Relocation guide: Moving with children
If you have a parenting plan or custody order, the parent with custody must do certain things before moving with the children. Learn how a parent can move with children, how the other parent can object, and how a judge can decide.
Contents
1. Relocation law
The rules about moving with your children can be complicated. After reading this guide, if you think the relocation law applies to you, try to talk to a lawyer before deciding whether to move with your children.
“Parenting plan” here refers to parenting plans, residential schedules, custody orders, and any order that gives someone residential time or visitation with a child.
“Judge” here refers to judges and court commissioners.
Under state law, if you plan to move with your children, and you have a parenting plan from a Washington State court, you must usually give anyone entitled to visitation under the parenting plan advance notice of your move. There are some exceptions to this requirement. Then, if your move is outside the current school district and the other parent doesn’t think the children should move, that parent can file an objection.
The other parent can't object to a move within the same school district.
If the parenting plan doesn’t give the other parent or anyone else visitation rights, or you have no court-ordered parenting plan, the relocation law doesn’t apply to you. You can move without following the rules we describe in this guide. But you should still be aware of these things:
- Custodial interference laws make it a crime to take or hide children from their other parent with the intent to deny that parent access to the children for a long time, even if there’s no parenting plan in place. It’s a more serious crime if the children are moved from the state where they usually live.
If you have no existing parenting plan, you should let the other parent know where you’re moving, and how to reach you to arrange contact with the children. That should help you avoid criminal custodial interference charges. - Child custody jurisdiction law says that, in most cases, if a parent moves children out of state, the old state continues to be the children’s “home state” for 6 months after the move as long as one parent still lives there. So if you wanted to file for a parenting plan within the first 6 months after moving, you’d probably have to do so in the state you moved away from. That could be inconvenient and expensive.
The rest of this guide assumes that the relocation law applies to you because you have a parenting plan.