Travel, custody and relocation in North Dakota
The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what North Dakota law and North Dakota’s own court forms say about taking your child on a trip, moving, and who holds the passport between journeys.
See a different stateNorth Dakota
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.
Which court decides — and why a trip does not change it
North Dakota custody jurisdiction sits under N.D.C.C. ch. 14-14.1 (§§ 14-14.1-01 et seq.), “Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act”. The home-state definition is at N.D.C.C. § 14-14.1-01(6) – “‘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
North Dakota has enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act at N.D.C.C. ch. 14-14.2 (§§ 14-14.2-01 et seq.), “Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act”. N.D.C.C. § 14-14.2-07(2): on a finding of “a credible risk of abduction of the child, the court shall enter an abduction prevention order.” Under § 14-14.2-07(3) that order may include: “An imposition of travel restrictions that require a party traveling with the child outside a designated geographical area to provide the other party with: (1) The travel itinerary of the child; (2) A list of physical addresses and telephone numbers at which the child can be reached at specified times; and (3) Copies of all travel documents”; a prohibition on “[r]emoving the child from this state, the United States, or another geographic area without permission of the court or the petitioner’s written consent”; “[a] requirement a party register the order in another state as a prerequisite to allowing the child to travel to that state”; and passport measures – placing the child’s name in the U.S. Department of State’s child passport issuance alert program, requiring the respondent to “surrender 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 prohibiting the respondent from “applying for a new or replacement passport or visa on behalf of the child.” Risk factors are listed at § 14-14.2-06 and include “[a]pplying for a passport or visa or obtaining travel documents” and lacking ties to the United States.
Moving, and how much warning you owe
§ 14-09-07: “1. A parent with primary residential responsibility for a child may not change the primary residence of the child to another state except upon order of the court or with the consent of the other parent, if the other parent has been given parenting time by the decree. 2. A parent with equal residential responsibility for a child may not change the residence of the child to another state except with consent of the other parent or order of the court allowing the move and awarding that parent primary residential responsibility. 3. A court order is not required if the other parent: a. Has not exercised parenting time for a period of one year; or b. Has moved to another state and is more than fifty miles [80.47 kilometers] from the residence of the parent with primary residential responsibility.” There is no statutory advance-notice period: North Dakota requires consent or a court order, not notice-and-wait.
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
North Dakota publishes a statewide parenting form or guideline — North Dakota Legal Self Help Center statewide Parenting Plan form – “PR Form 4, Exhibit A: Parenting Plan” (and its instruction sheet), used with the North Dakota Supreme Court’s stipulated parenting-responsibility packet. North Dakota has no statewide default parenting-time schedule comparable to Texas’s Standard Possession Order.. 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 form is a blank fill-in agreement, not a set of default travel terms. Paragraph 5b contains only the line “Vacation with Parents: Each parent shall have vacation with the child(ren) as follows:” followed by blank space; the instructions tell parents that examples of what they might write include “‘two consecutive weeks in the summer time;’ ‘two non-consecutive weeks at any time;’ ‘to be scheduled during normal parenting time;’ ‘only upon 30 days written notice;’ etc.” – these are drafting suggestions in the instructions, not defaults the court imposes. The form does supply one non-blank rule about summer: “*Summer Time/School Release Days with the other parent take precedence over summer activities, such as sports, when Parenting Time cannot be reasonably scheduled around such events.” Paragraph 8(l) is also a blank: “During long vacations the parent with whom the child is on vacation shall make the child available for contact as follows:” The form contains no advance-notice period for travel, no itinerary requirement, no out-of-state or out-of-country travel clause and no passport provision.
Who holds the passport
Passports appear only in the UCAPA chapter, N.D.C.C. § 14-14.2-07(3)(d), and only after the court finds a credible risk of abduction: child passport issuance alert program enrollment, surrender of any U.S. or foreign passport issued in the child’s name (including a joint parent-and-child passport) to the court or the petitioner’s attorney, and a bar on applying for a new or replacement passport or visa for the child. Section 14-14.2-07(3)(e) can additionally require the respondent to file an authenticated copy of the passport/travel-restriction order with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues and the relevant foreign consulate, and to produce an acknowledgment from that consulate that no passport application has been made. The statewide Parenting Plan form says nothing about passports, so absent an abduction-prevention order North Dakota supplies no default rule on who holds the child’s passport.
What catches people out in North Dakota
Sources for this page
- Custody jurisdiction statute: https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t14c14-1.pdf
- Abduction Prevention Act: https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t14c14-2.pdf
- Relocation rule: https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t14c09.pdf
- Statewide parenting form: https://www.ndcourts.gov/Media/Default/Legal%20Resources/Legal%20Self%20Help/Establishing%20Custody%20and%20Visitation/Stip-PR-Form-4-Exhibit-A-Parenting-Plan.pdf
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.