Travel, custody and relocation in Texas
The passport rules are federal and read the same everywhere. This page is the other layer — what Texas law and Texas’s own court forms say about taking your child on a trip, moving, and who holds the passport between journeys.
See a different stateTexas
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
Texas custody jurisdiction sits under Tex. Fam. Code ch. 152 (§§ 152.001 et seq.), “Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act”. The home-state definition is at Tex. Fam. Code § 152.102(7). 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
Texas has not enacted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act. Texas has not enacted the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act. What Texas has is its own, earlier and narrower act: Tex. Fam. Code ch. 153, subch. I, “Prevention of International Parental Child Abduction” (added by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 612, three years before the ULC promulgated UCAPA). It is limited to INTERNATIONAL abduction risk; it is not the uniform act and does not reach purely domestic abduction risk. Under § 153.501 the court, on its own motion or a party’s request, decides whether measures under § 153.503 are needed; § 153.502 lists the risk factors. § 153.503 measures include sole managing conservatorship to the other parent, supervised visitation, injunctions against removing the child from school, and passport and travel controls.
Moving, and how much warning you owe
Texas has no parental-relocation statute and no statutory notice period or mileage trigger. Instead, Tex. Fam. Code § 153.134(b)(1) requires that when the court appoints joint managing conservators it shall “designate the conservator who has the exclusive right to determine the primary residence of the child and: (A) establish, until modified by further order, a geographic area within which the conservator shall maintain the child’s primary residence; or (B) specify that the conservator may determine the child’s primary residence without regard to geographic location.” So in Texas the question is whether a particular order contains a geographic restriction (commonly a county and contiguous counties), and moving outside it requires modification under ch. 156, judged on best interest and material and substantial change. There is no statewide default distance and no statutory advance-notice period.
Governed by case law, not statute. No Texas relocation case is named here because none was verified on a Texas court site during this research.
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
Texas publishes a statewide parenting form or guideline — Standard Possession Order – Tex. Fam. Code ch. 153, subch. F (§§ 153.311-153.317), set out directly in statute. 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.
Texas puts the schedule in the statute itself. Summer/extended possession, parents 100 miles or less apart, § 153.312(b)(2): “if a possessory conservator: (A) gives the managing conservator written notice by April 1 of each year specifying an extended period or periods of summer possession, the possessory conservator shall have possession of the child for 30 days beginning not earlier than the day after the child’s school is dismissed for the summer vacation and ending not later than seven days before school resumes at the end of the summer vacation, to be exercised in not more than two separate periods of at least seven consecutive days each, with each period of possession beginning and ending at 6 p.m. on each applicable day; or (B) does not give the managing conservator written notice by April 1 of each year specifying an extended period or periods of summer possession, the possessory conservator shall have possession of the child for 30 consecutive days beginning at 6 p.m. on July 1 and ending at 6 p.m. on July 31.” The managing conservator’s counter-notices are due April 15 (§ 153.312(b)(3), (4)), and under § 153.312(c) the possessory conservator must give written notice of the pick-up/return location “not later than the 15th day before the Friday that begins that designated weekend.” Parents more than 100 miles apart, § 153.313(3): the same April 1 election, but for 42 days, defaulting to “42 consecutive days beginning at 6 p.m. on June 15 and ending at 6 p.m. on July 27”; § 153.313(1) allows one weekend per month of the possessory conservator’s choice on “14 days’ written or telephonic notice preceding a designated weekend,” elected “within 90 days after the parties begin to reside more than 100 miles apart.” Holidays are governed by § 153.314 without regard to distance: Christmas splits at noon December 28, Thanksgiving alternates, and the birthday visit is 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. § 153.317 lets a conservator elect school-dismissal/school-resumption beginning and ending times, and § 153.3171 applies those elections automatically when the possessory conservator lives not more than 50 miles from the child’s primary residence. § 153.311 preserves possession “at times mutually agreed to in advance by the parties.” The Standard Possession Order contains no itinerary requirement, no out-of-state or out-of-country travel clause and no passport provision – those come only from a § 153.503 abduction-prevention order or from bespoke language in the parties’ order.
Who holds the passport
Tex. Fam. Code § 153.503(4) – on a finding under § 153.501 that measures are necessary to protect a child from international abduction, the court may “order passport and travel controls, including controls that: (A) prohibit the parent and any person acting on the parent’s behalf from removing the child from this state or the United States; (B) require the parent to surrender any passport issued in the child’s name, including any passport issued in the name of both the parent and the child; and (C) prohibit the parent from applying on behalf of the child for a new or replacement passport or international travel visa.” § 153.503(5) additionally requires written notice of the restrictions to the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues and the relevant foreign consulate or embassy, with proof of receipt filed with the court. Note the threshold: these are available only on credible evidence of INTERNATIONAL abduction risk, not as a routine term.
What catches people out in Texas
Sources for this page
- Custody jurisdiction statute: https://tcss.legis.texas.gov/resources/FA/htm/FA.152.htm
- Abduction Prevention Act: https://tcss.legis.texas.gov/resources/FA/htm/FA.153.htm
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.uniformlaws.org – renders enactment data only via JavaScript; no JS renderer available in this environment
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.