Ordinary California money judgments last ten years and must be renewed or they die. Support judgments are built differently, and every owed parent should understand exactly how differently.
Family Code §291 provides that a money judgment for child or family support is enforceable until paid in full, is exempt from any requirement of renewal, and may be enforced whether or not arrears are reduced to a separate judgment. There is no statute of limitations on collection. A support order from 1998 with unpaid arrears is as enforceable this morning as the day it issued.
The interest engine. Arrears accrue interest at the legal judgment rate of 10% simple per year under Code of Civil Procedure §685.010 — each missed installment becomes a mini-judgment accruing from its own due date. The compounding reality: unpaid principal roughly doubles in ten years. A parent owed $30,000 in arrears from the 2010s is very likely owed $50,000–$60,000 today, and most owed parents have never run the calculation.
What can’t erase it: bankruptcy — domestic support obligations are categorically nondischargeable under 11 U.S.C. §523(a)(5) and sit first in bankruptcy’s priority scheme; the paying parent’s move out of state — the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act makes orders enforceable nationwide; and the passage of time, per §291 itself. Courts also cannot retroactively modify accrued arrears (Family Code §3651(c)) — a later downward modification runs forward only, which is why the arrears ledger is carved in stone as it accrues.
What the owed parent should do first: obtain the payment history — from the local child support agency if the case ran through it, or reconstruct from records — and prepare a formal arrears-and-interest accounting. Courts and levying officers act on numbers, not grievances, and the accounting converts years of missed payments into a single enforceable figure. The state’s Child Support Services program will open enforcement at no cost.
The law made this the most durable debt in America. The only expiration date on collection is the one an owed parent imposes by never starting.
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The Hedge 