Protective orders in Idaho.
Who can ask for one, what you have to show, what a judge can order, what it costs, and what happens if it is broken — quoted from Idaho’s own statutes, not summarized.
See a different stateIdaho
Idaho issues protection orders under the Domestic Violence Crime Prevention Act at chapter 63 of title 39. A temporary order can be made without the other person present, and a longer order follows a hearing. The first order runs up to a year — but on renewal an Idaho order can be extended for whatever period the court directs or made permanent, and the renewal can be granted without a hearing if the respondent does not object in time. That is the most useful thing on this page.
The order after a hearing
One year — and a renewal that can be permanent
Idaho’s first order is a year. What happens at renewal is the part worth knowing, and it contains two provisions that between them make Idaho unusually workable.
So a one-year order can, on renewal, be extended for whatever period the court directs — or made permanent. The test is good cause shown, not proof of fresh violence.
And then the provision that removes the thing people dread most about renewal:
If the respondent does not object in time, the renewal can be granted without a hearing at all. No courtroom, no facing him across a room, no giving evidence again. You file the motion; if he does not object, the order continues.
That is a genuinely significant provision for anyone who has been putting off a renewal because of what the hearing would involve. File the motion. In a large share of cases there will be no hearing.
What the judge can actually order
The statutory relief — and the 1,500 feet
An Idaho protection order may restrain a party from committing acts of domestic violence; exclude the respondent from a shared dwelling or from your residence; award temporary custody of the children; order the respondent into treatment or counseling; and require them to pay service fees and reimburse you for costs.
The no-contact term is drawn widely:
And the distance provision is one of the largest in the country:
Fifteen hundred feet — roughly a quarter of a mile. Most states work in hundreds of feet. Note also "or other appropriate distance": if 1,500 feet does not fit your circumstances, the court can set a different one, and it is worth explaining what would actually make you safe.
If they break it
What a violation is, and what it carries
An Idaho violation turns on notice. The offense is committed where the respondent had notice of the order and breached its provisions, including a provision excluding him from a residence.
A $5,000 maximum fine is high for a misdemeanour by national standards. Ten dollars of any fine imposed goes to the domestic violence project account.
On arrest:
Both the offense and the arrest power are conditioned on notice, which makes proof of service the thing to keep safe. Idaho also deals expressly with orders from elsewhere: a person is presumed to have notice where the victim shows the officer proof of service of an out-of-state order.
That last provision is worth knowing if you have moved to Idaho with an order from another state. Carry the proof of service, not only the order — it is what converts your order into something an Idaho officer can act on at the roadside.
Does this cover me? Idaho’s definitions
§ 39-6303
“‘Domestic violence’ means the physical injury, sexual abuse or forced imprisonment or threat thereof of a family or household member, or of a minor child by a person with whom the minor child has had or is having a dating relationship, or of an adult by a person with whom the adult has had or is having a dating relationship.”
Idaho’s definition is narrow. Three acts: physical injury, sexual abuse, forced imprisonment — or the threat of any of them. There is no harassment category, no stalking category, no property or animal category, and nothing on coercive control. If what is happening to you does not involve physical injury, sexual abuse or confinement (or a threat of one of those), this chapter may not be the right door, and it is worth asking the clerk about a civil protection order for stalking or malicious harassment instead.
“spouses, former spouses and persons related by blood, adoption or marriage.”
“persons who reside or have resided together, and persons who have a child in common regardless of whether they have been married or have lived together at any time.”
“a social relationship of a romantic nature”, with the court considering the nature of the relationship, how long it lasted, the frequency of interaction, and the time since it ended.
The Idaho timetable — the fastest of any state on this site
The ex parte hearing is the same day or the next — § 39-6308(4)
“The court shall hold an ex parte hearing on the day the petition is filed or on the following judicial day.”
Not “may”, and not “as soon as practicable.” Same day or next judicial day, as a matter of obligation.
And subsection (2): “An ex parte hearing to consider the issuance of a temporary protection order may be conducted by telephone in accordance with procedures established by the Idaho supreme court.” If you cannot safely get to a courthouse, ask about this.
The standard, and what it expressly includes
The test is whether “irreparable injury could result from domestic violence if an order is not issued immediately without prior notice to the respondent.” The statute then defines the term so you are not guessing:
“Irreparable injury under this section includes but is not limited to situations in which the respondent has recently threatened the petitioner with bodily injury or has engaged in acts of domestic violence against the petitioner.”
A recent threat is enough. It does not have to have been carried out.
Fourteen days, and reissuable — § 39-6308(5)
“An ex parte temporary protection order shall be effective for a fixed period not to exceed fourteen (14) days, but may be reissued. A full hearing … shall be set for not later than fourteen (14) days from the issuance of the temporary order.”
The two clocks run together, so there is no gap — and “may be reissued” covers you if the hearing moves. Final relief under § 39-6306 runs up to one year, extendable, and may be made permanent on good cause.
Firearms in Idaho: there is no provision
The finding
We took the Legislature’s own complete chapter PDF for Title 39 chapter 63 — all eighteen sections, 39-6301 through 39-6318 — and searched it for firearm, weapon, gun, ammunition and surrender. Zero matches. Neither the relief menu for temporary orders in § 39-6308(1) nor the one for final orders in § 39-6306(1) mentions firearms; only the catch-all clauses could conceivably reach them.
This puts Idaho in the same position as Alabama, Wyoming, Kentucky, Missouri and Mississippi: the protection comes entirely from federal law. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) makes possession a federal crime for a person subject to a qualifying order — one made after a hearing they had notice of and could attend, restraining them regarding an intimate partner, and carrying either a credible-threat finding or an express prohibition on the use of force. It is a real prohibition and it is prosecuted. But it creates a crime, not a collection mechanism, and this state supplies neither a penalty of its own nor a procedure for taking the guns.
One thing Idaho does have: a concealed-carry disqualification
Idaho Code § 18-3302(11)(m) bars the issue of a concealed weapons license to a person “subject to a protection order issued under chapter 63, title 39, Idaho Code, that restrains the person from harassing, stalking or threatening an intimate partner of the person, or child of the intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child.”
Be clear about what that does and does not do. It blocks the license. It is not a possession ban, and Idaho is a permitless-carry state — so a person can lawfully carry a concealed firearm in Idaho without any license at all. The disqualification is real but its practical reach is narrow.
Note also that some sources cite this as subsection (11)(l). That is a stale subsection letter; the current text is at (11)(m).
▸ See how this compares — all 50 states, side by side
The part that is the same in every state
An order from one state works in all of them
This is federal law and it does not change at a state line. An order issued by one state, tribe or territory must be enforced by every other as if that state had issued it. And you do not have to register it in the new state first — registration is optional, not a precondition to enforcement.
The same section also says the enforcing state must not tell the restrained person that the order has been registered there unless the protected person asks it to, and must not publish anything online that would be likely to reveal the protected person’s identity or location.
The federal firearms rule needs a hearing first
This is the single most misunderstood point in the whole subject, and it cuts against what most people assume. The federal prohibition at 18 U.S.C. s. 922(g)(8) reaches a person subject to an order only where three things are true: the order was made after a hearing of which they had actual notice and at which they had a chance to take part; it restrains them in relation to an intimate partner or that partner’s child; and it either carries a credible-threat finding or expressly forbids the use of force.
So an emergency or ex parte order does not trigger the federal prohibition on its own — there has been no hearing yet. State law may go further, and many states do, which is why the state rule is set out on this page separately. In United States v. Rahimi (2024) the Supreme Court upheld s. 922(g)(8), holding that “When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.”
This rule is narrower than it looks, and the detail matters. Who counts as an “intimate partner” is a defined term that excludes dating partners you never lived with; the two halves of the third condition are not equally settled after Rahimi; and there is a separate federal route based on convictions rather than orders, which does reach dating partners. We set all of it out, quoted from the United States Code, on one page: Guns and protection orders — the federal rule.
How does this state compare? Ten states do nothing at all about firearms on a protection order; fourteen prohibit possession but give the court no way to collect them. All fifty side by side: which states actually take the guns.
You should not be charged for this — in any state
This is settled, and it is worth knowing before you walk into a courthouse. Under 34 U.S.C. s. 10450, a state applying for STOP grant funding must certify to the Attorney General that its "laws, policies, and practices do not require" a victim to bear the costs associated with the filing, issuance, registration, modification, enforcement, dismissal, withdrawal or service of a protection order or a petition for one — nor the costs of filing criminal charges, or of warrants and witness subpoenas. A jurisdiction that does charge has its funds withheld and redistributed to the states that do not.
Every state receives STOP funding and every state has certified compliance. The practical consequence, in the words of the National Center on Protection Orders and Full Faith & Credit, is that victims "should not be required to pay such costs in any state". That covers having the papers served on the other person, which is the charge people are most often asked for.
Two honest qualifications. The provision does not stop a court charging the respondent — many states order costs against them, and that is permitted. And it is a funding condition rather than a direct federal ban, so what a clerk does on a given day can still be wrong. If you are asked to pay a fee for any of the things listed above, you can say that your state has certified under 34 U.S.C. s. 10450 that it does not charge for them. Advocates can also raise it with the National Center on Protection Orders and Full Faith & Credit on 1-800-903-0111, prompt 2.
Where this state’s own statute says so expressly, that is quoted above.
Authority: Idaho Code tit. 39, ch. 63, the Domestic Violence Crime Prevention Act. Relief, duration and renewal at s. 39-6306. Ex parte orders at s. 39-6308. Violation of order and penalties at s. 39-6312. Checked 29 Aug 2026.
How we checked this page
Every quotation above was read in the source named in the Authority line, not taken from a summary or another website. Where a source would not open, we say so at the point we relied on something else.
On this date we also re-checked every section cited above for repeal, renumbering or amendment since 2024. That sweep is not decorative: it is what caught North Dakota’s protection order chapter being repealed and replaced, Nebraska’s moving to an entirely new title, and a dozen 2025 and 2026 amendments that most published guidance has not yet picked up.
Nothing is outstanding on the main questions for Idaho. What we cannot promise is that nothing has changed since this date. Quote the words with confidence; check a section number before you put it in a filing. And if anything here does not match what a clerk or judge tells you, the court is right and we are wrong — tell us and we will fix it.
We keep a public record of every time we have got the law wrong on these pages, what caused it, and how long it was live: where we were wrong.
If there are children
What Idaho presumes about custody, and the emergency jurisdiction that exists when someone has to leave the state.