Colorado Child Custody Laws for Moving Out of State

If you share custody in Colorado and want to move out of state with your child, you need either the other parent’s written consent or a court order approving the relocation. The rule comes from C.R.S. 14-10-129, and it applies whether you have majority parenting time or a 50/50 schedule. It also reaches some long-distance moves inside Colorado, not just moves across the state line, whenever the move would substantially change the child’s geographic tie to the other parent. The parent who wants to move carries the burden of showing the court the move is in the child’s best interests.¹

Start With Written Notice to the Other Parent

Before anything gets filed in court, you have to give the other parent written notice of your plans “as soon as practicable.” The notice must state where you intend to live, why you are moving, and a proposed revised parenting time schedule.¹

The statute does not set a day count. Courts read “as soon as practicable” to mean as soon as you have a real plan, not a vague possibility. Holding the news until the last minute reads to a judge as hiding the ball, and it costs credibility you will need later. Put it in writing early and keep a copy.

File a Motion to Relocate

The formal step is filing Form JDF 1407, the Motion/Stipulation to Relocate Minor Children, with the district court that issued your existing custody orders. You can submit it through the state’s e-filing system or deliver it to the court clerk in person. There must already be a parenting time order in place; the relocation motion modifies that order rather than creating one from scratch.²

Write the motion to the best-interests factors the court will weigh. Include the proposed new address, a clear reason for the move, and specifics about the child’s prospective school and community. General statements about better opportunities do not persuade judges. A signed job offer that names the salary, enrollment paperwork from a specific school, or documentation of extended family in the new city does.³

If the other parent agrees to the move, both of you can sign the same JDF 1407 as a joint stipulation and file it together. The court still reviews the agreement to confirm it works for the child, but a stipulation avoids a contested hearing and the expense that comes with it.² An agreement is almost always the better outcome if it is achievable.

Propose a Realistic Long-Distance Parenting Plan

The single most important part of the motion is your proposed long-distance parenting plan. Judges want to see that you have thought seriously about keeping the other parent in the child’s life across the miles. The plan should spell out how the child will travel between homes and who pays for it, how holidays and school breaks will be divided, and how regular communication by phone or video will work in between visits. A plan that gives the non-moving parent generous summer and holiday blocks, scheduled video calls, and a workable travel arrangement reads very differently from one that treats the other parent as an afterthought.

What the Court Weighs

When parents cannot agree, the judge decides based on the child’s best interests, weighing all relevant circumstances including any history of domestic violence. The statute lists nine specific factors on top of that general inquiry:¹

The reasons the moving parent wants to relocate.
The reasons the other parent objects.
Each parent’s history and quality of relationship with the child.
Educational opportunities at the current and proposed locations.
Extended family in both places.
Any advantages to the child of staying with the primary caregiver.
The anticipated impact of the move on the child.
Whether a reasonable long-distance parenting schedule is possible.
Any other factor relevant to the child’s well-being.

The broader best-interests factors from C.R.S. 14-10-124 come in as well, which include the child’s own wishes when the child is mature enough to express a reasoned preference. A teenager’s considered view can carry real weight. A young child’s typically will not.

Concrete evidence beats generalities on every factor. Graduation rates, program offerings, and class sizes carry more weight than claims that the new school is better. Testimony from grandparents or close family at the destination carries more weight than a general statement that family lives nearby.

Serving the Motion and the Response Window

Once filed, the motion has to be formally served on the other parent by a third party such as a process server or a sheriff’s deputy. You cannot hand the papers over yourself. The other parent then has 21 days to file a written response consenting to the move or stating their objections.

If the response objects, the case becomes contested. The court may order mediation before setting a hearing. Relocation cases get priority on the court’s docket under Colorado law, but priority does not mean fast; a hearing date can still be several months out depending on the court’s caseload.¹

At the Hearing

You carry the burden at the hearing to show the move serves the child’s best interests. Both sides present evidence tied to the statutory factors. The moving parent might offer a job offer letter, school information, and testimony from family in the new city. The objecting parent might show the child’s roots in the current community, activities, and the strain long-distance travel would put on an established bond.

In contested cases the court can appoint a Child and Family Investigator to interview both parents, the child, teachers, and other people in the child’s life, and submit a written report with a recommendation. Judges give these reports real weight, and a CFI recommendation against relocation is hard to overcome.⁴

After the evidence and any CFI report, the judge issues a final order granting the move, denying it, or granting it with changes to the proposed parenting plan. When a move is approved, the court often restructures the schedule to give the non-moving parent extended summer and holiday time to make up for the weekly time that is lost.

Child Support and Travel Costs After the Move

A relocation that changes the parenting time split usually triggers a child support recalculation. Colorado’s formula factors in each parent’s income and the number of overnights each parent has, so when overnights shift, support can move in either direction.

Travel costs are a separate issue that surprises parents. Under C.R.S. 14-10-115, the cost of transporting the child between the parents’ homes must be split in proportion to each parent’s adjusted gross income.⁵ For a cross-country move, that can easily run into thousands of dollars a year in airfare. Courts also have discretion to deviate from the standard formula when the move creates a substantial financial burden for either parent. Address travel costs directly in your proposed plan rather than leaving the judge to work it out.

Domestic Violence and Safety

The court must consider domestic violence in every relocation decision. The judge decides, under the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, whether a parent has committed, engaged in a pattern of, or has a documented history of domestic violence, and the finding feeds into the best-interests analysis.¹

Parents leaving an abusive situation often worry about putting a new address into the court record. Colorado runs an Address Confidentiality Program through the Division of Central Services that provides qualifying survivors of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault with a substitute address for public records. If this applies to you, raise it with your attorney or a local domestic violence advocate before filing the relocation paperwork.

What Happens If You Move Without Permission

Taking the child and moving before you have a court order or written consent is one of the most damaging things a parent can do in a custody case. It violates the existing orders, and the other parent can file an emergency motion asking the court to order the child returned to Colorado right away. Judges routinely grant that relief.

The longer-term consequences are worse. A judge is likely to treat an unauthorized move as evidence of bad faith, may order you to pay the other side’s attorney fees, and may restructure custody. In many cases that means designating the parent who stayed in Colorado as the child’s primary residential parent, which is the opposite of what the move was meant to accomplish.

There are criminal consequences on top of the custody fallout. Under C.R.S. 18-3-304, violating a custody or parental responsibilities order with the intent to deprive the other parent of custody is a class 5 felony, carrying one to three years in prison and a fine of $1,000 to $100,000. Taking the child out of the country raises the charge to a class 4 felony, with two to six years in prison and a fine of $2,000 to $500,000.⁶ Prosecutors do bring these cases, particularly when a parent disappears across a state or international line.

Colorado also enforces the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. If a parent takes a child to a country that is party to the treaty, the left-behind parent can seek the child’s return through the U.S. State Department, and Colorado courts can enforce a Hague return order as if it were a domestic custody determination.⁷

1
Justia Law. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 14 Section 14-10-129
2
Colorado Judicial Branch. Relocating Minor Children
3
Colorado Judicial Branch. Colorado Judicial Branch Form JDF 1407 – Motion/Stipulation to Relocate Children
4
Colorado Judicial Branch. CJD 04-08 Concerning Child and Family Investigators
5
FindLaw. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 14 Section 14-10-115
6
Justia Law. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18 Section 18-3-304
7
Justia Law. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 14 Section 14-13-302