Travel, custody and relocation in New Hampshire

The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what New Hampshire law and New Hampshire’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 jurisdictionN.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. ch. 458-A (Uniform Child… 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 RSA 461-A:12 (Relocation of a Residence of a Child)
Triggered byNo mileage figure. New Hampshire uses two… No mileage figure. New Hampshire uses two carve-outs instead of a distance threshold, plus a residency threshold. RSA 461-A:12, I. the section ‘shall not apply if the relocation results in the residence being closer to the other parent or to any location within the child’s current school district.’ RSA 461-A:12, II: it applies only ‘to the relocation of any residence in which the child resides at least 150 days a year.’ So the trigger is: a move that is neither closer to the other parent nor within the same school district, of a residence where the child spends at least 150 days a year. A cross-country move within one large school district is exempt; a move a few miles across a district line is not.

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

New Hampshire custody jurisdiction sits under N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. ch. 458-A (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act), RSA 458-A:1 et seq.; the enforcement article runs RSA 458-A:22 through RSA 458-A:38. The home-state definition is at RSA 458-A:1, VII: “‘Home state’ means the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least 6 consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child-custody proceeding. In the case of a child less than 6 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

New Hampshire 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

RSA 461-A:12: ‘I. This section shall apply any time after the filing of a parenting petition or a divorce petition. This section shall not apply if the relocation results in the residence being closer to the other parent or to any location within the child’s current school district. II. This section shall apply to the relocation of any residence in which the child resides at least 150 days a year. II-a. A parent shall not relocate a child without a court order unless relocation is necessary to protect the safety of the parent or child, or both. III. Prior to relocating, the parent shall provide reasonable notice to the other parent. For purposes of this section, 60 days notice shall be presumed to be reasonable unless other factors are found to be present, or the parents have a written agreement to the contrary. Factors justifying shorter notice shall include, but are not limited to, relocation to protect the safety of the parent, child, or both, or relocation because the current abode is unavailable due to circumstances beyond the control of the parent. IV. At the request of either parent, the court shall hold a hearing on the relocation issue. Either party may request that the court issue ex parte orders as provided in RSA 461-A:9 to prevent or allow relocation of the child. The court shall hold an evidentiary hearing on the relocation request in the following manner: (a) In an open divorce or parenting case, the court shall hold a hearing within 30 days of the request for a hearing on the relocation issue. (b) Following a petition to re-open a closed divorce or parenting case, the court shall hold a hearing within 30 days of service of the petition on the other party. (c) The court may notice the initial hearing on relocation as a final hearing on relocation. If the court determines it needs additional information or time to make a final determination on the relocation of the child, it shall notice the initial hearing as a temporary hearing on the relocation issue. After the temporary hearing, the court shall issue a temporary order on the relocation request and schedule a final hearing no later than 60 days from the temporary hearing date, unless the parties agree otherwise. V. The parent seeking permission to relocate bears the initial burden of demonstrating, by a preponderance of the evidence, that: (a) The relocation is for a legitimate purpose; and (b) The proposed location is reasonable in light of that purpose. VI. If the burden of proof established in paragraph V is met, the burden shifts to the other parent to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the proposed relocation is not in the best interest of the child. VII. If the court has issued a temporary order authorizing temporary relocation, the court shall not give undue weight to that temporary relocation as a factor in reaching its final decision. VIII. The court, in reaching its final decision, shall not consider whether the parent seeking to relocate has declared that he or she will not relocate if relocation of the child is denied. IX. If the parties agree on or the court authorizes the relocation of a residence of a child, the court may modify the allocation or schedule of parenting time or both based on a finding that the change is in the best interests of the child.’ Source: 2005, 273:1; 2016, 134:3, eff. Jan. 1, 2017; 2018, 202:5, eff. Aug. 7, 2018.

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

New Hampshire publishes a statewide parenting form or guideline — New Hampshire Judicial Branch statewide Circuit Court – Family Division form NHJB-2064-F, ‘Parenting Plan’ (with an alternate-format version, NHJB-2064-F-alternate), issued under RSA 461-A:4 and Family Division Rule 2.18. 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 statewide Parenting Plan is organized under these headings: Decision-Making Responsibility; Residential Responsibility & Parenting Schedule; Legal Residence of a Child for School Attendance; Transportation and Exchange of the Child(ren); Information Sharing and Access, Including Telephone and Electronic Access; Relocation of a Residence of a Child; Procedure for Review and Adjustment of Parenting Plan; Method(s) for Resolving Disputes; Other parenting agreements. Its vacation treatment is scheduling only, keyed to the New Hampshire school calendar: a December Vacation paragraph splitting the holidays, and a ‘February, April, and Summer Vacations’ paragraph in the form ‘The child(ren) shall reside with ___ during February vacation, except for the following days and times when the child(ren) shall be with the other parent.’ The Relocation section restates the statute: ‘The relocation of a child’s residence in which s/he lives at least 150 days per year is governed by RSA 461-A:12,’ with the note that ’60 days notice shall be presumed to be reasonable unless other factors are found to be present.’ What the form does not contain: any advance-notice-before-travel clause, any itinerary requirement, any distinct out-of-state or out-of-country travel provision, and any passport clause. The statutory content list in RSA 461-A:4, II is equally silent — it permits provisions on decision-making and residential responsibility, information sharing and access, legal residence for school attendance, parenting schedule ‘including: (1) Holiday, birthday, and vacation planning. (2) Weekends, including holidays, and school in-service days preceding or following weekends,’ transportation and exchange, relocation of parents, review procedure and dispute resolution — and never mentions travel notice, itineraries, or passports. RSA 461-A:4, IV adds a live duty for joint-decision-making cases: the plan ‘shall include the legal residence of each parent’ absent domestic abuse or stalking concerns, and ‘the parent shall be responsible for promptly notifying the court and the other parent of any change in residence. The failure to provide such information may result in a finding of contempt of court.’

Who holds the passport

Nothing in New Hampshire’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 New Hampshire

The 60 days is a PRESUMPTION, not a fixed deadline. RSA 461-A:12, III says only that ’60 days notice shall be presumed to be reasonable unless other factors are found to be present, or the parents have a written agreement to the contrary.’ The duty is ‘reasonable notice’; 60 days is the safe harbor. Shorter notice is expressly justified by safety concerns or by the current home becoming unavailable through no fault of the parent.
Notice is not the whole duty. RSA 461-A:12, II-a: ‘A parent shall not relocate a child without a court order unless relocation is necessary to protect the safety of the parent or child, or both.’ Giving 60 days’ notice and hearing nothing back does not authorize the move — New Hampshire requires an order.
The 150-day threshold is easy to miss. RSA 461-A:12, II limits the section to ‘the relocation of any residence in which the child resides at least 150 days a year.’ A parent whose home the child uses less than 150 days a year is outside the statute entirely.
New Hampshire has no mileage trigger, but it does have a SCHOOL DISTRICT carve-out: the section does not apply if the move puts the residence ‘closer to the other parent or to any location within the child’s current school district.’ In a state with large districts this exempts substantial moves; in a state with small ones it catches short ones.
The burden shifts. RSA 461-A:12, V-VI: the relocating parent must first prove, by a preponderance, a legitimate purpose and that the proposed location is reasonable in light of that purpose; then the burden shifts to the objecting parent to prove the move is not in the child’s best interest. This is not a single best-interests weighing.
Two anti-gamesmanship rules: a temporary relocation order gets no ‘undue weight’ in the final decision (para. VII), and the court ‘shall not consider whether the parent seeking to relocate has declared that he or she will not relocate if relocation of the child is denied’ (para. VIII). The familiar ‘I’ll stay if you say no’ argument is off the table in New Hampshire.
Fast hearings: a hearing must be held within 30 days of the request (or of service, on a reopened case), and if the first hearing is treated as temporary, a final hearing must be scheduled no later than 60 days after it.
New Hampshire has not enacted UCAPA, and neither the statute nor the statewide Parenting Plan says a single word about travel notice, itineraries, international travel, or passports. Everything about vacation travel beyond who has the child during February, April, December and summer vacation must be drafted into ‘Other parenting agreements.’
RSA 461-A:4, IV creates a separate, always-on change-of-residence duty in joint decision-making cases — prompt notice to the court AND the other parent, on pain of contempt. It has no 60-day lead time and no 150-day or school-district qualifier, so it can bite where RSA 461-A:12 does not.

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.courts.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt471/files/documents/2021-04/nhjb-2064-f.pdf returned HTTP 403 to a scripted client; the form was read through a rendering fetch of the same official courts.nh.gov URL. The section headings and the vacation and relocation language above come from that read; because it was not a byte-level extraction, the vacation wording is reported as close paraphrase with quoted fragments rather than as a full verbatim transcription.

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.