Protective orders in New Mexico.
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 New Mexico’s own statutes, not summarized.
See a different stateNew Mexico
New Mexico issues orders of protection under the Family Violence Protection Act at article 13 of chapter 40 of the statutes. The feature that matters most is the duration, and it is unusual: the injunctive parts of the order — the restraints on abuse and contact — continue until a court modifies or rescinds them. They do not expire on their own. Provisions about custody or support are the exception and run on a six-month clock. That division is dealt with first below.
The order after a hearing
The part that never expires, and the part that does
New Mexico splits its order in two by subject matter, and the split works strongly in a protected person’s favor. It is the most important thing on this page.
That is the rule for the injunctive parts of the order — the restraints on abusing, contacting or coming near you. They do not run for a year. They do not run for five. They continue until a court changes them.
There is no expiry date to diary, no renewal motion to file, no window to miss. On this site, New Mexico joins New Jersey, Colorado and Alabama in that category — and unlike some of those, it does not depend on the court exercising a discretion in your favor. It is what the statute says the order does.
The other half is different. Provisions dealing with custody or support last a maximum of six months, and may be extended for a further six months on motion.
So the practical instruction in New Mexico is the reverse of most states. You do not need to worry about the no-contact protection lapsing. You do need to watch the six-month clock on any custody or support arrangements inside the same order, because those are the parts that end.
Service
When personal service is not required
Personal service is the rule, with one sensible exception: if the restrained party or their lawyer was in the room when the order was made, service is not needed. They already know.
This is worth understanding because in many states the enforceability of an order turns on proof of service, and a respondent who avoids being served can stall the process. In New Mexico, a respondent who turns up to the hearing cannot later say he never received it.
If they break it
What a violation carries
A conviction for violating an order of protection is a misdemeanour. A second or subsequent conviction carries something firmer:
Seventy-two consecutive hours, and the statute closes the three doors a court might otherwise use to avoid imposing it — it cannot be suspended, deferred, or taken under advisement.
An offender may also be ordered to make full restitution to the injured party, and to complete professional counseling at their own expense.
Worth knowing about New Mexico
The things that are different here
The no-contact part of the order does not expire. It continues until modified or rescinded.
Custody and support provisions last six months, extendable by six. Those are the parts to watch.
No personal service needed if they were in the room when the order was made.
Seventy-two consecutive hours in jail on a second violation, which cannot be suspended or deferred.
Restitution and counseling at the offender’s expense are available.
What the judge can actually order
The remedies, the firearms rule, and two limits worth knowing
A New Mexico order may grant sole possession of the residence or household and temporary custody of any children. It may order the restrained party to reimburse you for expenses caused by the abuse, and to attend professional counseling.
The reimbursement provision is worth claiming. Costs you have carried because of what happened — medical bills, a locksmith, replacing what was broken, time off work — are within what the court can order him to repay. Bring the receipts.
On firearms:
That obligation arises where the court determines a credible threat exists. As in Louisiana and South Carolina, it turns on a finding, so it has to be raised and evidenced rather than assumed.
Two limits to understand before the hearing.
You can be given possession of the home; ownership is not touched. Property questions belong in a divorce or other proceedings.
And on mutual orders — where the court makes an order against both people — New Mexico sets a high bar, which protects you:
A mutual order requires that both people petitioned, and detailed findings that both acted primarily as aggressors and neither acted primarily in self-defense. A respondent cannot obtain an order against you simply by asking for one in response to yours, and a court cannot issue mutual orders as a way of splitting the difference. If a mutual order is proposed and you did not petition, that alone is a reason to object.
Firearms in New Mexico: two clocks that do not match
New Mexico has had a relinquishment statute since 2019 — § 40-13-13, added by Laws 2019, ch. 253, effective 1 July 2019. It is detailed, and it contains one drafting quirk you should know about before you rely on a deadline somebody quotes you.
48 hours to hand them over
“the restrained party shall relinquish all firearms in the restrained party’s immediate possession or control … in a safe manner to a law enforcement officer, a law enforcement agency or federal firearms licensee within forty-eight hours of service of the order.”
Police must also take possession of firearms “that are in plain sight or are discovered pursuant to a lawful search” — not merely those handed over.
72 hours to file — but counted from a different event
The order must state that within 72 hours of the issuance of the order the restrained party must file either a receipt for the relinquished firearms or a “declaration of non-relinquishment.”
Read those two clocks side by side. Relinquishment runs 48 hours from service. The filing runs 72 hours from issuance. Where there is a gap between issuance and service — which is common — the filing deadline can fall before, or barely after, the surrender deadline. That is a quirk in the drafting rather than a trap laid for anyone, but it means you should not assume a single tidy “72-hour rule.” Work from the dates on your own order.
What the police must do — and the copy that comes to you
An officer or agency taking possession must prepare a receipt identifying all firearms, give a copy to the restrained party, give a copy to the petitioner within 72 hours, file the original with the issuing court within 72 hours, and keep a copy.
That third duty is yours to enforce. You are entitled to a copy of the receipt. If none arrives, ask the agency for it and tell the court. It is the document that tells you whether anything actually happened.
If the respondent is in the room
Subsection E: if the respondent is present at the hearing, the court must hand them a receipt form or a declaration of non-relinquishment there and then, and “shall accept the completed form from the respondent for immediate filing.” The paperwork can be done on the spot, and it is worth asking the court to do exactly that.
The honest caveat about the penalty
The section is captioned “Relinquishment of firearms; penalty.” We read it through, and it contains no penalty — no fine, no offense class, no term of imprisonment. The catchline promises something the text does not deliver.
That is not the same as saying nothing happens. Enforcement runs through the ordinary offense of violating the protection order at § 40-13-6, through contempt, and through the federal prohibition at 18 U.S.C. § 922, which § 40-13-13(D)(6) requires the order itself to mention. But if you are told that failing to relinquish carries a specific New Mexico penalty under this section, ask where it is written.
One protective provision worth knowing: subsection F says “Evidence establishing ownership or possession of a firearm pursuant to this section shall not be admissible as evidence in any criminal proceeding.” Complying does not hand the state a case against them — which is deliberate, because it removes a reason to refuse.
Getting them back, and what happens if nobody claims them
An agency or dealer must make a firearm available to a formerly restrained party “within three business days” of a request, if they are then eligible to possess it. Where they do not want them back or are no longer eligible, they may sell or transfer to a federal firearms licensee. And an agency may dispose of an unclaimed firearm twelve months after proper notice of intent to do so.
▸ See how this compares — all 50 states, side by side
Does this cover me? New Mexico’s definitions
New Mexico’s list of qualifying acts is one of the longest in the country, and its relationship definition contains a sentence that removes the objection people most often hit.
What counts as domestic abuse — N.M. Stat. § 40-13-2(D)
Domestic abuse means an incident of stalking or sexual assault whether committed by a household member or not; or an incident by a household member against another household member consisting of or resulting in:
“(a) physical harm; (b) severe emotional distress; (c) bodily injury or assault; (d) a threat causing imminent fear of bodily injury by any household member; (e) criminal trespass; (f) criminal damage to property; (g) repeatedly driving by a residence or work place; (h) telephone harassment; (i) harassment; (j) strangulation; (k) suffocation; or (l) harm or threatened harm to children”; and “does not mean the use of force in self-defense or the defense of another.”
Four of those deserve pointing out because people do not think to mention them. “Severe emotional distress” stands on its own — no physical element required. “Repeatedly driving by a residence or work place” is named specifically, so the slow drive-past that is hard to describe as anything is squarely covered. Strangulation and suffocation are separate listed acts, which matters because strangulation is among the strongest predictors of later lethality and is often minimized as “he grabbed my neck.” And the opening words mean stalking and sexual assault qualify even where the person is not a household member at all.
Who counts as a household member — § 40-13-2(F)
“a spouse, former spouse, parent, present or former stepparent, present or former parent-in-law, grandparent, grandparent-in-law, child, stepchild, grandchild, co-parent of a child or a person with whom the petitioner has had a continuing personal relationship. Cohabitation is not necessary to be deemed a household member for purposes of this section.”
That final sentence is doing a lot of work, and it is unusual to see it stated so bluntly. You do not have to have lived with the person. A “continuing personal relationship” is defined at subsection A as “a dating or intimate relationship”, and that is enough on its own.
Note also how far the in-law and step-relationships reach: present or former stepparent, present or former parent-in-law, and grandparent-in-law. A relationship that ended does not take you outside the definition.
The New Mexico timetable — two different clocks
§ 40-13-4(A)
On the filing of a petition the court shall “immediately grant an ex parte temporary order of protection without bond if there is probable cause from the specific facts shown by the affidavit or by the petition to give the judge reason to believe that an act of domestic abuse has occurred”, and cause it to be served immediately together with notice of hearing.
“within ten days after the granting of the temporary order of protection, hold a hearing on the question of continuing the order.”
“if an ex parte order is not granted, serve notice to appear upon the parties and hold a hearing on the petition for order of protection within seventy-two hours after the filing of the petition; provided if notice of hearing cannot be served within seventy-two hours, the temporary order of protection shall be automatically extended for ten days.”
The 72-hour route is unusual and worth understanding: being refused an ex parte order in New Mexico does not slow you down, it puts you on a faster track to a contested hearing than if you had got one. Three days rather than ten.
The court may also award temporary custody and visitation when granting a temporary order. And note subsection C, which is the reason to read the relationship definition carefully first: “Except for petitions alleging stalking or sexual assault, if the court finds that the alleged perpetrator is not a household member, the court shall dismiss the petition.”
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: N.M. Stat. Ann. ch. 40, art. 13, the Family Violence Protection Act, ss. 40-13-1 to 40-13-12. Definitions at s. 40-13-2. Orders of protection, contents, remedies, property and mutual orders at s. 40-13-5. Service, duration, penalty and remedies at s. 40-13-6. 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 New Mexico. 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 New Mexico presumes about custody, and the emergency jurisdiction that exists when someone has to leave the state.