Travel, custody and relocation in Pennsylvania

The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what Pennsylvania law and Pennsylvania’s own court forms say about taking your child on a trip, moving, and who holds the passport between journeys.

See a different statePennsylvania
AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming
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 jurisdiction23 Pa.C.S. ch. 54 (§§ 5401-5482), “Uniform… Which state’s court may decide custody — and why a holiday elsewhere does not move it.
Abduction Prevention ActYes23 Pa.C.S. ch. 52 (§§ 5201-5212), “Uniform Child Abduction Prevention.” Enactment note: “Chapter 52 was added January 22, 2014, P.L.8, No.5, effective in 90 days” (Act 5 of 2014, from S.B. 689 of 2013-14).
Relocation notice60 days 23 Pa.C.S. § 5337 (with the definition of “relocation” at 23 Pa.C.S. § 5322(a) and the procedural forms at Pa.R.C.P. No. 1915.17)
Triggered bynone Pennsylvania uses a functional test, not miles. 23 Pa.C.S. § 5322(a): “‘Relocation.’ A change in a residence of the child which significantly impairs the ability of a nonrelocating party to exercise custodial rights.” A move of two miles can be a relocation and a move of two hundred miles may not be.

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

Pennsylvania custody jurisdiction sits under 23 Pa.C.S. ch. 54 (§§ 5401-5482), “Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement.” Enactment note: “Chapter 54 was added June 15, 2004, P.L.236, No.39, effective in 60 days.”. The home-state definition is at 23 Pa.C.S. § 5402 – “‘Home state.’ 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 six months of age or younger, 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

Pennsylvania has enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act at 23 Pa.C.S. ch. 52 (§§ 5201-5212), “Uniform Child Abduction Prevention.” Enactment note: “Chapter 52 was added January 22, 2014, P.L.8, No.5, effective in 90 days” (Act 5 of 2014, from S.B. 689 of 2013-14).. 23 Pa.C.S. § 5208(b)(1): “If, at a hearing on a petition under this chapter or on the court’s own motion, the court after reviewing the evidence finds a credible risk of abduction of the child, the court shall enter an abduction prevention order.” Under § 5208(c) the order may include: “(1) an imposition of travel restrictions that require that a party traveling with the child outside a designated geographical area provide the other party with the following: (i) the travel itinerary of the child; (ii) a list of physical addresses and telephone numbers at which the child can be reached at specified times; and (iii) copies of all travel documents”; “(2) a prohibition of the respondent directly or indirectly: (i) removing the child from this Commonwealth, the United States or another geographic area without permission of the court or the petitioner’s written consent…”; “(3) a requirement that a party register the order in another state as a prerequisite to allowing the child to travel to that state”; and “(4) with regard to the child’s passport: (i) a direction that the petitioner place the child’s name in the United States Department of State’s Child Passport Issuance Alert Program; (ii) 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 (iii) a prohibition upon the respondent from applying on behalf of the child for a new or replacement passport or visa.” Section 5208(c)(5) can further require the respondent to lodge an authenticated copy of the passport/travel-restriction order with the U.S. Department of State Office of Children’s Issues and the relevant foreign consulate, to prove registration with the U.S. Embassy and the Hague Central Authority in the destination country, and to sign a Privacy Act waiver. Every order under § 5208(a)(5) must identify “the child’s country of habitual residence at the time of the issuance of the order.” Risk factors are at § 5207 and a warrant to take physical custody at § 5209.

Moving, and how much warning you owe

§ 5337(b) General rule: “No relocation shall occur unless: (1) every individual who has custody rights to the child consents to the proposed relocation; or (2) the court approves the proposed relocation.” § 5337(c) Notice: “(1) The party proposing the relocation shall notify every other individual who has custody rights to the child. (2) Notice, sent by certified mail, return receipt requested, shall be given no later than: (i) the 60th day before the date of the proposed relocation; or (ii) the tenth day after the date that the individual knows of the relocation, if: (A) the individual did not know and could not reasonably have known of the relocation in sufficient time to comply with the 60-day notice; and (B) it is not reasonably possible to delay the date of relocation so as to comply with the 60-day notice.” § 5337(c)(3) requires the notice to include the address of the intended new residence; the mailing address if different; “[n]ames and ages of the individuals in the new residence, including individuals who intend to live in the new residence”; the home telephone number; “[t]he name of the new school district and school”; the date of the proposed relocation; the reasons; “[a] proposal for a revised custody schedule”; a counter-affidavit under subsection (d)(1); and “[a] warning to the nonrelocating party that if the nonrelocating party does not file with the court an objection to the proposed relocation within 30 days after receipt of the notice, that party shall be foreclosed from objecting to the relocation.” § 5337(d)(2)-(4): the objection must be filed with the court and served by certified mail within 30 days of receipt; “[i]f notice of the proposed relocation has been properly given and no objection to the proposed relocation has been filed in court, then it shall be presumed that the nonrelocating party has consented”; and a party who misses the 30 days and later petitions for review cannot be heard – “the court shall not accept testimony challenging the relocation.” § 5337(e) requires the relocating party, where no objection was filed, to file before moving an affidavit of notice, the signed return receipt and the full notice sent, a petition to confirm relocation, and a proposed order. § 5337(g)(1): “the court shall hold an expedited full hearing on the proposed relocation after a timely objection has been filed and before the relocation occurs,” unless “exigent circumstances” justify approving the move pending that hearing. § 5337(h) lists ten relocation factors, “giving weighted consideration to those factors which affect the safety of the child.” § 5337(i) Burden of proof: “(1) The party proposing the relocation has the burden of establishing that the relocation will serve the best interest of the child as shown under the factors set forth in subsection (h). (2) Each party has the burden of establishing the integrity of that party’s motives in either seeking the relocation or seeking to prevent the relocation.” § 5337(j) makes failure to give reasonable notice a factor in the relocation and modification decisions, “a basis for ordering the return of the child to the nonrelocating party if the relocation has occurred without reasonable notice,” a ground for fees, and “a ground for contempt and the imposition of sanctions.” § 5337(k) subjects that to mitigation where the failure “was caused in whole, or in part, by abuse.” § 5337(l): “If a party relocates with the child prior to a full expedited hearing, the court shall not confer any presumption in favor of the relocation.” Section 5337(a) was amended Oct. 27, 2025, P.L.131, No.40, to state that the section “applies to any proposed relocation, including relocation subject to 51 Pa.C.S. Ch. 46 (relating to uniform deployed parents custody and visitation).” Pa.R.C.P. No. 1915.17(c) adds a point the statute leaves implicit: “If no objection to a proposed change of a child’s residence is timely served after notice, the proposing party may change the residence of the child and such shall not be considered a ‘relocation’ under statute or rule.”

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

Pennsylvania 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.

Thin. 23 Pa.C.S. § 5331(b)(1) requires only that a parenting plan include “[t]he schedule for personal care and control of the child, including parenting time, holidays and vacations,” and § 5331(b)(5) “[t]ransportation arrangements.” The statutory form at § 5331(c) has holiday lines (including “Vacation after Thanksgiving” and “Christmas Vacation”) but no advance-notice period for travel, no itinerary requirement, no out-of-state or out-of-country travel clause and no mention of passports anywhere. The meaningful statewide travel machinery in Pennsylvania is the UCAPA chapter (23 Pa.C.S. § 5208), not any standard order.

Who holds the passport

Addressed in detail, but only through UCAPA. 23 Pa.C.S. § 5208(c)(4) authorizes, on a finding of credible risk of abduction: enrollment of the child in the U.S. Department of State’s Child Passport Issuance Alert Program; surrender by the respondent “to the court or the petitioner’s attorney [of] 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 a prohibition on the respondent “applying on behalf of the child for a new or replacement passport or visa.” § 5208(c)(5) can require the respondent, as a prerequisite to exercising custody or visitation, to file an authenticated copy of the passport/travel-restriction order with the U.S. Department of State Office of Children’s Issues and the relevant foreign consulate or embassy, and to give the court “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.” Outside a chapter 52 proceeding, no Pennsylvania statute or statewide form allocates the child’s passport – it must be addressed in the custody order itself.

What catches people out in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has no mileage trigger. “Relocation” under 23 Pa.C.S. § 5322(a) is any change of the child’s residence “which significantly impairs the ability of a nonrelocating party to exercise custodial rights.” A short move can trigger § 5337 and a long one may not; anyone quoting a Pennsylvania mile figure is inventing it.
Consent or court approval is required BEFORE the move (§ 5337(b)) – notice alone is not enough, unlike a pure notice state.
Missing the 30-day objection window is fatal, not merely inconvenient: § 5337(d)(3) presumes consent, and § 5337(d)(4) says that if the non-objecting party later petitions for review of custody, “the court shall not accept testimony challenging the relocation.”
Even where nobody objects, the relocating party must still file the § 5337(e) package – affidavit of notice, the signed certified-mail return receipt, the full notice sent, a petition to confirm relocation and a proposed order – BEFORE relocating.
Moving first does not create momentum: § 5337(l) – “If a party relocates with the child prior to a full expedited hearing, the court shall not confer any presumption in favor of the relocation.”
Both sides carry a burden. § 5337(i)(2) puts the integrity of MOTIVES in issue for the objecting party too, not just the mover.
Section 5337(a) was amended by Act 40 of October 27, 2025 to state expressly that the section applies to relocations subject to 51 Pa.C.S. Ch. 46 (deployed parents). Pre-2026 write-ups will not reflect this.
Pennsylvania IS a UCAPA state (23 Pa.C.S. ch. 52, Act 5 of 2014) – so itinerary, travel-document and passport-surrender orders are available by statute, but only on a finding of credible risk of abduction; they are not default terms in an ordinary custody order.
There is no statewide standard custody schedule, so the default vacation, notice and travel terms in any given Pennsylvania case come from the county’s local rules and the order itself, not from anything statewide.

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.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/23/… – the legacy PA General Assembly statute host returns HTTP 403 to this environment. Statute text was read instead from the current site, http://www.palegis.us, whose statute text lives in an iframe at /statutes/consolidated/view-statute?…&iFrame=true.

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.

Every state

ALAlabamaAKAlaskaAZArizonaARArkansasCACaliforniaCOColoradoCTConnecticutDEDelawareFLFloridaGAGeorgiaHIHawaiiIDIdahoILIllinoisINIndianaIAIowaKSKansasKYKentuckyLALouisianaMEMaineMDMarylandMAMassachusettsMIMichiganMNMinnesotaMSMississippiMOMissouriMTMontanaNENebraskaNVNevadaNHNew HampshireNJNew JerseyNMNew MexicoNYNew YorkNCNorth CarolinaNDNorth DakotaOHOhioOKOklahomaOROregonPAPennsylvaniaRIRhode IslandSCSouth CarolinaSDSouth DakotaTNTennesseeTXTexasUTUtahVTVermontVAVirginiaWAWashingtonWVWest VirginiaWIWisconsinWYWyoming
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.