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Good practice Imported

Intermédiation Financière des Pensions Alimentaires — France's Universal State-Run Child Support Collection Service

France · Paris · See the France profile · See the Paris profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 56% 63/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since Jan 2023, France's family-benefit funds (CAF/MSA) automatically collect and transfer child-support payments for separating parents, replacing risky direct transfers. From 2017–2023 the national recovery rate for maintenance arrears rose from 62.5% to 70%.

62.5 %
National maintenance-arrears recovery rate, 2017 (2017)
70 %
National maintenance-arrears recovery rate, end 2023 (2023-12)
430,000
Maintenance payments processed monthly
640,000
People supported including bridging allowance (2025-11)
120000000 EUR
2021 budget allocation for bridging allowance (2021)
Intermédiation Financière des Pensions Alimentaires — France's Universal State-Run Child Support Collection Service

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Caisse nationale des allocations familiales (CNAF) / ARIPA
Period
2020–present (universal since January 2023)
Keywords
social protection, family policy, child-support enforcement, gender-responsive welfare

Context

Unpaid child support is one of the largest drivers of poverty among lone-parent households in France, over 80% of whom are headed by mothers. Historically, maintenance was paid directly between parents, leaving the custodial parent to chase non-payment through the courts.

Activities

Starting in October 2020 for households already facing arrears, made the default from January 2021, and automatic for all new child-support rulings from January 2023, France's family-allowance funds (CAF and MSA), through the national ARIPA service, now collect the maintenance payment from the paying parent each month and transfer it to the receiving parent, paying a bridging allowance of EUR 116 per child when a payment is missed.

Results

A 2024 CNAF evaluation found the national recovery rate for maintenance arrears rose from 62.5% in 2017 to 70% by end of 2023, with about 430,000 maintenance payments processed monthly and 640,000 people supported once the bridging allowance is included, as of November 2025. The 2021 budget allocated EUR 120 million to fund the bridging-allowance component.

Conclusions

The mechanism is a universal, gender-neutral administrative reform rather than a measure explicitly framed around gender equality, even though most beneficiaries are single mothers.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Very high (> €5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Caisse nationale des allocations familiales (CNAF) / Mutualité Sociale Agricole (MSA), national ARIPA service

Conditions for success

  • making automatic collection the default rather than an opt-in
  • a bridging allowance guaranteeing payment continuity while recovery proceeds

Common failure modes

  • independent, longer-run poverty-reduction data beyond the recovery-rate metric was not identified in public sources

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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