The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-34) requires that the Social Security Administration obtain both parents’ Social Security numbers on applications for original Social Security numbers for children under age 18  and share that information with the Internal Revenue Service.

Social Security will still be able to assign a Social Security number to the child without both parents’ SSNs if:

1. One or both parents do not have a Social Security number; or;
2. the parent’s Social Security number is not known and cannot be reasonably expected to be obtained by the applicant, and the applicant is someone other than the parent.