Visitation Rights in Illinois: Parenting Plans and Enforcement

Visitation rights in Illinois are now governed by a framework the legislature rewrote in 2016, when the state replaced “custody” and “visitation” with “allocation of parental responsibilities” and “parenting time.” Parenting time is the schedule that says when your child is with each parent. Decision-making authority covers the big choices: education, healthcare, religion, extracurriculars. Both parents start out presumed fit, and the courts work to keep the child close to each of them. Non-parents, including grandparents, have no automatic right to time with a child and must meet a strict statutory test to get it.

The Presumption Every Parent Starts With

Illinois law presumes both parents are fit and that a child gains from a strong relationship with each of them. This applies whether or not the parents were ever married. A court’s overriding goal is to foster a close, continuing relationship between the child and both parents.¹

A judge will only restrict your time with your child on a finding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that your conduct seriously endangered the child’s mental, moral, or physical health or significantly impaired the child’s emotional development. That is a deliberately high bar. Restrictions can range from cutting back hours, to requiring supervised visits, to eliminating overnight stays, depending on what the court finds necessary to protect the child.²

How a Court Sets Parenting Time

When parents can’t agree on a schedule, the judge decides based on the “best interest of the child.” Section 602.7 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act lists 17 factors a judge must weigh, and no single factor automatically controls.¹

The factors that tend to carry the most weight in practice:

Each parent’s wishes and the child’s wishes, with the child’s preferences counting more as the child matures.
Prior caretaking: how much time each parent actually spent on day-to-day caretaking in the 24 months before the case was filed. For children under two, the court looks at the period since birth.
How well the child is settled into their current home, school, and community.
Each parent’s willingness and ability to encourage a close relationship between the child and the other parent. Judges notice when a parent undermines the other’s role.
The health of the child and both parents.
Any history or threat of physical violence directed at the child or another household member.
Logistics: distance between the parents’ homes, transportation costs, and the daily schedules of everyone involved.
Whether a parent is a convicted sex offender or lives with one, and the nature of the offense and any completed treatment.

The statute also includes a catch-all for any other factor the court expressly finds relevant. Judges use that latitude to consider things like a parent’s work schedule stability, substance abuse history, or the child’s special needs.¹

Your Parenting Plan and Its Deadline

Every parent in a parental responsibilities case must file a proposed parenting plan within 120 days of the petition being filed or served. Parents can submit a joint plan or separate competing plans. The court can extend the deadline for good cause, but missing it without explanation tells the judge you aren’t taking the process seriously.³

The statute sets 15 minimum requirements. The ones that shape most disputes:

A specific parenting time calendar showing who has the child on regular weekdays, weekends, holidays, school breaks, and summers. It must be detailed enough for a court to enforce later.
Which parent has authority over major decisions about education, healthcare, religion, and extracurriculars. Parents can split these by category.
Who drives the child to and from exchanges, and where exchanges happen.
How each parent communicates with the child during the other parent’s time.
A method for resolving future disagreements, usually mediation.
Whether the other parent gets the first opportunity to care for the child before a babysitter is used, and if so, what length of absence triggers it.
A requirement that either parent give at least 60 days’ written notice before changing residences.

The plan must also designate which parent has majority parenting time, which controls relocation rules and school enrollment, and must include each parent’s contact information and provisions for notifying each other about emergencies, healthcare, and travel.³

Mediation and Court Approval

Once both parents sign a joint parenting plan, they submit it to the court. A judge reviews it to confirm it meets the statutory requirements and serves the child’s best interests. If approved, it becomes a binding court order.

When parents can’t agree, Illinois law directs the court to order mediation unless an impediment exists, such as a history of domestic violence. A neutral mediator helps the parents work through disagreements to try to produce a joint plan. The cost is split between the parties as the court directs.³

If mediation fails, each parent submits a proposed plan and the case goes to a hearing. The judge hears evidence, may interview the child or appoint a guardian ad litem, and issues a final order resolving every contested issue. That order is enforceable by contempt.

Enforcing Parenting Time

A parenting plan approved by the court is not a suggestion. Illinois has an expedited enforcement process for when one parent violates it. If a judge finds by a preponderance of the evidence that a parent did not comply with the allocated parenting time, the court can order:⁴

Make-up parenting time of the same type and duration that was denied. Make-up time must occur within six months of the violation, or within one year if the missed period was a holiday or something else that can’t be replicated within six months.
Civil contempt, which can carry fines or jail until the parent complies.
A civil fine for each incident of denied parenting time.
A cash bond to guarantee future compliance, forfeited to the other parent if violations continue.
Mandatory parenting education or counseling at the violating parent’s expense.
Reimbursement of reasonable costs the other parent incurred because of the violation.

The provision that matters most in practice: unless good cause exists, the court must order the violating parent to pay the other parent’s attorney fees, court costs, and related expenses. That is not discretionary. The rule cuts both ways. If someone files a frivolous enforcement action and the court finds no violation occurred, the petitioner can be ordered to pay the other side’s fees.⁴

Modifying an Existing Order

Illinois allows either parent to seek a modification of parenting time at any time, without any waiting period, by showing that changed circumstances make a modification necessary to serve the child’s best interests. This is a lower bar than many parents expect. You do not need to prove endangerment to adjust the schedule, only that something meaningful has changed since the original order.⁵

Decision-making authority is harder to change. A parent generally cannot file a motion to modify decision-making responsibilities until at least two years after the original order, unless the child’s current environment poses a serious risk to the child’s health or emotional development.

The court can also modify a parenting plan without requiring a showing of changed circumstances in a few situations:

The modification reflects how the child has actually been living for at least six months, without either parent objecting.
The change is minor.
Both parents agree.
The original plan was one the court would not have approved if it had known the full circumstances at the time.

For any modification, the court must find by a preponderance of the evidence that the change serves the child’s best interests. Filing a modification petition does not automatically change the existing schedule. The current order stays in effect until the judge rules.⁵

Moving With Your Child

A parent’s relocation automatically qualifies as a substantial change in circumstances, which means the other parent can seek a modification of the parenting plan. Whether a move counts as a relocation depends on where you live. Parents in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties trigger the relocation rules by moving 25 miles or more from their current residence. In every other Illinois county, the threshold is 50 miles.

A parent planning to relocate must give the other parent at least 60 days’ written notice, including the intended move date, the new address (if known), and whether the move is permanent or temporary. A copy of the notice must be filed with the court. Failing to provide proper notice without good cause can count against you when a judge evaluates whether the move is in good faith, and the court can award attorney fees to the other parent as a result.⁶

If the non-relocating parent signs the notice and both parents agree on a modified schedule, the relocation goes forward without a hearing. If the other parent objects or refuses to sign, the relocating parent must file a petition asking the court for permission. The judge weighs 11 factors, including the reasons for the move and the objection, each parent’s history with the child, educational opportunities at both locations, extended family at each location, the anticipated impact on the child, whether a workable schedule is possible after the move, and the child’s wishes considering maturity. Only the parent with majority parenting time, or either parent in an equal parenting time arrangement, may seek to relocate with the child.⁶

Grandparents and Other Non-Parents

Grandparents, great-grandparents, stepparents, and siblings do not have an automatic right to time with a child in Illinois. The law starts with a strong presumption: a fit parent’s decisions about who sees the child are not harmful. To overcome that presumption, a non-parent must prove two things. First, that a parent has unreasonably denied visitation. Second, that the denial is causing the child undue mental, physical, or emotional harm.⁷

Even that is not enough on its own. The petitioner must also show at least one of the following qualifying conditions:

The child’s other parent is deceased or has been missing for at least 90 days (reported to law enforcement).
A parent has been declared legally incompetent.
A parent has been incarcerated for more than 90 days immediately before the petition was filed.
The parents are divorced, legally separated, or a dissolution or parental responsibilities case is pending, and at least one parent does not object to the visitation. The non-parent’s visitation cannot reduce the parenting time of the parent who is not related to the petitioner.
The child was born to unmarried parents who are not living together, and the parent-child relationship has been legally established.

The child must also be at least one year old. These requirements are strict by design. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that fit parents have a fundamental right to direct their children’s upbringing, and Illinois’s statute reflects that principle. Non-parent visitation petitions that don’t satisfy every element are routinely dismissed.⁷

Things a Parenting Plan Should Also Address

Who Claims the Child on Taxes

Your parenting time allocation directly affects federal tax benefits. The default IRS rule: the parent who had the child for more nights during the tax year (the “custodial parent”) claims the child as a dependent. For parents with equal parenting time, the tiebreaker goes to the parent with the higher adjusted gross income.

The Child Tax Credit is worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child in 2026 and begins phasing out at $200,000 in income ($400,000 for joint filers).⁸ Some benefits stay with the custodial parent no matter what the divorce decree says. The earned income credit, the child and dependent care credit, and head of household filing status all follow where the child actually lives. Only the Child Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, and the credit for other dependents can transfer to the noncustodial parent, and only through IRS Form 8332 signed by the custodial parent. Divorce decrees alone are no longer accepted by the IRS as a substitute for that form.⁹

Passports and International Travel

For children under 16, both parents must appear in person to apply for a U.S. passport. If one parent cannot attend, they must submit a notarized Statement of Consent (Form DS-3053). The consent is valid for only 90 days from the date it is notarized.¹⁰ A parent with a court order granting sole legal custody can apply alone by presenting the order.

If your parenting plan doesn’t address international travel, either parent could theoretically take the child abroad during their own parenting time. This is exactly the kind of issue worth spelling out. Many parents include provisions requiring written consent for international travel and specifying trip length.

Military Deployment

The best-interest factors in Section 602.7 include the terms of a military parent’s family-care plan required before deployment.¹ A parent’s deployment cannot be the sole basis for a parenting time decision. Under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a parent on active duty who receives notice of a custody or parenting time proceeding can request a stay of at least 90 days, supported by a letter explaining why they can’t appear and a communication from their commanding officer confirming that military duty prevents attendance and that leave is not authorized.¹¹ Deployed parents should address temporary delegation of parenting time in both their family-care plan and their parenting plan, though the other parent’s agreement or a court order is typically needed for a family member to exercise parenting time in the deployed parent’s place.

1
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/602.7 – Allocation of Parental Responsibilities Parenting Time
2
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/603.10 – Restriction of Parental Responsibilities
3
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/602.10 – Parenting Plan
4
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/607.5 – Enforcement of Allocated Parenting Time
5
FindLaw. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/610.5 – Modification of Orders
6
FindLaw. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/609.2 – Parents Relocation
7
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/602.9 – Visitation by Certain Non-Parents
8
Internal Revenue Service. Child Tax Credit
9
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8332 – Release/Revocation of Release of Claim to Exemption for Child by Custodial Parent
10
U.S. Department of State. Statement of Consent – U.S. Passport Issuance to a Child (Form DS-3053)
11
United States Air Force. Child Custody Protections Afforded to Servicemembers Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act