Ontario family law · 2026
How the Family Responsibility Office works in Ontario — and how notice, filing, and records fit together
Income dropped. Job loss. Your kids start living with you more than before. None of these change what the Family Responsibility Office (FRO) collects from your paycheque. Only a new court order does. And every month you wait, you owe more at the old amount.
Written notice to FRO
A written notice — fax, email, or mail — does not pause anything on its own. But it starts the paper trail a judge will want to see later.
A court application
Until the new order is signed, FRO keeps deducting the old amount — so the timing of filing matters.
The right number
The Cairn calculator gives the support amount at a current income — the starting point a court uses. Free, no signup.
FRO is the Ontario government agency that collects support payments. The court signs the order, Ontario files it with FRO, and FRO takes the support out of your paycheque and sends it to the other parent. It is meant to remove conflict from the monthly handover, and most of the time it does.
Trouble starts when the order on file no longer matches your life. Your income dropped. A child turned eighteen and finished school. Your kids spend more nights with you than the old order assumed. The other parent remarried and the spousal support part of the order should have ended. None of those things change what FRO collects on their own. FRO collects what the most recent order on file says, full stop.
In Ontario, two steps generally matter when circumstances change: written notice to FRO — fax, email, or mail — and a court application to change the support order. Notice alone does not change what FRO collects: the amount keeps adding up at the old rate until a judge signs the new one. A legal professional can advise on timing for a specific situation.
What follows is the general order of operations. The checklist sets out what the process involves. The guides at the bottom cover how a support amount is actually changed in Ontario.
How FRO actually collects
Most of the time it comes out of your paycheque. FRO sends the order to your employer; the employer takes support off your pay before it hits your account; FRO forwards it to the other parent. You never handle the money.
If you are self-employed or paid in a way an employer cannot deduct from, FRO asks for direct payment — pre-authorized debit, online banking, or cheque.
If you miss a payment, FRO has powers most people do not realize. Within thirty to sixty days they can take support straight out of your bank account, put a lien on your house, redirect your federal tax refund, or ask the Ministry of Transportation to suspend your driver's licence. None of those need a court hearing first.
When something changes
Five things usually trigger a support change. Your income drops by enough that the old number is no longer fair — typically about fifteen percent or more, and not just for a month. You lose your job. A child turns eighteen and finishes school. Your kids start spending more time at your place than the old order assumed. The other parent remarries or moves in with a new partner and the spousal support part of the order should end.
In any of these situations, the general process involves written notice to FRO and a court application to change the order; many payors continue paying the existing amount while the change is pending — partial payment is recorded by FRO. When the new order is signed, the court can apply the new amount going back to the day of filing, but rarely earlier.
Arrears — the trap
Arrears are what you owe when you stopped paying without an order to back you up. If you paused in March because your income halved, and you do not ask the court to change the order until October, you owe seven months at the old rate. A judge can reduce that later, but only if you have proof you tried to fix the order on time. No paper trail, no relief.
The same pattern recurs: notice, filing, and records generally go together.
Opting out of FRO
If you and the other parent both agree, you can take the order out of FRO's hands. You both sign a one-page form, FRO stops administering the order, and you pay the other parent directly. You handle the bookkeeping yourself.
This works in cooperative cases. It fails badly when cooperation breaks down. The other parent can put the order back into FRO at any time, and FRO will go back to the original order date when calculating what you owe. Most family lawyers advise against opting out unless the relationship is stable and you keep meticulous records of every payment.
What the process generally involves
- Written notice to FRO — fax, email, or mail (contact details are on the FRO website)
- A description of what changed and how long it will last — job loss, income drop, the kids' schedule, the other parent's new partner
- A court application to change the support order — a shorter form where both parents agree, a longer one where they do not
- Continued payment of what you can — partial payment is recorded by FRO
- Copies of everything — letters, tax returns, pay stubs, a layoff letter, the kids' new schedule
- A support figure at the current income, so the requested change is grounded in the numbers a court would use
- If a licence-suspension or garnishment notice arrives, there is a process to pause enforcement while a payment plan is arranged — generally within thirty days
What counts as a change a court will act on, what to file, what to expect.
- What kind of change a court treats as significant enough to act on
- Which path is shorter when you and the other parent agree
- Typical time from filing to a new order
- How to use a calculator printout as the evidence behind your number
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Reviewed May 12, 2026 · Plain-language information for Ontario.
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