More on Illinois

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

Travel, custody and relocation in Illinois

The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what Illinois law and Illinois’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 jurisdiction750 ILCS 36 (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 notice60 days 750 ILCS 5/609.2 (“Parent’s relocation”), with “relocation” defined at 750 ILCS 5/600(g)
Triggered byTiered, and it is the county the child currently… Tiered, and it is the county the child currently lives in that decides which tier applies. more than 25 miles for a move within Illinois FROM a current primary residence in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry or Will County; more than 50 miles for a move within Illinois from a primary residence in any other Illinois county; and more than 25 miles for a move to a residence outside Illinois. All distances are “measured by an Internet mapping service using surface roads,” and where alternative routes are offered “the alternative route that is the shortest distance shall be used.”

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

Illinois custody jurisdiction sits under 750 ILCS 36 (Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act) – 750 ILCS 36/101: “This Act may be cited as the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act.” (P.A. 93-108, eff. 1-1-04). The home-state definition is at 750 ILCS 36/102(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

Illinois has not enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act. Illinois has not enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act. The Illinois General Assembly’s own act list for Chapter 750 (Families) contains no child-abduction-prevention act: it runs from 750 ILCS 5 (Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act) through 750 ILCS 95, and the only custody-jurisdiction acts are 750 ILCS 35 (the superseded Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act) and 750 ILCS 36 (the UCCJEA). Illinois’s abduction-related tools are the UCCJEA’s own enforcement article in 750 ILCS 36 and the criminal child-abduction offense in the Criminal Code, not a UCAPA petition.

Moving, and how much warning you owe

750 ILCS 5/609.2(a) makes a parent’s relocation a substantial change in circumstances for purposes of Section 610.5. Subsection (b) limits who may seek to relocate: “[a] parent who has been allocated a majority of parenting time or either parent who has been allocated equal parenting time.” Subsection (c) requires a parent intending a relocation as defined in 750 ILCS 5/600(g)(1), (2) or (3) to give written notice to the other parent under the parenting plan or allocation judgment, and to file a copy of that notice with the clerk of the circuit court; the court may waive or seal some or all of the required information where there is a history of domestic violence. Subsection (d): “The notice must provide at least 60 days’ written notice before the relocation unless such notice is impracticable (in which case written notice shall be given at the earliest date practicable) or unless otherwise ordered by the court. At a minimum, the notice must set forth the following: (1) the intended date of the parent’s relocation; (2) the address of the parent’s intended new residence, if known; and (3) the length of time the relocation will last, if the relocation is not for an indefinite or permanent period.” Failure to comply without good cause may be considered as a factor in whether the relocation is in good faith and as a basis for awarding attorney’s fees and costs. Under subsection (e), if the non-relocating parent signs the notice and the relocating parent files it, “relocation shall be allowed without any further court action,” and the court modifies the plan as agreed so long as that is in the child’s best interests. Under subsection (f), if the other parent objects, refuses to sign, or the parents cannot agree on modification, the relocating parent must file a petition seeking permission to relocate, and subsection (g) sets out eleven best-interest factors. Subsection (h) contains a jurisdictional quirk: if a parent moves with the child 25 miles or less from the child’s current primary residence to a new primary residence OUTSIDE Illinois, Illinois continues to be the child’s home state under 750 ILCS 36/202(c), and any later move from that out-of-state residence that is more than 25 miles from the child’s original Illinois primary residence must comply with § 609.2.

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

Illinois publishes a statewide parenting form or guideline — Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice standardized statewide form ATJ 108.4, “Parenting Plan (Divorce with Children)” (rev. 03/25), supplemented by the mandatory parenting-plan contents in 750 ILCS 5/602.10(f). Illinois has no statewide default possession schedule imposed by statute.. 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.

The statute first. 750 ILCS 5/602.10(f) fixes what every Illinois parenting plan must contain, and three items bear directly on travel: item (8), “a requirement that a parent changing his or her residence provide at least 60 days prior written notice of the change to any other parent under the parenting plan or allocation judgment, unless such notice is impracticable or unless otherwise ordered by the court,” with the notice stating the intended date of the change of residence and the address of the new residence; item (9), “provisions requiring each parent to notify the other of emergencies, health care, travel plans, or other significant child-related issues”; and item (10), “transportation arrangements between the parents.” Item (12) requires “provisions for resolving issues arising from a parent’s future relocation, if applicable.” Note that item (8) is a change-of-residence notice untied to any distance – it is broader than the § 609.2 relocation trigger. The statewide form then implements this. Form ATJ 108.4 section 3, “MUST PROVIDE NOTICE OF MOVE,” states: “Both parents must provide each other notice if they plan to move, regardless of distance. If a parent plans to move, they must give the other parent at least 60 days’ notice, or notice as soon as possible of (1) the intended move date; and (2) the new address unless the address is protected because of domestic violence or abuse.” Section 5.D of the form lists among each parent’s responsibilities: “Notify the other parent as soon as possible of emergencies, health care, travel plans, or other significant child-related issues.” On vacation specifically, the form’s “School Summer Break” options are: no summer break schedule (follow the regular parenting schedule); “Each parent will have 2 non-consecutive weeks in the summer”; “Each parent will notify the other in writing by April 1st each year of the weeks they wish to have summer parenting time”; a blank for who has first choice of dates in even- versus odd-numbered years; or “Other.” The form also sets a holiday schedule with a stated conflict priority – “1st Priority: Holiday Schedule; 2nd Priority: School Break Schedule; 3rd Priority: Regular Weekly Schedule” – and a default Group A / Group B holiday split (Group A: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve; Group B: 4th of July, Labor Day, Christmas Day) alternating by even and odd years. What the form does not contain: no vacation itinerary requirement, no contact-information-while-traveling requirement, no out-of-state or out-of-country travel restriction, and no passport provision. The only date-certain vacation notice in the statewide form is the April 1 written notice of summer weeks, and that is an optional checkbox rather than a default.

Who holds the passport

Nothing in Illinois’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 Illinois

Illinois has TWO different notice duties that both run 60 days and are easy to conflate. 750 ILCS 5/602.10(f)(8) requires 60 days’ notice of ANY change of residence, ‘regardless of distance’ in the words of the statewide form. 750 ILCS 5/609.2(d) requires 60 days’ notice of a ‘relocation’ as defined by the mileage tiers. A short move that is not a ‘relocation’ still triggers the plan-based notice duty.
The mileage tier is chosen by where the child CURRENTLY lives, not where they are going. A move out of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry or Will County uses the 25-mile line; a move out of any other Illinois county uses 50 miles. Two families moving the same 40 miles can land on opposite sides of the statute.
Any move outside Illinois uses the 25-mile line – so a move from Rockford to a suburb of Beloit, Wisconsin can be a statutory relocation while a 45-mile move within downstate Illinois is not.
Distance is measured a specific way: ‘by an Internet mapping service using surface roads,’ and where the service offers alternatives, ‘the alternative route that is the shortest distance shall be used’ (750 ILCS 5/600(g)). Straight-line or highway-route distance is the wrong measure.
Only a parent allocated a majority of parenting time, or either parent where parenting time is equal, may seek to relocate with the child under 750 ILCS 5/609.2(b). A minority-time parent is not within the section at all.
The relocation notice is not just served – a copy must be FILED with the clerk of the circuit court (750 ILCS 5/609.2(c)). Serving the other parent and stopping there does not satisfy the statute.
If the non-relocating parent signs the notice and it is filed, relocation is allowed with no further court action (§ 609.2(e)). A signature on that notice is consent, not an acknowledgment of receipt – which is exactly the trap for an unrepresented parent.
750 ILCS 5/609.2(h) keeps Illinois as the child’s home state for UCCJEA purposes when a parent moves the child 25 miles or less across a state line, and requires any later move more than 25 miles from the ORIGINAL Illinois residence to comply with § 609.2. The clock does not reset by leaving the state.
Illinois’s statewide parenting plan form is silent on passports, itineraries, and out-of-country travel. Parents who assume a standard Illinois plan restrains international travel are assuming something the form does not say.
The form’s only concrete vacation-planning deadline – written notice of desired summer weeks by April 1 – is an optional checkbox tied to the ‘2 non-consecutive weeks’ option. If a different summer arrangement is chosen, there is no default notice date at all.

Sources for this page

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.