Travel, custody and relocation in Arizona

The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what Arizona law and Arizona’s own court forms say about taking your child on a trip, moving, and who holds the passport between journeys.

Read this alongside the federal rules

Getting a child’s passport, consent letters, the Hague Convention and what actually stops a departure are the same in all fifty states — they are on the main travel page. Start there, then come back here for the part that varies.

Custody jurisdictionA.R.S. tit. 25, ch. 8 (§ 25-1001 et seq.) Which state’s court may decide custody — and why a holiday elsewhere does not move it.

Abduction Prevention ActNoThe court still has its own powers; it just has no uniform-act toolkit to draw on.

Relocation notice45 days A.R.S. § 25-408 (“Rights of each parent; parenting time; relocation of child; exception; enforcement; access to prescription medication and records”)

Triggered byMore than 100 miles within Arizona, or any… More than 100 miles within Arizona, or any relocation of the child outside the state

Which court decides — and why a trip does not change it

Arizona custody jurisdiction sits under A.R.S. tit. 25, ch. 8 (§ 25-1001 et seq.) – “This chapter may be cited as the uniform child custody jurisdiction and enforcement act.” (A.R.S. § 25-1001). The home-state definition is at A.R.S. § 25-1002(7). The practical point for travel is this: a child’s home state is where they lived for six consecutive months before a case started, and a temporary absence counts toward that period. A summer with grandparents in another state does not start a clock there, and it does not let the other parent file somewhere new.

Abduction-prevention powers

Arizona has not enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act. Arizona has not enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act. The full section list for A.R.S. Title 25 published by the Arizona Legislature runs from § 25-101 through § 25-1501 and contains no child-abduction-prevention chapter; Title 25, chapter 8 ends with the UCCJEA enforcement article and the next chapter begins at § 25-1201 with the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act. The nearest Arizona analogue is the UCCJEA’s own enforcement article: A.R.S. § 25-1061 lets a petitioner seeking enforcement of a custody determination apply for a warrant to take physical custody of the child where the child “is immediately likely to suffer serious physical harm or be removed from this state,” and the court may issue that warrant on testimony, hearing the petition on the next judicial day after execution. That is an enforcement remedy, not the UCAPA risk-factor and travel-restriction scheme.

Moving, and how much warning you owe

A.R.S. § 25-408(A): “If by written agreement or court order both parents are entitled to joint legal decision-making or parenting time and both parents reside in the state, at least forty-five days’ advance written notice shall be provided to the other parent before a parent may do either of the following: 1. Relocate the child outside the state. 2. Relocate the child more than one hundred miles within the state.” Subsection (B) requires the notice to be made by certified mail, return receipt requested, or under the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure, and directs the court to sanction a parent who without good cause does not comply. Subsection (C) gives the non-moving parent thirty days after notice to petition the court to prevent the relocation; after that window a petition may be granted “only on a showing of good cause.” Subsection (D) switches the notice requirement off entirely if relocation has already been provided for by court order or written agreement of the parties dated within one year of the proposed relocation. Subsection (F) lets a parent with sole legal decision-making, or with joint legal decision-making and the child’s primary residence, temporarily relocate on less than 45 days’ notice where health, safety, employment or eviction requires it; a parent with joint legal decision-making and substantially equal parenting time may do so only with a written agreement from the other parent. Subsection (G) places the burden of proving the child’s best interests on the parent seeking to relocate.

Relocation and vacation are different questions, and orders often treat them in the same paragraph. A trip is temporary; a move changes the child’s residence. Read your own order for which one your plan actually is before you assume the relocation rule does not apply.

What the standard order says about travel

Arizona has no single statewide parenting order. Travel terms come from your own order and from local court rules, which vary by county or district. Read your order rather than a template.

Arizona has no statewide default possession schedule fixed by statute. A.R.S. § 25-403.02(C) requires every Arizona parenting plan to include, among other things, “[a] practical schedule of parenting time for the child, including holidays and school vacations,” “[a] procedure for the exchanges of the child, including location and responsibility for transportation,” and “[a] procedure by which proposed changes, relocation of where a child resides with either parent pursuant to section 25-408, disputes and alleged breaches may be mediated or resolved” – but the statute prescribes only the required subject headings, not default vacation blocks, advance-notice periods, itinerary requirements, out-of-state or out-of-country travel terms, or passport custody. The Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts has historically published a statewide parenting-time guide with model plans; that document could not be located on an azcourts.gov URL during this check, so whether a current statewide model plan exists, and what it says about travel, is left unresolved rather than guessed. No Arizona statewide default on vacation notice, itineraries, out-of-country travel or passports was verified on a primary source.

Who holds the passport

Nothing in Arizona’s statutes or standard forms addresses who holds the child’s passport. That is not a gap you have to live with — it is a clause you can ask for, and the federal rules above are the reason to.

What catches people out in Arizona

A.R.S. § 25-408(A) only bites if BOTH parents are entitled to joint legal decision-making or parenting time AND both parents reside in Arizona. If the other parent already lives out of state, the 45-day notice statute does not apply on its own terms.

The 100-mile trigger is intrastate only. Any move of the child outside Arizona requires the 45-day notice no matter how short the distance – a move from Yuma across the line into California is covered; a 90-mile move within Arizona is not.

Notice must be by certified mail, return receipt requested, or under the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure (A.R.S. § 25-408(B)). The court is directed to sanction non-compliance, though a sanction touching legal decision-making or parenting time may only be imposed in accordance with the child’s best interests.

A.R.S. § 25-408(D) is easy to miss: if a court order or a written agreement of the parties dated within one year of the proposed relocation already provides for relocation, the 45-day notice requirement does not apply at all.

The objecting parent has 30 days from notice to petition; after that a petition to prevent relocation may be granted ‘only on a showing of good cause’ (§ 25-408(C)).

Under § 25-408(E), if the child is relocated, all parties must continue to comply with the existing parenting-time orders ‘regardless of distance moved or notice required’ – the existing schedule does not lapse just because the geography changed.

Arizona is a UCAPA non-enactment state. A parent worried about international travel cannot reach for a UCAPA petition here and must rely on the UCCJEA enforcement article (§ 25-1061 warrant), general injunctive relief, or the federal Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program directly.

Nothing in Arizona’s parenting-plan statute requires an itinerary, contact information while traveling, or passport terms. If those matter, they have to be negotiated into the plan; there is no statewide default to fall back on.

Sources for this page

Custody jurisdiction statute: https://www.azleg.gov/ars/25/01001.htm
Abduction Prevention Act: https://www.azleg.gov/arsDetail/?title=25
Relocation rule: https://www.azleg.gov/ars/25/00408.htm
Statewide parenting form: https://www.azleg.gov/ars/25/00403-02.htm

Sources we could not reach when this page was built, recorded so you know what is missing rather than assuming it was checked: The Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts’ statewide parenting-time guide / model parenting plans document could not be located under any azcourts.gov URL reachable during this check (the Parenting-Time-Plans page redirects to a general family-law landing page with no link to it), so this page does not say whether Arizona publishes a statewide parenting form.

Every fact above is taken from the source linked beside it. Where a figure could not be confirmed from an official source, this page says so rather than printing a plausible number. Found an error? Tell us — it goes on the corrections page with the date.

Every state

Sources last checked30 August 2026

Page published30 August 2026

What this means. This is when the sources on this page were last read against their originals — statutes, court rules, official schedules — taken from the date this page was built from its sources. It is not the date the page was last edited. Adding a link or fixing a typo does not move it; re-reading the statute does. Law changes without notice, so treat anything time-sensitive as needing a fresh check. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date, what changed, and how long the error was live.