Montana Vaccine Laws: Exemptions and HB 702 Protections

Montana vaccine laws run on two separate tracks. Children must be immunized against a specific list of diseases to attend school or licensed childcare, with medical and religious exemptions available. Adults, meanwhile, are protected from discrimination based on vaccination status at work and in places of public accommodation under a 2021 law known as HB 702. The two frameworks were written to coexist, and HB 702 explicitly leaves the school rules in place.

What Shots Montana Requires for School and Childcare

No Montana school may allow a student to attend without proof of immunization against varicella (chickenpox), diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, rubella, mumps, and measles. Children under five entering preschool also need the Haemophilus influenza type B vaccine.¹

Licensed and registered childcare programs require more. On top of the K-12 list, they require hepatitis B, pneumococcal disease, and Haemophilus influenza type B on an age-graded schedule that starts as early as three months old. The number of doses required climbs at each age milestone, and the facility must have the documentation on file before the child begins attending.²

The requirements continue past high school for most students. Colleges and universities cannot enroll a student born after December 31, 1956 without proof of immunization against rubella and measles. Postsecondary schools may also impose stricter requirements than the state minimum, subject to the same exemptions that apply to younger students.¹ Students who don’t comply typically face a registration hold.

How to Qualify for an Exemption

Medical Exemption

A student can skip some or all required vaccines if a health care provider signs a written statement that the vaccine is medically inappropriate for that person.³ For childcare facilities, the document must identify the specific vaccine that is contraindicated, how long the contraindication lasts, and the medical reason. If the provider deems it necessary, the paperwork also has to include serological lab results from a CLIA-approved lab showing immunity.⁴

A medical exemption lives in the student’s immunization file. It does not, however, protect against being sent home during an outbreak: a local health officer or DPHHS can still exclude an exempt student if they determine the student is at risk of catching or spreading the disease.³

Religious Exemption

A parent, guardian, or adult student can claim a religious exemption by filing a notarized affidavit stating that immunization conflicts with the signer’s religious beliefs. The affidavit uses a department-prescribed form, HES 113, and must be filed with the school before attendance begins each school year.⁵ You do not need to belong to any organized religion. Personal religious conviction is enough.³

Notarization costs up to $10 in Montana.⁶ The original stays in the student’s permanent record. Religious exemptions, like medical ones, don’t shield a student from being excluded during an outbreak.

Filing a false religious exemption affidavit is a criminal matter. The statute specifically subjects false claims to the penalty for false swearing under Montana Code 45-7-202.³

Conditional Enrollment

Montana does not recognize a philosophical or personal-belief exemption. It does allow conditional enrollment for students who are in the middle of completing a required vaccination series, letting them attend while they finish the remaining doses on schedule.¹

Workplace Protections Under HB 702

Montana is unusual among states on workplace vaccination policy. House Bill 702, passed in 2021 and codified as Section 49-2-312 of the Montana Human Rights Act, makes it unlawful for employers, government agencies, and public accommodations to discriminate against anyone based on vaccination status or possession of an immunity passport. Employers cannot require vaccination as a condition of hiring, fire or demote workers for being unvaccinated, or segregate employees by vaccination status (for example, keeping unvaccinated workers remote while vaccinated staff come to the office).⁷

The law reaches past the employment context in one respect: no individual in Montana may be required to receive any vaccine authorized under an emergency use authorization or any vaccine still in safety trials. The Montana Supreme Court upheld both provisions in its 2025 decision in Netzer v. State, rejecting constitutional challenges to HB 702.⁸

HB 702 does not override school or childcare vaccination rules. The statute explicitly carves out the K-12 requirements in Title 20, Chapter 5, Part 4, and the childcare requirements in Title 52, Chapter 2, Part 7.⁷ The adult-side protection and the child-side mandate were designed to live side by side.

The Healthcare Worker Exception

HB 702’s protections hit a wall at federally funded healthcare facilities. In 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a rule requiring COVID-19 vaccination for virtually all staff at participating facilities, including employees, contractors, volunteers, and trainees with any contact with patients or other staff. The rule was written to preempt inconsistent state laws.⁹

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the CMS mandate in Biden v. Missouri in January 2022, concluding that the Secretary of Health and Human Services had longstanding statutory authority to impose health and safety conditions on facilities receiving federal funding.¹⁰ For Montana healthcare workers at facilities that take Medicare or Medicaid, the federal rule controls over HB 702, though the CMS rule itself allows medical and religious exemptions. Workers at facilities that do not participate in those programs remain covered by HB 702.

Filing a Discrimination Complaint

If you believe an employer or public accommodation discriminated against you based on vaccination status, you file with the Montana Human Rights Bureau, which handles claims under the Human Rights Act. The process starts with a phone call. An investigator conducts a preliminary interview and, if the facts suggest possible discrimination, drafts a formal complaint for you to sign.¹¹

You have 180 days from the alleged discriminatory action to file. Miss the window and you lose the right to bring the claim. Once filed, the employer is notified within 10 days, and the bureau then has 180 days to investigate. Both sides can agree to extend the timeline by up to 45 days for conciliation.¹¹

Available remedies include back pay and compensation for other losses, reinstatement or a job offer, changes to the employer’s policies, and other corrective relief. A hearing officer can award monetary damages and additional relief if the case proceeds to a public hearing.¹¹

Penalties on Both Sides

For families, the main risk of bending the rules is criminal. The religious exemption affidavit is signed under oath, and filing a false one triggers the false swearing statute at Montana Code 45-7-202, a criminal offense built directly into the exemption law.³ Submitting fabricated vaccination records creates similar exposure. Short of fraud, a child without records or a valid exemption is simply excluded from attendance until the paperwork is in order.

For employers, HB 702 violations run through the Montana Human Rights Act. Civil liability can include monetary damages, mandatory policy changes, and other equitable relief ordered through the complaint process. Because vaccination status sits alongside race, sex, and religion as a protected category under Montana’s human rights framework, the same enforcement tools and remedies apply.⁷

1
Montana State Legislature. Montana Code 20-5-403 – Immunization Required
2
Cornell Law School. Mont. Admin. r. 37.96.802 – Minimum Child Immunization Requirements
3
Montana State Legislature. Montana Code 20-5-405 – Exemptions – Limitations on Agency Actions
4
Legal Information Institute. Mont. Admin. r. 37.96.805 – Exemptions From Vaccination
5
Cornell Law School. Mont. Admin. r. 37.114.716 – Religious Exemption
6
Montana Secretary of State. Notary Help Center
7
Montana Department of Labor and Industry. HB 702 Enrolled Bill – Prohibiting Discrimination Based on Vaccination Status
8
Justia. Netzer v. State – Montana Supreme Court
9
Federal Register. Medicare and Medicaid Programs – Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination
10
Supreme Court of the United States. Biden v. Missouri Per Curiam Opinion
11
Montana Department of Labor and Industry. Filing a Complaint