Guidance

Child maintenance: receiving payments through the Child Maintenance Service

This guidance explains how you will receive child maintenance if you have a Collect & Pay arrangement with the Child Maintenance Service.

• From: Department for Work and Pensions
• Published: 18 March 2013
• Last updated: 15 October 2025
  Show all updates

  1. 15 October 2025

     We have improved the guidance in the 'What happens if I do not receive payments?' section to explain the action DWP takes.

  2. 23 September 2022

     Published updated leaflet with the latest guidance about child maintenance. The updated leaflet is now labelled v004 (August 2022).

  3. 6 September 2022

     References to out of date leaflets removed ('What happens if a paying parent doesn't pay child maintenance'; 'Managing your payments with Direct Pay'). Contact information updated.

  4. 25 November 2020

     Amended guidance on how to contact the Child Maintenance Service.

  5. 30 June 2014

     Published updated leaflet with the latest guidance about child maintenance.

  6. 18 March 2013

     First published.

Documents

Receiving child maintenance

Ref: ISBN 978-1-78153-317-8, CMSB013GB v004 (August 2022)

HTML

Details

This guidance explains how you will receive child maintenance if you have a Collect & Pay arrangement with the Child Maintenance Service.

Collect & Pay is when we work out an amount of child maintenance which the paying parent legally has to pay. We then collect payments from them and pass them on to the receiving parent.

Find out more about child maintenance.

If you need this leaflet in a different format

Contact the Child Maintenance Service to ask for:

• a copy of the guidance in Welsh

• a different format, such as large print or Braille