More on Delaware

The rest of what we have written about Delaware. Every figure is quoted from Delaware’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.

Travel, custody and relocation in Delaware

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

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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 jurisdiction13 Del. C. ch. 19 (Uniform Child Custody… 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 noticeNo notice period 13 Del. C. sec. 734, ‘Relocation.’
Triggered byDual trigger, and neither part is a mileage figure (a) a move outside the State of Delaware, OR (b) a move that materially affects the current custodial and residential arrangement or order. Both are further gated by a DURATION threshold – the proposed relocation must be ‘for a period of 60 days or more’.

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

Delaware custody jurisdiction sits under 13 Del. C. ch. 19 (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act), organized as Subchapter I General Provisions, Subchapter II Jurisdiction, Subchapter III Enforcement. 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

Delaware has not enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act. A judge here still has general power to impose travel conditions, but there is no dedicated statutory menu of abduction-prevention measures to point to. If risk is a live issue, the federal route on the main travel page — a valid, enforceable order prohibiting removal, routed to CBP — matters more here, not less.

Moving, and how much warning you owe

‘When in the course of litigation involving custody or visitation, there is a proposed relocation of a child for a period of 60 days or more involving either a move outside the State of Delaware or a move that materially affects the current custodial and residential arrangement or order, the Court must consider the following factors: (1) The nature, quality, extent of involvement, and duration of the child’s relationship with the individual proposing to relocate and with the nonrelocating individual, siblings, and other significant individuals in the child’s life. (2) The age, developmental stage, needs of the child, and the likely impact the relocation will have on the child’s physical, educational, and emotional development, taking into consideration any special needs of the child. (3) The feasibility of preserving the relationship between the nonrelocating individual and the child through suitable visitation arrangements, considering the logistics and financial circumstances of the parties. … (5) Whether there is an established pattern of conduct of the individual seeking the relocation, either to promote or thwart the relationship of the child and the nonrelocating individual; (6) Whether the relocation of the child will enhance the general quality of life for both the individual seeking the relocation and the child, including financial or emotional benefit or educational opportunity. (7) The reasons of each individual for seeking or opposing the relocation.’ Section 734 imposes no advance-notice obligation on either parent – it is a list of factors the court must weigh once relocation is already in litigation.

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

Delaware publishes a statewide parenting form or guideline — Delaware Family Court Form 599, ‘Contact Guidelines’ – a statewide, court-published default schedule used when the parents cannot agree. Delaware also publishes statewide consent-order forms 349 (Consent Order – Custody, Visitation), 349A (multi-party) and 349V (Consent Order – Visitation).. That matters, because its default wording is what lands in a lot of orders unchanged, and it is where your travel terms probably came from.

Form 599 opens: ‘Parents are encouraged to create an agreed equitable written contact schedule that fits their circumstances and their children’s lives, with the following serving as a possible schedule when the parents cannot agree. Nothing herein prohibits the parents from changing the schedule upon mutual agreement. In the event of conflicting dates and times, holidays and school breaks shall take priority.’ Its vacation term is age-banded and carries the only hard number in the document: for birth to 18 months and for 18 months to 5 years, ‘Each parent shall be entitled to two non-consecutive weeks of vacation. A parent shall give a minimum of thirty (30) days written notice to the other parent prior to the first parent exercising his or her vacation.’ For 5 years and up the guideline moves to a shared schedule that may extend to alternate weeks, with summer contact alternating weekly from the first Friday in June to the last Friday in August and the parents selecting weeks first in alternating years. It sets a two-column alternating holiday grid (Column 1: Easter or other religious holiday, Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas Day; Column 2: Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve) with fixed hours, plus Mother’s/Father’s Day and equal sharing of Winter and Spring Breaks. What it does not contain: any itinerary requirement, any out-of-state travel clause, any out-of-country travel clause, and any passport clause.

Who holds the passport

Nothing in Delaware’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 Delaware

THE ’60 DAYS’ IN 13 Del. C. sec. 734 IS not A NOTICE PERIOD. It is the minimum DURATION of the proposed relocation before the statute’s factors apply – ‘a proposed relocation of a child for a period of 60 days or more’. Delaware has no 60-day relocation notice requirement, and sources that report one have misread the statute.
Filing a custody or visitation petition in Delaware automatically freezes the child in state. 13 Del. C. sec. 721(d): ‘Upon the filing of a petition for custody or visitation, a preliminary injunction shall be issued against both parties to the action, enjoining them from removing any natural or adopted child of the parties then residing in Delaware from the jurisdiction of this Court without the prior written consent of the parties or the permission of the Court. The preliminary injunction shall be effective against the petitioner upon the filing of the petition for custody or visitation and upon the respondent upon service of a copy of the petition.’ This binds the FILING parent immediately, before service, and it reaches an ordinary out-of-state vacation, not just a move. It is the single most-missed Delaware travel trap.
Section 734 is a factor list, not a permission or notice mechanism. It applies only ‘when in the course of litigation’ – it creates no freestanding duty to tell the other parent about a move.
Delaware’s statewide Contact Guidelines give a real 30-day written vacation notice, but only for children under 5. For children 5 and up the guideline switches to alternating weeks with a week-selection priority and states no notice period at all.
Form 599’s guidance is expressly a fallback, not a rule: it is ‘a possible schedule when the parents cannot agree’, applied after the court considers the 13 Del. C. sec. 722 best-interest factors.
Delaware’s Contact Guidelines say nothing about itineraries, out-of-state travel, international travel or passports. A Delaware order that simply adopts the Guidelines has no travel-information machinery in it at all.
courts.delaware.gov sits behind a WAF that rejects plain automated requests with ‘Request Rejected’; Form 599 downloads as a .docx, not a PDF, from https://courts.delaware.gov/forms/download.aspx?id=35808.

Sources for this page

Sources we could not reach when this page was built, recorded so you know what is missing rather than assuming it was checked: https://www.uniformlaws.org – enactment tables render only via JavaScript; UCAPA status was determined from the Delaware Code Title 13 chapter index instead.

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.

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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.