How is child support established?
When parents with minor children separate, child support becomes an important issue. Ohio has strong and effective laws for the establishment of paternity, the establishment of child support orders, and the enforcement of child support orders. Ohio also has specific child support guidelines for calculating the amount of child support based on both parents’ incomes and the number of children subject to the support order.

How is child support enforced?
Ohio courts, prosecutors, and county Child Support Enforcement Agencies (CSEAs) have many tools for enforcing child support orders, including but limited to:

• income or withholding deduction orders (as from employee paychecks or bank accounts),

• criminal penalties,
  
• contempt actions,
  
• seek work orders,
  
• seizure of income tax refunds,
  
• driver’s license or occupational license suspensions,
  
• obtaining court judgments or assessing property liens for collecting child support arrears,
• tax refund intercepts, and
  

• reporting delinquent child support obligations to credit bureaus.

The Forms & Education tab covers these and other related child support issues, and provides detailed information concerning the rights and responsibilities of obligees (persons who are entitled to child support) and obligors (persons who must pay child support).