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Child Support - Locating Parents

To establish, modify or enforce a support order, the child support agency must have a current address or employment information for both parents.

If the child support agency does not know where a parent lives or works, the child support agency can gather information from many places including:

• credit reporting agencies

• current and past employers

• Federal Parent Locator Service

• New Hire directories

• other states' Child Support Agencies

• United States Postal Service

• utility companies

State resources

Some information available from Minnesota government agencies includes:

• drivers’ licenses

• employer reports

• hunting and fishing licenses

• occupational licenses

• prisoner information

• public assistance

• student grants

• unemployment compensation

• vehicle registration

• workers’ compensation

Federal resources

The Federal Case Registry (FCR) contains state child support case data and serves as a pointer system to help locate persons across state lines. Person data in the FCR are matched daily against quarterly wage information and unemployment insurance records submitted by each state with the National Directory of New Hire Reporting.

Federal law requires all employers report information about newly hired and rehired employees. Employers report the information to one state. Each state then reports the information to the National Directory of New Hire Reporting.

Parents with Child Support Cases

Parents are responsible for reporting the following changes within 10 days of the change to the other party, the court, and the child support agency.

• residential and mailing address

• telephone number

• driver's license number

• social security number

• name, address, and telephone number of the employer

Parents must also comply with requests for information from the county child support agency.

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