Travel, custody and relocation in Nebraska

The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what Nebraska law and Nebraska’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 jurisdictionNeb. Rev. Stat. §§ 43-1226 to 43-1266… Which state’s court may decide custody — and why a holiday elsewhere does not move it.
Abduction Prevention ActYesNeb. Rev. Stat. §§ 43-3901 to 43-3912 (Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act), Laws 2007, LB341
Relocation noticeNo notice period No relocation statute; governed by case law.
Triggered byNot distance-based What turns a move into a legal event in Nebraska.

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

Nebraska custody jurisdiction sits under Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 43-1226 to 43-1266 (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act), Laws 2003, LB 148, § 1. The home-state definition is at Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-1227(7): “Home state means the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child custody proceeding. In the case of a child less than six months of age, the term means the state in which the child lived from birth with any of the persons mentioned. A period of temporary absence of any of the mentioned persons is part of the period.”. 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

Nebraska has enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act at Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 43-3901 to 43-3912 (Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act), Laws 2007, LB341. § 43-3901: ‘Sections 43-3901 to 43-3912 may be cited as the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act.’ § 43-3907 sets out fourteen risk factors the court ‘shall consider,’ including prior abduction or attempt, threats to abduct, and ‘recently engaged in activities that may indicate a planned abduction, including: (A) abandoning employment; (B) selling a primary residence; (C) terminating a lease; (D) closing bank or other financial management accounts, liquidating assets, hiding or destroying financial documents, or conducting any unusual financial activities; (E) applying for a passport or visa or obtaining travel documents for the respondent, a family member, or the child; or (F) seeking to obtain the child’s birth certificate or school or medical records’; also domestic violence/stalking/child abuse, refusal to follow a custody determination, weak ties to this state or the U.S. and strong ties elsewhere, and a detailed destination-country analysis (non-Hague countries, Hague countries where the Convention is not in force with the U.S. or that are noncompliant per the most recent State Department report, countries on the state-sponsors-of-terrorism list, countries with no U.S. diplomatic presence, countries at war). § 43-3907(b) requires the court to weigh evidence ‘that the respondent believed in good faith that the respondent’s conduct was necessary to avoid imminent harm to the child or respondent.’ § 43-3908(b): on finding ‘a credible risk of abduction of the child, the court SHALL enter an abduction prevention order.’ The available measures under § 43-3908(c) include travel restrictions requiring ‘the travel itinerary of the child,’ ‘a list of physical addresses and telephone numbers at which the child can be reached at specified times,’ and ‘copies of all travel documents’; prohibitions on removing the child from the state, the United States or another geographic area ‘without permission of the court or the petitioner’s written consent’; a requirement to register the order in another state as a prerequisite to letting the child travel there; the passport measures at § 43-3908(c)(4); foreign-consulate and Hague-registration prerequisites at (c)(5); and, on the petitioner’s request, ‘a requirement that the respondent obtain an order from the relevant foreign country containing terms identical to the child custody determination issued in the United States.’ § 43-3908(d) allows supervised visitation at the respondent’s expense, a bond ‘in an amount sufficient to serve as a financial deterrent to abduction, the proceeds of which may be used to pay for the reasonable expenses of recovery of the child, including reasonable attorney’s fees and costs if there is an abduction,’ and an order that the respondent ‘obtain education on the potentially harmful effects to the child from abduction.’ § 43-3908(e) permits a warrant to take physical custody of the child under § 43-3909 and direction of law enforcement. § 43-3908(f): ‘The remedies provided in the act are cumulative.’

Moving, and how much warning you owe

NEBRASKA HAS no RELOCATION STATUTE. Neither Chapter 42 (Husband and Wife / dissolution) nor Chapter 43 (Infants and Juveniles, which contains the Parenting Act, the UCCJEA and UCAPA) contains a relocation or removal section; a section-title scan of both chapters on the Legislature’s own site turns up no ‘relocation’ provision and no removal-of-child provision. There is therefore no statutory notice period, no mileage trigger, and no statutory list of relocation factors. What Nebraska has instead is a judge-made rule that a custodial parent must obtain the court’s permission before removing a child from the State of Nebraska — a rule strong enough that the Nebraska Supreme Court’s own statewide parenting plan forms recite it as a standing term. The nearest statutory relative is Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2929(2), which requires that ‘A parenting plan shall require that the parties notify each other of a change of address, except that the address or return address shall only include the county and state for a party who is living or moving to an undisclosed location because of safety concerns.’ That is an address-notification duty with no advance-notice period, no distance threshold and no right to object — not a relocation statute.

Governed by case law, not statute. Farnsworth v. Farnsworth, 257 Neb. 242, 597 N.W.2d 592 (1999) is Nebraska’s leading removal case. The citation was verified on the Nebraska Judicial Branch’s own ePublication service, where a later Nebraska Court of Appeals opinion (Wilson v. Wilson, 23 Neb. App. 63) cites it in full as ‘Farnsworth v. Farnsworth, 257 Neb. 242, 597 N.W.2d 592 (1999)’ and refers to ‘the removal analysis set forth in Farnsworth.’ Nebraska’s removal test is commonly described as two steps — a legitimate reason for leaving the state, then whether the move is in the child’s best interests on a multi-factor weighing — but that formulation is not quoted here because no Nebraska court source reachable for this check set it out verbatim; anyone relying on the two-step wording should pull Farnsworth itself. The verified points are: the case name, the full citation, its status as the governing removal authority, and the absence of any statute.

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

Nebraska publishes a statewide parenting form or guideline — Nebraska Supreme Court statewide district court forms: ‘Parenting Plan Parent-Created’ in three custody configurations — DC 6:5.37 (Joint Legal and Joint Physical), DC 6:5.38 (Joint Legal and Sole Physical), DC 6:5.39 (Sole Legal and Sole Physical) — each headed with its statutory basis, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2929. There are also court-use and absent-parent versions (DC 6:5.13, DC 6:5.14).. 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.

Nebraska’s statewide parenting plan form is notable for what it OMITS. DC 6:5.38 (Rev. 11/2019) has no vacation-travel clause, no advance-notice-before-travel clause, no itinerary requirement, no out-of-country travel clause, and no passport clause anywhere in its twenty-three numbered paragraphs. The travel-adjacent paragraphs are: ’14. Scheduling Activities. One parent may not plan or schedule activities during the parenting time of the other parent without reasonable notice to and consent of the other parent.’ ’19. Temporary Changes. The parents can temporarily change the terms of this Plan as long as they both agree to it.’ ’22. Notification Requirement for Current and Change of Address and Contact Information. If there is a change of address or contact information, each parent will notify the other parent by mailing the change of address to the last known mailing address. Exception: If one parent has a confidential address under Nebraska or federal law, the address or return address shall only include the county and state for a party who is living or moving to an undisclosed location.’ And the one that matters most: ’23. Out-of-State Change of Residence. The child(ren)’s residence will not be changed from the State of Nebraska without prior order of the court.’ Note the wording — it restricts changing the child’s RESIDENCE, not taking the child on a trip. Nothing in the statewide form restricts vacation travel out of Nebraska or out of the country. The statutory content list at § 43-2929(1)(b) similarly requires apportionment of parenting time including ‘school and family vacations, and other special occasions, specifying dates and times for the same,’ plus a transition plan covering ‘the time and places for transfer of the child, method of communication or amount and type of contact between the parties during transfers, and duties related to transportation of the child during transfers’ — but never mentions travel notice, itineraries, or passports.

Who holds the passport

Addressed in statute only through UCAPA, and not at all in the statewide parenting plan forms. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-3908(c)(4) lets an abduction prevention order provide, ‘with regard to the child’s passport: (A) a direction that the petitioner place the child’s name in the United States Department of State’s Child Passport Issuance Alert Program; (B) a requirement that the respondent surrender to the court or the petitioner’s attorney any United States or foreign passport issued in the child’s name, including a passport issued in the name of both the parent and the child; and (C) a prohibition upon the respondent from applying on behalf of the child for a new or replacement passport or visa.’ § 43-3908(c)(5) can make it a prerequisite to exercising custody or visitation that the respondent send an authenticated copy of the passport-and-travel-restriction order to the U.S. State Department Office of Children’s Issues and the relevant foreign consulate or embassy, file proof plus ‘an acknowledgment in a record from the relevant foreign consulate or embassy that no passport application has been made, or passport issued, on behalf of the child,’ provide the petitioner proof of registration with the U.S. Embassy in the destination country and with the Hague Central Authority, and sign a Privacy Act waiver. Under § 43-3907(3)(E), merely ‘applying for a passport or visa or obtaining travel documents’ is itself listed evidence of a planned abduction. Outside a UCAPA proceeding, however, no Nebraska statute and no statewide form says who holds a child’s passport, or whether one parent may obtain a passport without the other’s consent.

What catches people out in Nebraska

Nebraska HAS enacted UCAPA — §§ 43-3901 to 43-3912, Laws 2007, LB341. It is in the minority of states that did.
Nebraska has no relocation statute. Do not cite one. The permission-to-remove rule is judge-made (Farnsworth v. Farnsworth, 257 Neb. 242, 597 N.W.2d 592 (1999)); the only statutory cousin, § 43-2929(2), is a bare change-of-address notification duty with no advance notice, no distance trigger and no objection right.
The Nebraska rule is framed as PERMISSION, not NOTICE. The statewide parenting plan says ‘The child(ren)’s residence will not be changed from the State of Nebraska without prior order of the court.’ There is no number of days to count — the mover must get a court order first. Any source that gives Nebraska a relocation notice period is inventing one.
Nebraska’s trigger is the STATE LINE, not mileage. A move from Omaha to Council Bluffs, Iowa is a removal requiring court permission; a move from Omaha to Scottsbluff, over 400 miles away but still in Nebraska, is not a removal at all under the form’s paragraph 23 (though it can still be litigated as a material change).
Paragraph 23 restricts changing the child’s RESIDENCE. It does not by its terms restrict taking the child out of Nebraska for a vacation. A parent who reads it as a travel restriction is over-reading it, and a parent who assumes travel is therefore governed by something else will find that the statewide form governs it by nothing at all.
Nebraska’s statewide parenting plan forms contain no travel clause, no itinerary requirement, no out-of-country provision and no passport paragraph. If those terms are not negotiated in, a Nebraska order is silent on them, and the only statutory fallback is a UCAPA petition, which requires proving a credible risk of abduction.
UCAPA relief is mandatory on the finding: § 43-3908(b) says that on finding a credible risk of abduction the court ‘shall enter an abduction prevention order.’ The discretion is over which measures, not whether.
§ 43-3907(3)(E) treats applying for a passport or visa, or obtaining travel documents, as evidence of a planned abduction. In a contested Nebraska case a routine passport application can become an exhibit.

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.