Utah Code § 81-9-203: Parenting Plan Requirements

Whenever you request joint legal or joint physical custody in Utah, the court requires a formal written Parenting Plan. It's not optional, and it's not a blank form you fill in with dates — it must address five specific topics mandated by Utah Code § 81-9-203. Submit a plan that misses any of them, and the court will reject it and send you back to redraft.

Here's what each requirement means and how to address it in your plan.

The Five Mandatory Components

1. Dispute Resolution

Your plan must explain exactly how you and the other parent will handle disagreements about the children before going back to court. The statute requires you to specify the method — mediation, counseling, arbitration, or another structured process.

The plan must also state that a parent who uses the dispute resolution process in bad faith may be penalized with the other parent's attorney fees and court costs. This provision is mandatory, not optional.

Most plans default to mediation as the first step, with the right to file a court motion if mediation fails. Courts want to see that you've built a buffer between a disagreement and a courtroom.

2. Residential Schedule

A detailed calendar specifying where the child will sleep every night of the year. This isn't "alternating weekends" in general terms — it needs to cover:

• Standard academic weeks and weekends
• Every alternating holiday (following the § 81-9-302 holiday rotation or a custom schedule)
• School breaks (spring, fall, winter)
• Birthdays
• Summer vacation blocks
• Exchange times and locations

The court wants enough specificity that a third party (a mediator, a police officer, a school administrator) could read your plan and know exactly where the child is supposed to be on any given day.

3. Decision-Making Allocation

The plan must explicitly state who decides what. For each major decision category — education, non-emergency medical care, and religious upbringing — the plan either assigns responsibility to one parent or specifies that decisions will be made jointly.

Two rules are embedded in the statute and cannot be overridden by your plan:

• Routine daily decisions belong to whichever parent the child is with at the time. The other parent has no veto over bedtime, meals, homework routines, or daily activities during the other's parent-time.
• Emergency decisions can be made unilaterally by either parent to protect the child's immediate health and safety. The deciding parent must notify the other parent as soon as reasonably possible.

4. Relocation Protocols

The plan must include concrete terms for what happens if either parent moves:

• How much advance notice is required (the statutory default under § 81-9-209 is 60 days' written notice for moves of 150 miles or more)
• How transportation costs will be divided between the parents
• How the parent-time schedule will automatically adjust upon relocation

Leaving relocation vague ("we'll work it out") is a common reason courts reject plans. Specify the notice period, the cost-sharing formula, and the adjusted schedule in advance.

5. Military Provisions

If either parent is an active-duty service member or subject to potential deployment, the plan must incorporate a Military Parenting Plan under Utah Code § 81-10-1. This covers:

• Who takes over caretaking authority during deployment
• Whether non-parent family members (grandparents, step-parents) retain visitation rights during deployment
• How virtual communication (video calls, phone) will be maintained between the deployed parent and the child

Even if neither parent is currently in the military, some practitioners include a clause stating that the military provisions will activate if either parent enlists or is recalled. Courts accept this as sufficient compliance.

What MyPaperwork Does and Doesn't Do

Utah's free MyPaperwork portal generates the formatted parenting plan document. It provides the structure and fields. What it doesn't do is help you figure out what to put in those fields — it won't advise you on which schedule works for your child's age, how to handle holiday conflicts, or what dispute resolution method to choose.

That's the gap between form generation and plan strategy. The forms are free; the strategic decisions are what matter.

For a step-by-step guide to drafting each of the five mandatory components, plus pre-written schedule templates and dispute resolution clauses, the Utah Child Custody & Parenting Plan Guide covers everything § 81-9-203 requires.

See more Utah guides →