Travel, custody and relocation in Maine

The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what Maine law and Maine’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 jurisdiction19-A M.R.S. ch. 58, §§ 1731–1783 (Uniform… 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 notice30 days 19-A M.R.S. § 1653(14) — ‘Notice of relocation’
Triggered byNone. Any intended relocation of the child triggers… None. Any intended relocation of the child triggers the notice duty, regardless of distance or whether the move crosses a state line

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

Maine custody jurisdiction sits under 19-A M.R.S. ch. 58, §§ 1731–1783 (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act). The home-state definition is at 19-A M.R.S. § 1732(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

Maine 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

‘The order must require notice of the intended relocation of a child by a parent awarded shared parental rights and responsibilities or allocated parental rights and responsibilities. At least 30 days before the intended relocation of a child by a parent, the parent shall provide notice to the other parent of the intended relocation. If the relocation must occur in fewer than 30 days, the parent who is relocating shall provide notice as soon as possible to the other parent. If the parent who is relocating believes notifying the other parent will cause danger to the relocating parent or the child, the relocating parent shall notify the court of the intended relocation, and the court shall provide appropriate notice to the other parent in a manner determined to provide safety to the relocating parent and child.’

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

Maine 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.

Maine has no statewide model parenting schedule. The one thing Maine law does force into every parental rights order is the relocation notice: 19-A M.R.S. § 1653(14) provides that ‘The order must require notice of the intended relocation of a child.’ The statewide divorce-with-children filing packet published by the Maine Judicial Branch (form set OTH-039) contains no default vacation schedule, no advance-notice-of-travel clause, no itinerary requirement, and no out-of-state, out-of-country or passport provision — a full-text read of the packet returned no occurrence of ‘passport’, ‘itinerary’, ‘out of state’ or ‘out of the country’.

Who holds the passport

Nothing in Maine’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 Maine

Maine’s 30-day relocation notice has no mileage floor at all — it is triggered by ‘the intended relocation of a child’, full stop. Moving to the next town triggers the same duty as moving to Texas.
The notice duty is a mandatory ORDER TERM, not just a background rule: § 1653(14) says the order ‘must require’ it, so it should appear on the face of every Maine parental rights order.
There is a domestic-violence safety valve: a relocating parent who believes notifying the other parent will cause danger notifies the COURT instead, and the court then gives notice in a way designed to keep the relocating parent and child safe.
The statute uses Maine’s own vocabulary — ‘parental rights and responsibilities’, not custody/visitation — and § 1653(14) is written for a parent ‘awarded shared parental rights and responsibilities or allocated parental rights and responsibilities’.
Maine’s UCCJEA is chapter 58; chapter 57 (§§1701-1725) is the repealed UCCJA and is still visible in the index, so it is easy to cite the wrong chapter.

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.