A parent’s passport can be revoked if they fail to pay child support thanks to a new Trump administration enforcement policy. The tool has proven effective in putting children first, compelling many noncustodial parents to immediately pay thousands in overdue child support, some making single payments of upwards of $100,000.
Since 1996, the State Department, in partnership with the Office of Child Support Enforcement at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has used the Passport Denial Program as a mechanism to compel child support payments. The program focused on denying new passport applications and renewals for parents owing $2,500 or more in child support.
While our office has found this has been effective, generating more than $660 million in reported collections since its inception, passports only need to be renewed every 10 years. That means the program has missed opportunities in many cases to compel immediate action — until now.
In May, the Administration for Children and Families launched an initiative in collaboration with the State Department to actively revoke passports held by individuals owing substantial child support arrearages. Now, passports are being revoked for parents who owe $50,000 or more in child support, and there are plans to lower this threshold. The program has already compelled a number of noncustodial parents to make large child support payments.
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A father in Nevada wanted to take his son abroad this summer to celebrate the young man’s graduation from high school. But the father’s passport had been revoked due to his failure to pay child support. No problem — the dad made a $119,000 child support payment to receive his new passport and take his son abroad.
A Connecticut noncustodial parent needed to travel to Europe for a business trip, so he made a nearly $180,000 child support payment and secured his passport. After not making a child support payment since 2021, a parent in Maryland paid over $100,000 after receiving a passport revocation notice. A dad in Montana paid $147,000 in past-due child support to a mother of four children. Another parent in Arizona paid their full balance, plus interest, of over $170,000. A father in Texas made a $16,000 payment to ensure he did not lose his passport privilege. After seeing media coverage of the new passport revocation action, another father in Texas preemptively made a $6,000 child support payment.
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In total, parents have paid nearly $1.5 million in past-due child support since the new passport policy was implemented in May, and the State Department has revoked more than 6,000 passports and continues to revoke about 1,000 a week. While the law has long allowed for passports to be revoked for failure to make child support payments, enforcement was not undertaken because it was considered burdensome and required extensive collaboration between the State Department and the Office of Child Support Enforcement at HHS.
For the Trump administration, however, the benefits — not only to a parent raising children, but to the furtherment of a responsible society — outweigh logistics concerns.
For many Americans, passports are critical to their livelihood and ability to travel for personal reasons, which is why revocation is such an effective tool. The message from the Trump administration is clear: if you haven’t paid what you owe to your children, we are going to prevent you from using your passport, which is a privilege, not a right.
In addition to leveraging passports to compel payments, the Office of Child Support Enforcement assists child support agencies in collecting past-due support through a variety of mechanisms, including federal tax refund offsets, liens and levies against property and financial accounts, and insurance claim intercepts.
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Child support programs also use tools like property seizures, and driver’s license and professional license suspension to collect delinquent support, but the most common enforcement mechanism is income withholding from a noncustodial parent’s employer. In 2024, 74% of child support collected was from an employee paycheck.
The administrative financial investment in child support collection programs has also proven to be highly cost-effective. In 2024, the child support program collected $4.24 for every $1 spent, according to the Office of Child Support Enforcement.
The Trump administration is prioritizing the needs of children and families, and the Office of Child Support Enforcement will use every available tool to ensure non-paying parents are held accountable.
Alex J. Adams is the assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families.
