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Collecting children's maintenance

You can get help from us if a court has decided you are entitled to maintenance for your children, and the one who must pay does not do so voluntarily. Apply for us to collect the maintenance allowance (enforcement).

We can help you get the maintenance

If the other parent does not pay maintenance for your joint children voluntarily, you can get help from us. In order for us to help you, the debt and any interest must first be determined in

  • a judgment
  • a decision (verdict) or
  • a maintenance arrangement witnessed by two people.

Investigate if there are assets

You can apply for us to collect the debt (enforcement). Then we investigate whether the parent who must pay has assets that we can attach.

Application enforcement (child support/alimony)

Go to Form

You can apply using a form (in English). Carefully fill in all the details so that you do not need to add anything.

Please note

You can request that we collect the debt for unpaid maintenance allowances as long as they have not been statute-barred. They are normally statute-barred five years after the due date.

You must fill in many details

In your application, please fill in details on

  • you as applicant
  • representative, if any
  • the one you have a claim against
  • what your application is about (for example attachment)
  • your claim
  • the decision on which the application is based
  • other things that may be of value.

Attach documents

  • decision (verdict) or the judgment with a legal validity certificate, if such exists
  • other documents you want to attach.

You are the representative of your child

If you apply for our assistance in collecting maintenance allowance, you as legal guardian are the representative of your child if it is under 18. When the child has turned 18, they can apply or give someone a power of attorney to apply.

Parental maintenance obligation ends when the child turns 18. If the child is in primary or upper-secondary school, the parental maintenance obligation continues at most until the child has turned 21.

One application per child

If your application applies to maintenance for several children, you must submit one application per child.

You do not pay a fee

You who are waiting to receive maintenance allowance pay no fee for our help in collecting the debt.

Apply for us to collect the debt

You can apply for us to collect the debt pursuant to a judgment or order (verdict) before it has become legally binding (no longer subject to appeal). If you have a judgment as a basis, we normally cannot distribute money as long as the judgment is subject to appeal.

Submit legal validity certificate

You must submit a legal validity certificate if you apply for our assistance in collecting a debt pursuant to a court judgment. The certificate shows that the judgment can no longer be appealed. You can also apply for enforcement in advance. In that case, you send us the certificate as soon as possible.

What to do

Contact the court that issued the judgment and request a legal validity certificate.

Send the certificate to us

  • as an attachment together with the application for enforcement
  • afterwards via email or by post if the judgment has not yet become legally binding when you apply.

If you want help in getting the children's maintenance, send the application to our Gävle office.

Enforcement Authority Gävle (in Swedish)

Usually we contact the parent who has not paid maintenance. They get a certain amount of time to pay the debt. If they do not, we will investigate the person's finances. We then look for assets, such as salary or things that we can attach and sell in order for you to get paid.

If the person has no assets, the debt remains with us until

  • it gets paid or
  • you report that you are withdrawing your case.

Update your information

To receive disbursements quicker, it is important that you keep your account details up to date.

Maintenance support from Försäkringskassan

If the child lives with you, and the other parent does not pay anything or only part of the maintenance allowance, you can apply to Försäkringskassan for maintenance support. Then the other parent must pay, in whole or in part, to Försäkringskassan.

Have you received maintenance support from Försäkringskassan, but are entitled to higher maintenance allowance from the other parent? If so, you must only apply for us to collect the amount exceeding the amount you have received.

The child lives with parent who pays maintenance

A parent paying maintenance may be credited with a deduction of 1/40 of the monthly allowance for each full day of the child's stay if they have had the child with them

  • for a continuous period of at least five full days or
  • for a total of at least six full days in one calendar month.

Full day refers to the time from 00:00 to 24.00.

We can take travel into account

We can take into account that the child travels to you (visitation trips). The scope must be reasonable and the child must travel by the cheapest means of transport (for example, bus or train). The parent with whom the child is going to spend time has the main responsibility for the costs. In each case, we assess whether the parents can pay for the trips themselves.