Back child support in Colorado: what a parent can actually do.

Support that a court or the county ordered and that was not paid when it was due. In Colorado every missed payment becomes a court judgment on the day it is missed, automatically, and it can be collected for twenty years. A judge cannot erase it later, the other parent cannot waive it by text message, and it does not disappear when the child grows up.

Three things, and they work together. Make sure a wage withholding (income assignment) is in place, so the employer sends the money before your ex sees it. Open a case with your county child support office, which can suspend a driver’s license, take a tax refund, report to the credit bureaus, block a passport and levy a bank account. And, through a lawyer or on your own, file an Entry of Support Judgment, which turns the total owed with interest into a lien and lets you garnish, and if it comes to that, ask the court to hold your ex in contempt.

Colorado’s central payment office for child support. The paying parent pays the Registry, the Registry pays the parent who is owed, and it keeps the official record of every payment. It is a payment processor and a record keeper, not a collector: it does not chase a parent who stops paying, and it does not calculate what is owed or the interest. Its record is what a court relies on, which is why paying through it protects both parents.

Most do. If the county child support office is involved, always. If it is not, the Registry is used whenever the order says so or the support is collected by wage withholding, which Colorado orders in every case unless both parents agree in writing to a different arrangement and the court approves it. The account is set up automatically when the order is entered, and each parent gets a notice in the mail with the account number.

Yes to both. Child Support Services, run through each county’s human services department, can establish paternity, set the support amount under the guidelines, review it for changes, find the other parent and the employer, and collect and enforce with tools no private lawyer has. Anyone can apply, online or at the county office, and there is no application fee. What it does not do is represent you, handle parenting time, or, in most counties, compute the interest.

Nothing to apply. If you have never received public assistance, a $35 annual fee is taken from the support once the county has collected more than $550 for you in a year. There are no attorney fees, because there is no attorney working for you: the county’s lawyers represent the State of Colorado.

Not the payments already missed. Each one is a final judgment, and a change in support reaches only payments that come due after a motion to modify is filed. What a judge can do, since 2021, is reduce or waive the interest for good cause and set a repayment schedule. The two real exceptions: if the child moved in with the paying parent, support can be adjusted back to the date of the move, and a DNA test within two years of the order can end support and cancel what was unpaid.

No. A change in child support is not effective until a court approves it and enters it as an order. In a 2024 case a mother had emailed the father to help where he could, he paid nothing for fifteen years, and the court entered judgment for $233,025. What the other parent can give up is the interest, not the principal, because the support belongs to the child.

Only if you can prove it. The Registry’s record is presumed correct, so the burden is on you to show cancelled checks, bank transfers or receipts. Cash, gifts to the children and money spent on the children that the order did not require are usually not credited. Paying outside the Registry can also get a county case closed.

Ten percent a year on payments missed since July 1, 2021, which the parent owed may compound once a year or waive. Older missed payments earned twelve percent until then. The court can reduce the interest for good cause. The county’s ledger often shows no interest at all, because charging it is optional for the county; the parent owed can still claim it by filing an Entry of Support Judgment with the interest worked out.

Up to fifty percent of take-home pay if the paying parent supports another spouse or child, sixty percent if not, and five points more when the support is more than twelve weeks late. Support withholding comes ahead of every other garnishment. For a parent who is self-employed, the court can require security or a bond instead.

No and no. Turning nineteen ends future support; every payment missed before that stays a judgment for twenty years, and the wage withholding keeps running until it is paid. Bankruptcy does not discharge child support or its interest, and does not stop the withholding, the license suspension or the tax refund intercept.