How to File for Custody in Missouri: Petition, Parenting Plan, Form 14

To file for custody in Missouri, you start a civil case in the circuit court of the county where your child lives by filing a petition, a proposed parenting plan, and (if child support is involved) a Form 14 worksheet, paying the filing fee, and arranging to have the other parent formally served. Which petition you file depends on whether you are married to the other parent, and every filing is shaped by a 2023 state law that presumes roughly equal parenting time is best for the child.¹

First, Confirm Missouri Can Hear Your Case

Missouri follows the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. A Missouri court can make an initial custody determination only if Missouri is the child’s home state, meaning the child has lived here for at least six consecutive months before you file.² If the child recently moved here from another state, you may need to wait until the six-month mark or file in the state the child moved from.

Within Missouri, you file in the circuit court of the county where the child lives. If custody is part of a divorce, you may also file in the county where either spouse resides.

Choose the Right Petition

The form that opens your case depends on your relationship to the other parent.

Married parents file a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. That petition handles custody along with property division, support, and the other issues in a divorce.

Unmarried parents file a Petition to Establish Paternity, Custody, and Support when paternity has not already been legally established. Without an established legal father, the court cannot enter custody or support orders against him.

Both petitions are available from the circuit court clerk’s office and are often posted on the local court’s website.

What Goes in the Petition, and the Filing Fee

Whichever petition you use, be ready to provide:

Each parent’s full legal name, current address, and date of birth.
The same identifying information for the child.
The child’s residential history for the past several years, which the court uses to confirm jurisdiction under the UCCJEA.

A filing fee is due when you submit the petition. The amount varies by county, so call your local circuit clerk for the exact figure. If you cannot afford it, Missouri law lets you ask the court to waive the fee by filing as a poor person under the state’s in forma pauperis statute. The court reviews whether you are unable to pay all or part of the costs and can waive accordingly.³

Draft a Parenting Plan

A parenting plan is mandatory in every Missouri custody case. Parents must submit a proposed plan — jointly if they agree, separately if they do not — within 30 days after service of process or entry of appearance, whichever comes first.⁴ Many filers submit theirs with the initial petition.

The plan has to include a detailed physical custody schedule. That means weekday and weekend time, major holidays spelled out with an alternating rotation, school breaks and vacations, the child’s birthday, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. It also has to lay out pickup and dropoff logistics: specific times, locations, and who handles transportation.⁴

Beyond the schedule, the plan has to address the legal custody questions in detail:

How school decisions get made and how both parents will receive information from the school.
How medical providers are chosen, how emergencies are handled, and how parents will communicate about the child’s health.
How decisions about extracurricular activities get made, especially activities that fall during the other parent’s time.
How daycare and babysitting providers are chosen.
A specific procedure for resolving disagreements about the plan or decisions under it.

Vague language such as “parents will share holidays,” with no rotation attached, is the kind of ambiguity that sends people back to court. Judges read these plans carefully, and specificity signals that you have thought about what the child actually needs.

Complete Form 14 if Support Is Involved

Child support is almost always addressed alongside custody, and Missouri requires a Form 14 worksheet in any case involving support. Courts will not do the calculation for you.

Form 14 starts with each parent’s monthly gross income, adjusts for existing support obligations and court-ordered maintenance, and runs the combined figure through a chart to produce a base support number. That base is divided between the parents in proportion to their incomes. The worksheet then layers in daycare costs, the child’s health insurance premiums, uninsured medical expenses, and agreed-upon extraordinary expenses, and gives the paying parent credit for overnight visitation time. The final number is the presumed correct support amount, and the court adopts it unless a parent shows that applying it would be unjust or inappropriate.⁵

The worksheet and instructions are available from the circuit clerk’s office.

File With the Clerk and Serve the Other Parent

Once your petition, parenting plan, and (if applicable) Form 14 are ready, take them to the circuit clerk in the appropriate county. The clerk assigns a case number and issues a summons.

The other parent then has to be formally served with copies of the petition and summons. Missouri’s rules allow several methods. A sheriff, or any person over 18 who is not a party to the case, can hand-deliver the documents to the other parent personally or leave them at the other parent’s home with a household member over 15.⁴ The other parent can also sign a written acknowledgment of service, which waives the need for formal delivery.

A private process server generally costs between $40 and $150, depending on the company and how difficult the other parent is to find. If you cannot locate the other parent after reasonable effort, service by publication may be available, but it is a last resort that adds time and complexity.

What Happens After You File

The Other Parent’s Response

After being served, the other parent has 30 days to file a verified answer addressing each allegation in your petition and including their own proposed parenting plan if they disagree with yours.⁴ If no response comes within that window, the court can enter a default judgment, which generally means you get what you asked for.

Parent Education

Many Missouri circuits require both parents to complete a parent education course early in the case. The programs typically run about three hours and cover how separation affects children and strategies for cooperative co-parenting. Some circuits allow the course online. Ask your clerk about the local program and deadlines, because failing to finish can delay your case.

Temporary Orders

Custody cases can take months to resolve. Either parent can file a motion for temporary orders, sometimes called a pendente lite motion, asking the court to set a custody schedule, child support, and other arrangements that stay in effect while the case is pending. The court holds a hearing and makes a temporary ruling on the evidence presented. The orders bind both parents until the court issues a final judgment or modifies them, and the hearing often sets the tone for the rest of the case.

Guardian Ad Litem

In contested cases, the court has discretion to appoint a guardian ad litem, an attorney who independently represents the child’s interests. If either parent alleges child abuse or neglect, the appointment is mandatory. The guardian ad litem interviews both parents, the child when appropriate, and anyone else with relevant knowledge, and can call witnesses and present evidence at trial. The court sets a reasonable fee and can order either or both parents to pay it.⁶

How the Court Will Decide, and Why That Shapes Your Filing

Since August 2023, Missouri law includes a rebuttable presumption that equal or approximately equal parenting time serves the child’s best interests. A court can deviate only if one parent proves by a preponderance of the evidence that equal time is not in the child’s best interests, the parents have already agreed to a different arrangement, or the court finds a pattern of domestic violence.¹ If you are filing expecting sole physical custody without strong reasons, recalibrate before you draft your plan.

Every custody decision ultimately turns on the best interests of the child, measured against eight statutory factors:

Each parent’s wishes and proposed parenting plan.
The child’s need for frequent, continuing, and meaningful contact with both parents, and each parent’s willingness to support that contact.
Relationships between the child and parents, siblings, and others who significantly affect the child’s life.
Which parent is more likely to encourage the child’s ongoing relationship with the other parent.
How well the child is adjusted to the current home, school, and community.
The mental and physical health of everyone involved, including any history of abuse.
Whether either parent intends to relocate the child’s primary residence.
The child’s own preference, when expressed freely and without coaching.

The cooperation factor is the one that trips people up. Judges watch for which parent actually facilitates the child’s relationship with the other. Badmouthing, obstructing visitation, or making unilateral decisions that exclude the other parent can damage your case even when you are otherwise the stronger custodial candidate. The best plans read as if the parent writing them genuinely wants the child to have a strong relationship with the other.

Where the court finds a pattern of domestic violence, the equal-time presumption does not apply, and additional protections are available, including supervised visitation and sealing the victim’s address from court records.¹

1
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 452.375 – Custody
2
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 452.740 – Initial Child Custody Jurisdiction
3
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 514.040 – Plaintiff May Sue as Pauper, When
4
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 452.310 – Petition, Contents, Service, Parenting Plans
5
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 454.603 – Health Benefit Plan May Be Required
6
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 452.423 – Guardian Ad Litem Appointed, When, Duties, Fees