"Every child has the right to financial and medical support from both parents. Our goal is to assure families receive the child support they need and deserve."
R.B. "Chips" Shore, Clerk
The Manatee Clerk's Child Support Enforcement Division provides comprehensive case management including:
There is no cost to apply for these services.
We have a variety of tools available to assist you with your efforts to ensure that both parents support their children including: legal actions, administrative enforcement, license suspensions, intercepts of unemployment compensations and worker's compensation, wage garnishment, IRS tax returns, credit reporting, indirect criminal contempt and cooperative actions between other states and countries.
We do not establish or enforce visitation or custody.
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General Information
Any parent or custodian of a dependent child may apply for Child Support services. Families who receive public assistance automatically receive child support services. If you have received public assistance or child support services in the past, contact us to determine if you have an open child support case.
Our services are available even if a parent lives in another state or country.
One of our Case Managers will meet with you, gather all information we need to proceed, help locate parents, take administrative action to establish and enforce support and track payments through the State Disbursement Unit (SDU). We will establish new support orders and follow through enforcing payments and collecting past due amounts.
Child support services are provided by the Clerk of the Circuit Court in Manatee County, the State Attorney’s Office in Miami-Dade County and the Department of Revenue in all other Florida counties. Visit the Florida Department of Revenue's Child Support Page to find other child support offices in Florida. If you have an existing child support order or a divorce order in a Florida county other than Manatee, you will need to apply for services with the Department of Revenue. For more information on applying for services, go to the Department of Revenue website at http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/childsupport/apply.html
In Manatee County, records of all Court-ordered child support and alimony payments are maintained by the Child Support Depository , which is a separate division of the Clerk’s Office. If there is an order for support and/or alimony payable through the SDU, the Child Support Depository will maintain those records. The depository has only a few possible enforcement remedies whereas the Child Support Enforcement division has a wide assortment of enforcement remedies and also provides legal services to the Department of Revenue. There will almost always be a case through the depository if there are court ordered support payments but not all of those cases are enforced by our Child Support Enforcement division. (See Applying for Services)
For More information on Child Support Services visit http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/childsupport/services.html
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Applying for Services
Anyone seeking our services who does not already have a child support case through our office must apply for services.
You may contact us at 1-800-622-5437 (KIDS) and ask for an application to be mailed to you.
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Required Documents
You will need to bring the following information, as applicable, at the time of your visit:
- Valid picture ID for yourself (This is mandatory for notary purposes)
- Parent Information Form If there is more than one non-custodial parent for the child(ren), complete a form for each one.
- Full name, Social Security Number & Date of Birth of the non-custodial parent(s), if known
- Address & employer information for the non-custodial parent(s) & photo, if known.
- Any existing Court orders for Paternity or Child Support
- Marriage Certificates, Divorce orders and settlement agreements, if applicable
- Birth certificates for the children in the case, if not born in Florida
- Social Security cards for you and the children
Due to the volume of interviews, you may have to wait to be seen. Since space and seating are limited, we ask that you do not bring family, friends or children to the interview with you.
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