How to Complete and File the Washington State Parenting Plan (FL All Family 140)

Washington’s parenting plan form, FL All Family 140, is the court document parents complete to set out where their children will live and how major decisions will be made after a divorce, legal separation, or parentage case. You download it free from the Washington Courts website, complete the main form together with at least one required schedule attachment, and file it with the Superior Court Clerk in the county where your case is pending. A judge will not finalize a case involving children without a signed plan built on this form.

Where To Download the Form

The form lives on the Washington Courts forms page at courts.wa.gov under the Family Law or Parentage category.¹ The main FL All Family 140 is a shell. It covers identifying information, decision-making, and dispute resolution, but the residential schedule itself lives in one of three attachments, and the form states that a court should not sign a parenting plan without at least one of them.²

Attachment R (Residential Schedule) is the standard attachment for most families. It contains the school-year schedule, summer schedule, holidays, and transportation logistics.
Attachment A (Limitations) is required when the plan restricts a parent’s time or decision-making under RCW 26.09.191 because of domestic violence, child abuse, neglect, or substance abuse.
Attachment B is required when restrictions stem from a sexual offense conviction or a finding of child sexual abuse under RCW 26.09.192.

Parents without safety concerns will complete Attachment R. If safety concerns exist, don’t leave them out hoping the court won’t notice; the other parent’s attorney will raise them, and failing to address them yourself looks worse.

Companion Forms You’ll Need

The parenting plan doesn’t stand alone. To finalize the case, expect to prepare a Financial Declaration (FL All Family 131), a Child Support Order (FL All Family 130), the Washington State Child Support Schedule Worksheets, and a final order form such as FL Parentage 333 or the equivalent dissolution order for your case type.¹ Gather these before you start on the parenting plan. Some answers in the plan, particularly the residential schedule, feed directly into how child support is calculated.

Completing the Residential Schedule

Attachment R is where you spell out exactly where your children will be on every day of the year. The schedule has three layers: the school-year routine, the summer schedule, and a holiday calendar that overrides both.

School-Year and Summer Schedules

For the school-year schedule, you define which parent has the children on each day of the week. Be specific. The court wants actual days and transition times, not vague language like “every other weekend.” If your children are not yet school-age, a separate section of Attachment R addresses their schedule.

The summer schedule typically allows longer, uninterrupted blocks of time with the non-primary parent. Many plans designate specific weeks for each parent and require written notice, often 30 to 60 days in advance, for summer vacation planning.

Holiday Calendar

The holiday schedule overrides the regular weekly routine. Attachment R includes fields for Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, July Fourth, Labor Day, and each parent’s birthday and the children’s birthdays. For each holiday, you pick one of two approaches: alternating years (Parent A gets Thanksgiving in even years, Parent B in odd years) or splitting the holiday itself (morning with one parent, evening with the other). The form also asks which schedule controls when holidays conflict with the regular rotation or with each other.

Transportation and Exchanges

Every transition between households needs a plan. The form asks for the specific exchange location, such as a school, a public place like a library or police station, or a midpoint between homes, along with which parent is responsible for driving. Set exact drop-off and pick-up times. If you anticipate using a supervised exchange site due to high conflict, identify that location here. Splitting transportation costs is common when parents live far apart, and the plan should state the arrangement explicitly so neither side can later claim confusion.

Right of First Refusal

Many Washington parenting plans include a right of first refusal clause, though the form does not require one. Under this provision, before hiring a babysitter or asking a relative to watch the children during your scheduled time, you first offer the other parent the chance to take them. If you include this clause, define the details: how many hours of absence trigger it, how much advance notice is required, and whether routine work-related childcare like after-school programs is exempt. Vague language creates more fights than it prevents. Four hours is a common minimum threshold.

Decision-Making Authority

The plan must allocate decision-making for three categories: education, healthcare, and religious upbringing. Under RCW 26.09.187, you designate each as either joint (both parents decide together) or sole (one parent decides).³ You can mix and match, for example joint authority on education but sole authority to one parent on healthcare. Joint decision-making only works when parents can actually communicate and compromise. If every school-related email devolves into a battle, a judge is unlikely to order joint authority on education.

These designations cover major decisions, not everyday choices. The parent who has the child on a given day handles routine matters like meals, bedtime, and homework without needing the other parent’s sign-off. “Healthcare” here means non-emergency medical decisions such as braces, therapy, or elective procedures. Emergency care never requires advance agreement from the other parent.

Dispute Resolution

RCW 26.09.184 requires every parenting plan to include a process for handling future disagreements about the plan’s terms or major decisions.⁴ The form gives you three main options: mediation (a neutral third party helps you reach agreement), arbitration (a neutral third party makes a binding decision), or counseling. Most parents choose mediation as a first step before going back to court, since it costs far less than filing a new motion.

The plan should specify who pays for dispute resolution. Splitting the cost proportionally based on income is a common approach; a 50/50 split works when incomes are roughly equal, while unequal incomes might justify a 60/40 or 70/30 split.

When Safety Concerns Apply

When a parent has a history of domestic violence, child abuse, neglect, or substance abuse, Washington law requires the plan to include specific restrictions. Under RCW 26.09.191, the court must limit a parent’s residential time if it finds that parent engaged in acts of domestic violence, physical or sexual abuse of a child, a pattern of emotional abuse, neglect, or substance abuse that could harm the child. These restrictions can range from supervised visitation to no contact.⁵

The same statute bars joint decision-making and any dispute resolution method that puts both parents in the same physical or virtual space when a domestic violence history exists. A rebuttable presumption of sole decision-making applies in those cases. If domestic violence has been found, the only dispute resolution option is returning to court.⁵

Where these concerns apply, complete Attachment A in place of or in addition to Attachment R. Attachment A has sections for identifying the specific conduct, the restrictions being imposed, and any evaluation or treatment the restricted parent must complete before gaining more time. Cases involving a sexual offense against a child require Attachment B, which addresses sexually violent predators, criminal convictions, and situations where a parent lives with someone who has sexually abused a child.²

If You and the Other Parent Can’t Agree

If parents cannot agree on terms, the judge decides by applying the factors in RCW 26.09.187. Washington law gives the most weight to the strength, nature, and stability of the child’s relationship with each parent, not which parent earns more or who filed first. Other factors include each parent’s history of performing daily parenting functions, the child’s emotional and developmental needs, stability of the child’s relationships with siblings and community, prior agreements between the parents, a mature child’s reasoned preferences, and each parent’s work schedule.³ These factors apply only when the safety limitations of RCW 26.09.191 and 26.09.192 do not already dictate the outcome.

Filing With the Court

File the completed FL All Family 140 and its attachments with the Superior Court Clerk in the county where your case is pending. The base filing fee for a civil action in Washington is $200 under RCW 36.18.020, but domestic relations cases carry additional surcharges that push the total higher, often into the mid-$300 range depending on the county.⁶ Call your local clerk’s office or check its website for the exact total. If you are filing a proposed parenting plan within an already-open case rather than initiating a new one, you typically do not pay a separate filing fee for the plan itself.

If you cannot afford the fee, request a waiver by filing a Motion and Declaration for Waiver of Civil Fees and Surcharges under General Rule 34 (form WPF GR 34.0100). You will need to disclose your income, expenses, and assets. The court grants waivers to people whose income falls below a threshold tied to the federal poverty guidelines.

Serving the Other Parent

After filing, you must formally deliver the documents to the other parent through service of process under Washington Superior Court Civil Rule 4. The default method is personal service: someone who is at least eighteen years old and is not a party to the case physically hands the papers to the other parent.⁷ This can be a friend, a relative, or a professional process server. The other parent then has 20 days to respond if served within Washington, or 60 days if served out of state.⁸

If personal service is impossible because the other parent is avoiding you or cannot be found, you can ask the court for permission to serve by mail or by publication. Service by mail requires sending two copies to each address in the court order: one by certified mail with return receipt and one by regular first-class mail, and the response deadline extends to 90 days. Service by publication means running a legal notice in an approved newspaper once a week for six consecutive weeks, giving the other parent 60 days from the first publication to respond.⁸ Both alternatives require a court order before you use them.

After service is complete, file proof of service with the clerk. The court may then issue temporary orders to govern parenting time while the case proceeds. A final hearing takes place once both sides have had a chance to respond, negotiate, and if necessary present evidence. The judge signs the parenting plan at that hearing, making it an enforceable court order.

After the Plan Is Signed

A signed parenting plan is a court order. Under RCW 26.09.160, if a parent willfully fails to follow the residential schedule, the other parent can file a motion for contempt. If the court finds the violation was in bad faith, it must order makeup time equal to the time missed, payment of the other parent’s attorney fees and costs, and a civil penalty of at least $100.⁹ One rule catches parents off guard: you cannot withhold child support because the other parent is violating the parenting plan, and you cannot withhold parenting time because the other parent is not paying support. Washington treats those as separate obligations, and trading one for the other is itself bad faith under the statute.

Modifying the plan later requires clearing a high bar. Under RCW 26.09.260, you must show a substantial change in circumstances since the plan was entered and that the modification serves the child’s best interests, and the court will only alter the residential schedule if the parents agree, the child has been integrated into the other parent’s home with consent, the current environment is detrimental to the child, or the noncomplying parent has been held in contempt at least twice in three years or convicted of custodial interference.¹⁰ Minor adjustments that do not change the child’s primary residence and do not exceed 24 full days per calendar year face a lower threshold.

Two Things the Plan Alone Doesn’t Cover

International Travel and Passports

Even if your parenting plan allows international travel, both parents must still consent before a child under sixteen can get a passport. Federal law requires both parents to appear in person with the child for a minor’s passport application using Form DS-11. If one parent cannot attend, that parent must complete Form DS-3053, a notarized Statement of Consent.¹¹ Without it, the passport application will be denied regardless of what the parenting plan says. Addressing travel in the plan itself, including advance notice, itineraries, and (in high-risk situations) surrender of passports between trips, can prevent problems later.

Tax Claims

The residential schedule directly affects which parent claims the children on federal taxes. Under 26 U.S.C. § 152, the IRS treats the “custodial parent” as the one with whom the child lives for the greater portion of the calendar year.¹² The IRS does not care what the plan calls each parent or whether you have “joint custody”; it counts overnights. If overnights are exactly equal, the tiebreaker goes to the parent with the higher adjusted gross income.

The custodial parent can release the dependency claim for a specific year by signing IRS Form 8332, which the noncustodial parent attaches to their tax return.¹³ A parenting plan that says “Father claims the child in even years” is not enough by itself; the IRS will reject the noncustodial parent’s claim without a signed Form 8332. If you intend to alternate the dependency claim, build the Form 8332 requirement into the plan so both parents know the paperwork must actually be completed each year.

1
Washington Courts. Court Forms – Parentage (Unmarried Parents)
2
Washington State Courts. Parenting Plan (FL All Family 140)
3
Washington State Legislature. RCW 26.09.187 – Criteria for Establishing Permanent Parenting Plan
4
Washington State Legislature. RCW 26.09.184 – Permanent Parenting Plan
5
Washington State Legislature. RCW 26.09.191 – Mandatory and Discretionary Limitations in Parenting Plans
6
Washington State Legislature. RCW 36.18.020
7
Washington Courts. Washington Superior Court Civil Rules – CR 4 Process
8
Pierce County. Personal Service and Court Ordered Options: Mail and Publication
9
Washington State Legislature. RCW 26.09.160
10
Washington State Legislature. RCW 26.09.260
11
U.S. Embassy & Consulates. DS-11 / DS-3053 – Wizard Results
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 152 – Dependent Defined
13
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8332, Release/Revocation of Release of Claim to Exemption for Child by Custodial Parent