Partial Child Support Payments No Longer Accepted as Compliance... Policy Improvement Starts September 1

Application for Advance Payment of Child Support Now Allowed Even with Partial Payments
Policy Revised to Prevent "Minimal Payment Circumvention"
Sanctions Imposed on 226 Cases of Child Support Non-Compliance, Including Travel Bans

Starting from September 1, even if a child support obligor has made partial payments, if the amount does not meet the advance payment standard, an application for 'advance payment of child support' can be submitted. Previously, the government only accepted applications for advance payment of child support when the obligor had made no payments at all, but this measure has been introduced to address cases where obligors make minimal payments to circumvent the system.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced on August 26 that it had approved this policy improvement at the 44th Child Support Enforcement Deliberation Committee held on August 21 and 22.

The advance payment system for child support, which has been in effect since July, allows the government to pay child support in advance to single-parent families who are unable to receive support despite having a claim, and then recover the amount from the non-custodial obligor.

According to the revised policy, if the average monthly child support received from the obligor over the three months prior to the application month is less than the advance payment standard, an application for advance payment can be made.

The advance payment standard is set at 200,000 won per month per minor child, and cannot exceed the monthly child support obligation amount. If there is any month in which the full amount of child support was paid, that month is excluded from eligibility.

With this policy improvement, it is expected that single-parent families who were previously unable to apply for advance payment due to the obligor's minimal payments will now be able to receive support.

At this committee meeting, sanctions were also decided for a total of 226 cases involving 200 child support obligors who failed to fulfill their obligations. The types of sanctions include 143 cases of travel bans, 72 cases of driver's license suspension, and 11 cases of public disclosure of names.

From January to August this year, there were 792 cases of sanctions, marking a 29.4% increase compared to the same period last year. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family explained that this is due to the simplification of sanction procedures for child support obligors that was implemented in September last year.

Previously, the process involved an enforcement order, followed by a detention order, and then sanctions. Currently, the process has been shortened to an enforcement order followed directly by sanctions.

Among the 200 individuals subject to sanctions, the highest amount of child support debt was 319.7 million won, and the average debt was approximately 51.95 million won.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.