If you are behind in your child-support payments, you’re a no-go. Aside from its moral and social repercussions, non-payment of child support can keep you from getting a passport. The breaking point, as far as the government is concerned, is $5,000.
When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services certifies to Passport Services that you are in arrears of child-support payments in excess of $5,000, you can wave goodbye to your passport application. You won’t be able to get a U.S. passport.
To straighten things out, Passport Services recommends that you contact the child-support enforcement agency in your state to arrange payments–before you apply for a passport.
It’s a process that can take two to three weeks, because the state child-support agency must provide certification to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that acceptable payment arrangements have been made.
Only then can Health and Human Services notify Passport Services that you’re good to go, by way of removing your name from its electronic list of non-payers.
