Moving With Your Child in North Carolina

No separate relocation statute

Article 1 of Chapter 50, which holds North Carolina’s custody statutes, has no section requiring a parent to give advance notice of a move or setting a deadline to object. When parents disagree about a move, it reaches the court the same way any other custody dispute does:

• No custody order yet. Either parent may file a custody action, and the court awards custody to whoever will best promote the child’s interest and welfare (G.S. 50-13.2(a)). The Judicial Branch notes that both legal parents have equal rights to the child when there is no custody order.
• An existing order. A parent asks the court to modify it by a motion in the cause and a showing of changed circumstances (G.S. 50-13.7(a)), using the AOC-CV-634, Motion to Modify Custody (Rev. 4/15). The Judicial Branch explains that for a permanent order you must show a substantial change in circumstances affecting the child.

Read your custody order first. Its own terms on where the child lives, the schedule, and travel apply until a court changes them.

What the statutes do say about moves

• Out-of-state orders. A custody order may provide for the child to be taken outside North Carolina. If the order contemplates the child’s return, the judge may require bond or other security conditioned on the return (G.S. 50-13.2(c)).
• Domestic violence. If a party is absent or relocates, with or without the children, because of an act of domestic violence, that absence or relocation shall not weigh against the party in deciding custody or visitation (G.S. 50-13.2(b)).
• Video and phone contact. The amount of electronic communication with the child may not be used to justify or support relocation by the custodial parent out of the immediate area or the State (G.S. 50-13.2(e)).
• Risk of removal. A temporary order that changes a child’s living arrangements may be entered ex parte if, among other grounds, there is a substantial risk the child may be abducted or removed from North Carolina to evade its courts (G.S. 50-13.5(d)(3)). See the emergency relief guide.

Which state’s court decides later

A North Carolina court that made a custody determination keeps exclusive, continuing jurisdiction until a North Carolina court determines that the child, the parents, and any person acting as a parent no longer have a significant connection with North Carolina and substantial evidence is no longer available here, or until a court of North Carolina or another state determines that none of them presently reside in North Carolina (G.S. 50A-202(a)). So if you move out of state and the other parent stays, changes to the order generally still go through the North Carolina court.

Support and travel costs

Under the Child Support Guidelines, expenses for transporting the child between the parents’ homes are among the extraordinary expenses the court may add to the basic support obligation if it finds them reasonable, necessary, and in the child’s best interest.

Primary sources

Statutes, rules, and forms change. Check the current version at the source before you file.

• G.S. 50-13.2, terms of custody; taking child out of State
• G.S. 50-13.7, modification of order
• G.S. 50-13.5, procedure; ex parte temporary orders
• G.S. 50-13.1, custody mediation agreements
• G.S. 50A-202, exclusive, continuing jurisdiction
• North Carolina Child Support Guidelines, AOC-A-162
• AOC-CV-634, Motion to Modify Custody
• North Carolina Judicial Branch, Child Custody help topic