Few family law situations carry higher stakes than a dispute over whether a parent can relocate with a child. A successful relocation can fundamentally reshape the other parent’s relationship with their child. A failed attempt can leave a parent professionally and financially anchored to a place they need to leave. The legal framework governing these cases is more nuanced than most people realize and Novo Law has a strong track record in Arizona relocation cases, representing both parents seeking to relocate and parents who want to prevent relocation and keep their child nearby.
The statute everyone misreads
Arizona’s child relocation law is found at A.R.S. § 25-408. The first subsection — § 25-408(A) — states that if both parents share legal decision-making or parenting time and both reside in Arizona, a parent must provide at least 45 days’ written notice before relocating the child out of state or more than 100 miles within the state.
That reads like a definition of what constitutes a relocation. It is not. The Arizona Court of Appeals addressed this directly in Berrier v. Rountree: § 25-408(A) describes the circumstances under which the notice requirement applies — not the full scope of what the relocation statute governs. Nothing in the statute limits the types of relocation issues a court may decide to only those situations where both parents reside in Arizona and have a formal order in place.
This matters most in split-state custody arrangements. In Berrier itself, parents had divided biweekly parenting time between Arizona and California since a 2014 dissolution decree. When the child reached school age and one parent sought to establish a single home state, the trial court treated the issue as a routine parenting time adjustment. The Court of Appeals reversed: the question of which state becomes the child’s primary residence is a relocation issue, requiring full § 25-408 analysis and findings, regardless of whether the notice conditions in § 25-408(A) technically apply.
How the 100-mile threshold is measured
When § 25-408(A)’s notice requirement does apply, the 100-mile distance is measured from the relocating parent’s address at the time the last custody orders were entered, not from the other parent’s current location and not from wherever the relocating parent currently lives. Another appeal, called Thompson v. Thompson established this.
The reasoning is deliberate: fixing the measurement to the moment the last order was entered creates a stable reference point. Without it, a parent could theoretically move 99 miles at a time — each move technically below the threshold — while the cumulative distance from the original home grows substantially without ever triggering the notice requirement. Thompson forecloses that.
A proposed relocation is not grounds to modify custody
A point that catches many people off guard: a parent’s stated intention to relocate — even a concrete, imminent plan — does not by itself constitute a material change of circumstances affecting the child’s welfare. As the Arizona Court of Appeals held in Owen v. Blackhawk, so long as the residential parent is willing to remain in Arizona if the court were to find that relocation is not in the child’s best interests, that parent’s desire to move creates no independent basis to modify any provision of an existing decree or order.
The implication is significant: a hypothetical relocation is not a valid basis to file a petition to modify parenting time.
The full analysis: § 25-403 factors plus more
When a relocation dispute reaches the court, the analysis is more demanding than a standard parenting time modification. The court must consider all of the best interests factors under § 25-403 and then layer in the additional relocation-specific factors under § 25-408(I).
Those additional factors include: whether the proposed move is being made or opposed in good faith, or as a tactic to interfere with the other parent’s relationship with the child; the prospective benefit of the move to the relocating parent’s or the child’s quality of life; the likelihood the relocating parent will comply with modified parenting orders from a distance; the effect of the relocation on the child’s stability and extended family relationships; and the effect that not relocating would have on the relocating parent and, indirectly, on the child.
The burden of proving relocation is in the child’s best interests falls on the parent seeking to move. Courts approach these cases with a meaningful predisposition toward preserving the existing arrangement; disrupting an established parenting plan requires affirmative justification, not just a legitimate reason to move.
The connection to child support
Relocation cases don’t exist in isolation. Parenting time directly and, in some cases, significantly affects Arizona’s child support calculation. When relocation reduces one parent’s parenting time — as it almost always does — child support obligations are recalculated. This creates real financial stakes for the defending parent on top of the relational ones. A complete picture of any relocation proposal has to account for child support implications on both sides.
Why both sides need experienced representation
The layered statutory analysis, the predisposition toward the status quo, the child support interplay, the procedural requirements around notice and timing, and the nuances around what actually constitutes a relocation under Berrier — all of it makes relocation litigation among the most demanding work in Arizona family law. A parent seeking to relocate needs a compelling, forward-looking case. A parent opposing relocation has meaningful legal tools and real interests to protect.
Novo Law has represented parents on both sides of relocation disputes in Arizona. If relocation is on the horizon for your family — as a possibility you’re pursuing or one you’re working to prevent — a free consultation is the right first step.
