Filing a Child Support Lien or Release in Washington State

The Division of Child Support is currently updating the information on this page.

If you are a staff person at a child support (Title IV-D) agency and you are interested in filing a child support lien or a release of lien in Washington State, please contact the county auditor’s office of the county where you want to file the lien. The county auditor can provide information regarding indexing forms and any filing fees and surcharges required by law.

The federal “Notice of Lien” and instructions can be downloaded from the Office of Child Support Services. The Washington State Legislature codified some very strict rules about the format of documents filed with our county auditors. Simply sending the federal Notice of Lien to a Washington auditor will result in a return of your unfiled document.

Complete the Indexing Form, print it and mail it with the federal Notice of Lien form, or your own release of lien form, and your filing fee ($5 for the first page and $1 for every additional page) to the county auditor. If you want a non-certified copy of the filed lien returned to you, the charge is $1 per page.

Note: The Washington State Legislature has added several surcharges to filing fees. See RCW 36.18.010 and RCW 36.22.250.