The degree to which the new standards of one tribunal with continuing, exclusive jurisdiction has been accepted is illustrated by comparing UIFSA to the UNIFORM CHILD CUSTODY JURISDICTION ACT, Sections 12-14, and UNIFORM CHILD CUSTODY JURISDICTION AND ENFORCEMENT ACT Sections 201-202. The UCCJA provides general principles for the judicial determination of an appropriate fact situation for subsequent modification of an existing custody order by another court. In contrast, UIFSA establishes a set of "bright line" rules which must be met before a tribunal may modify an existing child-support order. The intent is to eliminate multiple support orders to the maximum extent possible consistent with the principle of continuing, exclusive jurisdiction that pervades the Act. The UCCJEA borrows heavily, but not identically, from UIFSA. Both UIFSA and UCCJEA seek a world in which there is but one-order- at-a-time for child support and custody and visitation. Both have similar restrictions on the ability of a tribunal to modify the existing order. The major difference between the two acts results from the fact that the basic jurisdictional nexus of each is founded on different consideration. UIFSA has its focus on the personal jurisdiction necessary to bind the obligor to payment of a child-support order. UCCJEA places its focus on the factual circumstances of the child, primarily the "home State" of the child; personal jurisdiction over a parent in order to bind that parent to the custody decree is not required. An example of the disparate consequences of this difference is the fact that a return to the decree State does "not reestablish" continuing jurisdiction under the custody jurisdiction Act, see comment to UCCJEA Section 202. But, under UIFSA similar facts permit the issuing State to exercise continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to modify its child-support order if at the time the proceeding is filed the issuing State "is the residence" of one of the individual parties or the child, see Section 205(a), supra.

Subsection (b) states that when the forum has assumed modification jurisdiction because the issuing State has lost continuing, exclusive jurisdiction, the proceedings will generally follow local law with regard to modification of child-support orders.

The 2001 amendment to Subsection (c) and the addition of Subsection (d) are designed to eliminate scattered attempts to subvert a significant policy decision made when UIFSA was first promulgated. Prior to 1993, American case law was thoroughly in chaos regarding modification of the duration of a child-support obligation when an obligor or obligee moved from one State to