How to File for Child Custody in South Dakota: Forms and Service

To file for child custody in South Dakota, you file a summons and complaint with the Clerk of Courts in the county where you or the child lives, serve the other parent along with the court’s standard visitation guidelines, and then complete a parenting education course before the judge will issue a final order. The steps are straightforward, but South Dakota has a few requirements — a home-state jurisdiction rule, mandatory parenting education, and court-ordered mediation in most contested cases — that trip people up if they skip ahead to the forms.

Confirm the Court Can Hear Your Case

South Dakota follows the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. The court can take your case only if South Dakota is the child’s “home state,” meaning the child has lived here with a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before filing.¹ If the child recently moved out of state but you still live here, South Dakota keeps jurisdiction for six months after the child left.²

A South Dakota court can also take emergency jurisdiction when a child is physically present in the state and has been abandoned or faces abuse or mistreatment. That is a temporary measure only, lasting until the child’s home-state court takes over.¹

Make Sure You Have Standing to File

Either parent can file, and married parents start on equal footing with no automatic preference for one over the other.³ Guardians and others with a legitimate interest in the child can also bring a custody action.

If you are an unmarried father, paternity has to be established before you have legal standing to pursue custody. The quickest route is a signed affidavit of paternity, which both parents can complete at the hospital at birth. If that window has closed, you can file a civil paternity action; the court can order genetic testing and then enter custody and support orders in the same case.⁴ Without a legal determination of paternity, an unmarried father has no enforceable right to parenting time.

Gather Your Information Before You Fill Out Forms

Pull the following together before you sit down with the paperwork:

Full names, addresses, and dates of birth for both parents and all minor children, plus the children’s birth certificates.
Employment details, income records, and financial statements for both parents. A custody order usually comes with child support, and the court needs this information to run the numbers.
Health insurance information for everyone in the family.
Any prior custody arrangements, divorce decrees, or protection orders.
School records, medical records, and anything else that documents the child’s situation and your involvement as a parent.

Complete the Required Forms

The South Dakota Unified Judicial System publishes custody forms online, and you can also pick them up at your local Clerk of Courts office.⁵ Print single-sided and complete everything in black ink.⁶ The two core documents are:

Summons (UJS-181), which notifies the other parent that a custody action has been filed and that they must respond.
Complaint (UJS-182), your actual petition, which spells out the custody arrangement you want and any request for child support.

There is one easy-to-miss requirement. When you file the summons and complaint, you also file and serve a copy of the court’s standard visitation guidelines. Those guidelines automatically become a temporary court order once the other parent is served. If either parent wants a different schedule, they can object and the court will set a hearing within 30 days.⁷

If the parents live in different states, the court needs information about where the child has lived and about any custody proceedings filed elsewhere so it can confirm UCCJEA jurisdiction. Ask the Clerk of Courts whether your county requires a separate jurisdictional affidavit.

In your complaint, be specific about what you’re asking for. South Dakota distinguishes legal custody (authority over major decisions like education, medical care, and religious instruction) from physical custody (where the child lives and how time is divided). The court can award either or both jointly, and it can split specific decision-making between the parents.⁸

File at the Clerk of Courts

File your completed forms at the Clerk of Courts in the county where you or the child lives. Bring the originals and any copies the clerk asks for. The clerk assigns a case number and stamps your copies.

Fees depend on the type of case. A modification of an existing custody order carries a $50 filing fee.⁹ For a new custody action, check the UJS Schedule of Court Costs or call the Clerk of Courts for the current amount.¹⁰ If you can’t afford the fee, the court can waive both the filing fee and service costs. File a motion with a supporting affidavit explaining your finances.¹¹

Serve the Other Parent

Filing isn’t the end. You now have to formally deliver copies of the court documents to the other parent through a process called service, and you cannot do it yourself. The standard method is personal service: a sheriff’s deputy or a registered private process server physically hands the papers to the other parent.¹²

There is also a cooperative alternative. The Notice and Admission of Service form (UJS-183) lets the other parent voluntarily accept service by mail, but it only works if they sign and return the admission.¹³

Whoever serves the documents has to file proof of service with the court — usually an affidavit from the server or the signed admission form. Without proof of service on file, your case cannot move forward. Remember to serve the standard visitation guidelines along with the summons and complaint, since those guidelines take effect as a temporary order once service is complete.⁷

What Happens After You File and Serve

The Other Parent’s Response

Once served, the other parent has 30 days to file a written answer to the complaint.¹⁴ If they accepted service through the UJS-183 admission form, the 30-day clock runs from when they return the signed form.¹³ If no response comes in that window, you can ask the court for a default judgment.

Mandatory Parenting Education

Both parents must complete a court-approved parenting education course within 60 days of service. It isn’t optional, and the court will not issue a final custody order until both parents have finished the course. A judge can waive or delay the requirement for good cause, including when one parent defaults or when both parents completed an equivalent course within the past five years. The course requirement doesn’t apply in protection-order proceedings or in cases involving termination of parental rights.¹⁵

Court-Ordered Mediation

If custody is contested, the court must order mediation to help you work out a parenting plan, and it splits the cost between the parties. Mediation will not be ordered when one parent has a domestic abuse conviction, an assault conviction against a household member, or a documented history of domestic abuse. The court also won’t order it when mediation isn’t available locally or when the circumstances make it inappropriate.¹⁶

Temporary Custody While the Case Is Pending

Custody cases take months to resolve. In the interim, the standard visitation guidelines that attached to your filing give both parents a baseline schedule. If either parent objects, the court holds a hearing within 30 days.⁷ If the court sets a temporary order giving one parent less than substantially equal parenting time, it must build a schedule that maximizes each parent’s time consistent with the child’s welfare, and it must put specific written findings on the record. Whatever the temporary order says stays in place until the final order comes down.

Two Situations That Change the Filing

If one parent has been convicted of domestic abuse, convicted of assault against a household member, or has a documented history of domestic violence, South Dakota applies a rebuttable presumption that awarding custody to that parent is not in the child’s best interest. The abusive parent can try to overcome the presumption with evidence, but the burden sits with them, and a history of domestic abuse must be proven by “greater convincing force of the evidence,” a higher standard than the usual civil one.¹⁷ As noted above, that same history also keeps the court from ordering mediation.¹⁶

South Dakota has also adopted the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act. A court cannot hold a parent’s past or possible future military deployment against them when deciding the child’s best interest. The court can revisit custody if the returning parent or the child shows substantial changes affecting care, but deployment by itself is not grounds for changing an existing arrangement.¹⁸

1
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 26-5B – Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act
2
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 26-5B-201 – Initial Child-Custody Jurisdiction
3
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-4-45 – Child Custody Provisions
4
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-8 – Children Born Out of Wedlock
5
South Dakota Unified Judicial System. Child Custody Forms
6
South Dakota Unified Judicial System. Child Custody, Visitation and Support (Uncontested)
7
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-4A – Custody and Visitation Rights
8
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-5 – Parent and Child
9
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 16-2-29 – Fees Charged by Clerk of Courts
10
South Dakota Unified Judicial System. Schedule of Court Costs
11
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 16-2-29.2 – Waiver of Filing Fees and Service Costs
12
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 15-6-4(d) – Personal Service of Summons
13
South Dakota Unified Judicial System. UJS 183 Notice and Admission of Service of Summons and Complaints
14
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 15-6 – Rules of Civil Procedure
15
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-4A-32 – Parenting Education Course
16
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-4-56 – Court-Ordered Mediation in Custody Disputes
17
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-4-45.5 – Consideration of Domestic Abuse in Custody
18
South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Code 25-4B-107 – General Consideration of Deployment