How to Complete and File a Tennessee Child Custody Petition Form

To open a child custody case in Tennessee, you file a child custody petition form along with a sworn UCCJEA affidavit about the child’s residential history and a proposed Permanent Parenting Plan. Married parents file in Circuit or Chancery Court as part of a divorce or legal separation. Unmarried parents file in the Juvenile Court of the county where the child lives. At least one parent must have lived in Tennessee for six months before filing.

Which Court and Which Petition You Need

The court depends on your marital status. Divorcing or separating parents handle custody inside the Circuit or Chancery Court divorce case. Parents who were never married file a standalone custody petition in Juvenile Court in the child’s county of residence.

Marital status also changes your starting position. Married parents share equal legal rights to the child without any court order. When a child is born to unmarried parents and no court order identifies the father, Tennessee law gives the mother automatic legal and physical custody. An unmarried father has no enforceable custody or visitation rights until a court establishes parentage and enters a custody order, even if his name appears on the birth certificate through a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Parentage signed at the hospital. That acknowledgment puts his name on the certificate but does not create visitation rights on its own.

You also need the right kind of petition. A petition to establish custody applies when no prior court order governs the child’s care. A petition to modify applies when a prior order exists and circumstances have changed enough to justify a new arrangement. Tennessee courts retain ongoing authority to adjust custody orders as the situation demands.¹

Where To Get the Forms

Tennessee does not publish a single statewide packet that covers every court. The Permanent Parenting Plan and Temporary Parenting Plan are standardized statewide and available on the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts website.² The petition itself usually comes from the local court clerk. Many counties publish their own petition packets with instructions; Shelby County’s Juvenile Court, for example, has a pro se petition packet.³ Call or visit the clerk’s office in the county where you plan to file and ask for the custody petition packet that fits your situation.

The AOC site also hosts related forms you may end up needing, including a motion for reduced-fee mediation, an education order, and a show-cause order.²

The UCCJEA Affidavit

Every party in a Tennessee custody case must file a sworn statement under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, usually attached to the initial petition. It tells the court whether Tennessee is the right state to decide the case and prevents conflicting orders from courts in different states.⁴

Under oath and to the extent you can reasonably determine, the affidavit asks for:

The child’s current address.
Every address where the child has lived during the past five years.
The names and current addresses of every person the child lived with during that five-year period.
Any other custody, visitation, domestic violence, protective order, termination of parental rights, or adoption proceeding involving the child, with court, case number, and nature of the case.
The names and addresses of anyone not already a party who has physical custody of the child or claims custody or visitation rights.

Get these details right. If another state has a stronger jurisdictional claim and you did not disclose it, the court can dismiss your case or stay it until jurisdiction is sorted out.⁴

Completing the Permanent Parenting Plan

Every final custody order in Tennessee must include a Permanent Parenting Plan on the standardized AOC form that every court in the state uses.² The plan does more than name a custodial parent. It maps out the child’s year and spells out how the parents will share responsibilities. An incomplete or improperly formatted plan will not be approved, so filling it out carefully saves time later.

Residential Schedule

The residential schedule is the core of the plan. It sets which parent the child lives with on a day-by-day basis: the regular weekly schedule, holiday rotations, school breaks, and summer arrangements. The schedule has to be realistic given the child’s school calendar and each parent’s work situation.⁵ Holidays typically alternate between parents in even and odd years.

Decision-Making Authority

The form asks you to assign decision-making responsibility for four areas: education, healthcare, extracurricular activities, and religious upbringing. For each, you indicate whether the parents decide together or one parent has final authority.⁵ Joint decision-making sounds cooperative but can stall if the parents struggle to agree. The plan must also include a dispute-resolution process, typically mediation, that parents commit to before returning to court.

Child Support Worksheet

Child support ties directly to the parenting plan because the amount depends on each parent’s income and the number of days the child spends with each parent. Tennessee’s Child Support Guidelines provide a worksheet that combines both parents’ adjusted gross incomes with the residential schedule to calculate the obligation.⁶ The Department of Human Services offers an Excel-based calculator that automates most of the math.⁷ You enter each parent’s monthly gross income, subtract permitted deductions, and the worksheet produces a support figure. Both parents must submit verified income statements with the filing.

Filing the Petition

Once the petition, UCCJEA affidavit, and parenting plan are ready, take the package to the court clerk’s office. Some counties also accept filings by mail.³ The clerk stamps your documents, assigns a case number, and issues a summons for the other parent.

Filing Fees

Fees vary by county and case type. For reference, Davidson County’s 2026 schedule charges $309.50 for a divorce with minor children (plus $52 for sheriff service), $159.50 for paternity and other domestic relations matters, and $100 for modification or contempt petitions on existing cases.⁸ Shelby County Juvenile Court charges $100 for custody and visitation petitions.³ Confirm the exact amount with your local clerk before you go.

If you cannot afford the fees, file a Uniform Civil Affidavit of Indigency under Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 29. Someone who meets the Legal Services Corporation’s poverty guidelines is presumed eligible, and courts also have discretion to waive fees for anyone who can show financial hardship beyond those thresholds.

Serving the Other Parent

The other parent has to receive formal notice before the court can act. In Circuit and Chancery Court, service follows the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure; a copy of the summons and petition is typically delivered in person by the sheriff or a private process server.⁹ In Juvenile Court, any person at least 18 years old who is not a party to the case can make service, and service must generally happen at least three days before the hearing.¹⁰

If the other parent will cooperate, a waiver of service saves time and money. Under Rule 4.07, you mail the other parent a written notice, a copy of the complaint, and a waiver form with a prepaid return envelope. The other parent has at least 30 days to sign and return the waiver. Once filed, the case proceeds as though formal service had occurred, and a defendant who returns a waiver gets 60 days from the date the request was sent to file an answer.¹¹

If you cannot locate the other parent after reasonable effort and have no mailing address, the court can authorize service by publication in a local newspaper.

Temporary and Emergency Orders

A custody case can take months. If the child’s living situation needs structure now, ask the court for a temporary parenting plan. Tennessee law requires any temporary custody order to include a plan that meets the same basic requirements as a permanent plan: a residential schedule, decision-making provisions, and child support terms.¹²

If the parents cannot agree on a temporary plan, either side can ask for mediation or an expedited hearing. Each parent submits a proposed temporary plan, a verified income statement, and a sworn statement that the proposal is made in good faith and serves the child’s best interest. If only one parent files a compliant proposal, that parent can ask the court to adopt it by default, provided the judge finds it meets the child’s needs.¹²

Where domestic abuse or an immediate threat to the child is involved, a parent can seek an ex parte order of protection. A judge can issue this order without notice to the other parent when there is good cause and an immediate, present danger, typically shown by evidence of threats, physical harm, or attempted injury.¹³ The order can cover the petitioning parent and any children. A full hearing follows within a short period, giving the other parent an opportunity to respond.

What Happens After Filing

Mediation

Tennessee courts can order parents in a custody dispute to participate in mediation under Supreme Court Rule 31 before setting a contested hearing. Either parent can request mediation, or the judge can order it.¹⁴ An agreement reached in mediation is drafted into a consent order for the judge to review and sign. Mediation is not appropriate in every case; a party can move to vacate a mediation order if the case is unlikely to benefit from it, and the permanent parenting plan statute excludes mediation in cases involving certain domestic violence restrictions.⁵

Parent Education Seminar

When a permanent parenting plan is at stake, each parent must attend a parent education seminar about how separation and custody disputes affect children, required by T.C.A. § 36-6-408.¹⁵ The program is educational rather than therapeutic, and courts can order it to last up to four hours total.¹ Skipping it is not minor; a judge may treat refusal as a lack of good-faith participation in the proceedings.¹⁶

What the Judge Will Weigh

If the case goes to a contested hearing, the judge decides custody on the child’s best interest, not the parents’ preferences. Tennessee law lists specific factors the court must consider, including the strength of the child’s existing relationship with each parent, each parent’s ability to provide for the child’s basic needs, each parent’s willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other parent, the child’s need for stability and continuity, each parent’s fitness, the child’s ties to siblings and community, and any evidence of physical or emotional abuse.¹⁶ The parent who has been the primary caregiver gets particular attention, but no single factor is automatically decisive. If a contested hearing is likely, gather evidence tied to these factors: school records, medical records, communication logs showing your involvement, and testimony from people who have observed your parenting firsthand.

1
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 36-6-101 – Decree for Custody and Support of Child
2
Tennessee Courts. Parenting Plan Forms
3
Shelby County Tennessee. Filing Pro Se Petition Instructions
4
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 36-6-224 – Information in First Pleading or Affidavit
5
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 36-6-404 – Permanent Parenting Plan
6
Tennessee Department of Human Services. Child Support Guidelines
7
Tennessee Department of Human Services. Child Support Calculator
8
Davidson County Circuit Court Clerk. Circuit Court Filing Fees (Effective January 1, 2026)
9
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 4.04 – Service Upon Defendants Within the State
10
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Tennessee Rules of Juvenile Practice and Procedure Rule 103 – Service of Process and Summons
11
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Rule 4.07 – Waiver of Service; Duty To Save Costs of Service
12
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 36-6-403 – Temporary Parenting Plan
13
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 36-3-605 – Ex Parte Protection Order
14
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. Rule 31 – Alternative Dispute Resolution – Mediation
15
Shelby County Tennessee. Parent Educational Seminars
16
Justia Law. Tennessee Code 36-6-106 – Child Custody