Colorado Child Visitation Laws: Parenting Plans, Orders, and Changes

Colorado child visitation laws use the term “parenting time” instead of “visitation” or “custody,” and every decision about how separated parents share time with a child runs through one legal standard: the child’s best interests, with safety given top priority. The filing fee to open a parental responsibilities case is $252, and fee waivers are available for parents who qualify.¹

How Colorado Courts Decide Parenting Time

Colorado Revised Statutes 14-10-124 directs judges to allocate parenting time based on the child’s best interests, with paramount weight given to safety and to the child’s physical, mental, and emotional needs. The legislature has declared a policy preference for frequent and continuing contact with both parents after separation, but that preference yields when contact would put a child at risk.²

When setting a schedule, the court weighs all relevant factors, including:

Each parent’s wishes about the schedule
The child’s wishes, if the child is mature enough to express a reasoned, independent preference
The child’s relationships with parents, siblings, and other significant people
The child’s adjustment to home, school, and community
Each parent’s mental and physical health (a disability alone cannot be the basis for restricting parenting time)
Each parent’s willingness to encourage a loving relationship between the child and the other parent
The past pattern of involvement, including which parent has historically handled daily caregiving
Any history of domestic violence, child abuse, or neglect

The domestic violence factor carries particular weight. When the court finds by a preponderance of evidence that a parent has committed child abuse, domestic violence, or sexual assault, it must consider conditions on parenting time that protect the child and the abused party before approving any plan.²

What a Parenting Plan Covers

Either parent can submit a proposed parenting plan for court approval. If neither does, or if the court rejects what’s submitted, the judge creates one. When parenting time is contested, C.R.S. 14-10-124(7) requires the plan to be as specific as possible about the family’s current circumstances and the child’s changing needs. A plan generally addresses:²

Decision-making authority over education, medical care, and religious upbringing, and whether it is joint or sole
A practical schedule covering weekdays, weekends, holidays, and school vacations
Exchange logistics: where the child is transferred, and who handles transportation
How the parents will communicate with each other about the child
How a parent stays in touch with the child during the other parent’s time

How to Start a Parenting Time Case

The process begins with a Petition for Allocation of Parental Responsibilities filed in the district court. Colorado’s Judicial Branch publishes a standard form for this purpose, JDF 1413.³ The petition asks the court to set a parenting schedule, decision-making authority, and child support.

After filing, the other parent must be formally served with the court documents. You cannot deliver them yourself. Service must go through a sheriff’s office, a private process server, or any person who is at least 18 and not involved in the case.⁴

In most contested cases, the court orders both parents to attend mediation before setting a trial date. If mediation produces an agreement, the court can approve it. If not, the case proceeds to a hearing where the judge decides based on the best-interests factors.

Unmarried Parents Must Establish Paternity First

An unmarried father has no automatic legal right to parenting time until paternity is established. Without it, the child’s birth parent has sole decision-making authority by default. Colorado offers two main paths:⁵

Voluntary acknowledgment. Both parents sign a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage, filed with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics. Once filed, it has the same legal effect as a court order establishing parentage.
Court action. Either parent, the child, or the Department of Human Services can file a lawsuit to establish the parent-child relationship, which may involve genetic testing. A person is presumed to be the parent if genetic tests show a 97 percent or higher probability.

Once paternity is established, the father can file a Petition for Allocation of Parental Responsibilities the same way a married parent would.

Changing an Existing Parenting Time Order

Colorado applies two different standards depending on how large the proposed change is.⁶

Minor Adjustments

For modifications that don’t change which parent the child lives with most of the time, the court can adjust the schedule whenever doing so serves the child’s best interests. Shifting weekday time because a child changed schools, or adjusting a holiday rotation, fits this flexible standard.

Substantial Changes

When a modification would both substantially change the schedule and shift the child’s primary residence to the other parent, the bar is higher. The parent asking for the change must show that new facts have arisen since the original order (or facts that were unknown at the time), that circumstances have changed for the child or the primary parent, and that the modification is necessary for the child’s best interests.⁶

There is also a built-in cooling-off period. After a motion for this type of substantial modification is decided, neither parent can file another one for two years, unless the child’s current living situation endangers physical health or emotional development, or the primary parent intends to relocate.⁶

Restricting Parenting Time

A court will not restrict a parent’s time unless it finds that parenting time would endanger the child’s physical health or significantly impair the child’s emotional development. When the court does impose a restriction, it must list specific factual findings supporting it. Restrictions can include supervised visits, limits on overnight stays, or suspension of parenting time in extreme situations. If the court orders unsupervised time despite allegations of domestic violence or child abuse, it must explain on the record why that decision serves the child’s best interests.²

Moving Away With a Child

Relocation is one of the most contested areas of Colorado parenting time law. When the parent who has the child a majority of the time wants to move somewhere that substantially changes the geographical ties between the child and the other parent, specific requirements apply.⁶

The relocating parent must give the other parent written notice as soon as practicable. The notice must include the intended new location, the reason for the move, and a proposed revised parenting time plan. The statute doesn’t fix a number of days, but courts expect prompt disclosure. Any parenting time modification triggered by a relocation gets priority on the court’s docket.

The court evaluates the proposed move under the best-interests standard, considering the usual factors plus any additional circumstances created by the distance. The endangerment threshold that governs other restrictions does not apply here. The court instead has broader discretion to modify the schedule as needed so the child maintains meaningful contact with both parents.

Enforcing a Parenting Time Order

When one parent isn’t following the schedule, the other can file a Verified Motion Concerning Parenting Time Disputes under C.R.S. 14-10-129.5. The court must act within 35 days by denying the motion, setting a hearing, or ordering mediation with results reported back within 63 days.⁷

If the court finds a violation after a hearing, it has a wide range of remedies:

Make-up parenting time of the same type and duration that was denied, to be made up within six months (or one year for holidays that can’t be replicated within six months)
Attorney fees and court costs paid by the noncomplying parent to the aggrieved parent, which is mandatory rather than discretionary
A civil fine of up to $100 per incident of denied parenting time
Mandatory parenting education or family counseling at the noncomplying parent’s expense
A bond or security deposit to guarantee future compliance
Contempt of court, which can carry additional fines or jail time

The mandatory fee-shifting matters in practice. Because the statute requires the court to order the noncomplying parent to pay fees and costs, an enforcement motion stays financially viable for the parent being denied time.⁷

Grandparents and Great-Grandparents

Colorado’s parenting time statute doesn’t cover grandparents, but a separate statute does. Under C.R.S. 19-1-117, grandparents and great-grandparents can petition for visitation, but only when there is or has been a case involving the child’s custody or parental responsibilities. That includes divorce, legal separation, custody transfer to a third party, or the death of the grandparent’s own child (the parent).⁸

The grandparent submits an affidavit to the district court setting forth facts that support the request and serves a copy on the parent with custody. The court grants visitation only if it finds doing so is in the child’s best interests. A grandparent cannot file more than once every two years without good cause, and the court cannot restrict a custodial parent’s ability to move solely to preserve a grandparent’s visitation schedule.⁸

Military Deployment

Under C.R.S. 14-13.7-107, a parent’s past or possible future deployment cannot serve as the sole basis for determining the child’s best interests in a parenting responsibilities proceeding. A court cannot take parenting time away simply because a parent has been or might be deployed.⁹ The federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act adds another layer of protection by allowing military parents to pause civil court proceedings, including family law cases, while they are unavailable due to service.

1
Colorado Judicial Branch. List of Fees
2
Justia Law. Colorado Code 14-10-124 – Best Interests of the Child
3
Colorado Judicial Branch. JDF 1413 – Petition for Parental Responsibilities
4
Colorado Judicial Branch. Self Help Service of Process
5
Child Welfare Information Gateway. The Rights of Unmarried Parents – Colorado
6
Justia Law. Colorado Code 14-10-129 – Modification of Parenting Time
7
Justia Law. Colorado Code 14-10-129.5 – Disputes Concerning Parenting Time
8
Justia Law. Colorado Code 19-1-117 – Visitation
9
Justia Law. Colorado Code 14-13.7-107 – Effect of Military Service on Determination of Child’s Best Interest