t cut it if you had savings, a vehicle you could have sold, or other realistic options.
State and Federal Criminal Charges
Beyond civil contempt, intentionally failing to support a child is a crime in Texas. A parent who knowingly fails to provide support for a child under 18 commits criminal nonsupport,9State of Texas. Texas Code Penal Code 25.05 – Criminal Nonsupport a state jail felony punishable by 180 days to two years in a state jail facility and a fine of up to $10,000.10State of Texas. Texas Code Penal Code 12.35 – State Jail Felony Punishment A felony conviction leaves a permanent record that follows you into every job application after.
If your child lives in a different state, federal law adds another layer. Under the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act, willfully failing to pay support for a child in another state is a federal crime when the arrearages have gone unpaid for more than a year or exceed $5,000.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 228 – Failure to Pay Legal Child Support Obligations A first offense carries up to six months in federal prison. Penalties climb to up to two years when the debt tops $10,000, has gone unpaid for more than two years, or you traveled across state lines to avoid paying. A conviction also triggers mandatory restitution for the full unpaid amount.
If You Really Can’t Pay, Modify the Order
If your finances have genuinely changed, the correct response is to ask the court to modify the support amount, not to stop paying. A Texas court can modify child support if there has been a material and substantial change in circumstances since the order was last set, such as a significant drop in income, additional children you are legally obligated to support, or a change in the child’s living arrangement.12State of Texas. Texas Code Family Code 156.401 – Grounds for Modification of Child Support Incarceration for more than 180 days also counts.
Texas has a separate three-year review rule as well. If at least three years have passed since the order was entered or last modified, and the current guidelines would produce an amount that differs from your existing order by at least 20% or $100 per month, either parent can request a modification without proving a change in circumstances.12State of Texas. Texas Code Family Code 156.401 – Grounds for Modification of Child Support You can start by requesting a review through the Attorney General’s office or by filing a motion directly with the court.13Office of the Attorney General. Support Modification Process
One point matters above every other: your existing obligation keeps accruing at the original amount until a judge signs a new order. Any reduction only applies to payments that come due after your modification suit is filed and served. An informal handshake with the other parent to accept less has no legal effect and will not stop enforcement. If you have grounds to modify, file now.