Case Closure

Child support cases close for different reasons. Exactly when a case closes depends on the specific child support order, the laws that control it, and the case circumstances.

If you want to understand how or if your child support case may close, contact us.

Some common reasons that child support cases close include:

• The person who applied for child support asked us to close the case. This may not be possible for cases that started from an application for Cash Assistance
• The person who pays child support gets all of their income from certain federal disability programs or one of those programs plus Social Security Retirement
• This requires someone’s whole income to come from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or SSI combined with Social Security Retirement or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits
• The person who pays child support dies
• ORS determines that we cannot collect support from the person who should pay. Typically, this happens when that person has a disability or will be incarcerated for a long time
• ORS cannot locate the person who should pay support, even after a long time of trying to find them
• The custodial parent does not cooperate with ORS, making it impossible for us to take the next step in the process
• A court order requires us to close the case
• The order is no longer enforceable due to the statute of limitations

In Utah, a parent’s obligation to pay current child support usually ends when a child turns 18 or graduates from high school with their normal graduating class.

The law requires parents to pay current support until the later of those two events. For example, if a child graduates from high school at 17, the current child support continues until they turn 18. If they turn 18 before graduating, the current support continues until they graduate.

Either way, the parent may still owe money for child support payments that they missed in the past. When that happens, the case does not close based on just the child’s age. To understand what happens next, contact us.

Other states use different ages. A child may also legally emancipate for other reasons.