Child Custody in Arizona: Legal Decision-Making and Parenting Time

Arizona's statutes don't use the word custody for parents. They speak of legal decision-making and parenting time, and the court decides both on the best interests of the child.

The vocabulary

Section 25-401 defines the terms:

"Legal decision-making" means the legal right and responsibility to make all nonemergency legal decisions for a child including those regarding education, health care, religious training and personal care decisions.

"Parenting time" means the schedule of time during which each parent has access to a child at specified times.

• Joint legal decision-making: both parents share decisions, and neither parent's rights are superior except for decisions the court specifies.
• Sole legal decision-making: one parent has the right and responsibility to make major decisions. It doesn't let that parent change the court-ordered parenting time plan alone (§ 25-403.01).
• Visitation is the word for time with someone other than a legal parent, such as a grandparent.

The statute adds that for treaties, federal law and other states' laws, legal decision-making means legal custody.

The starting point

Section 25-103(B) states the state's policy:

B. It also is the declared public policy of this state and the general purpose of this title that absent evidence to the contrary, it is in a child's best interest:

The two things it names are substantial, frequent, meaningful and continuing parenting time with both parents, and both parents taking part in decision-making. A parent without decision-making authority is still entitled to reasonable parenting time unless the court finds, after a hearing, that it would endanger the child (§ 25-403.01(D)).

The best-interest factors

Under § 25-403(A), the court considers everything relevant to the child's physical and emotional well-being, including:

1. the past, present and potential future relationship between each parent and the child;
2. the child's relationships with parents, siblings and anyone else who may significantly affect the child;
3. the child's adjustment to home, school and community;
4. the child's wishes, if the child is of suitable age and maturity;
5. the mental and physical health of everyone involved;
6. which parent is more likely to allow frequent, meaningful and continuing contact with the other (not held against a parent acting in good faith to protect the child from abuse or domestic violence);
7. whether a parent intentionally misled the court to delay the case, run up costs or gain an advantage;
8. domestic violence or child abuse under § 25-403.03;
9. coercion or duress used to obtain an agreement;
10. whether a parent completed the required parent education program; and
11. whether either parent was convicted of falsely reporting child abuse or neglect.

There is no fixed age at which a child chooses. In a contested case, the court must make specific findings on the record about every relevant factor (§ 25-403(B)). For joint decision-making, it also weighs whether you agree, whether a refusal to agree is unreasonable, how well you can cooperate, and whether the arrangement is logistically possible.

Parenting plans

If you can't agree on a plan, each of you must submit a proposed one (§ 25-403.02). Consistent with the child's best interests, the court adopts a plan in which both parents share legal decision-making and that maximizes each parent's parenting time, without preferring either parent's plan because of gender. Shared decision-making doesn't necessarily mean equal time.

A plan must cover, at least, whether decision-making is joint or sole; each parent's responsibilities; a practical schedule including holidays and school vacations; how exchanges happen; how changes, relocation and disputes will be resolved; periodic review; and how you will communicate. Since Laws 2025, chapter 82 (H.B. 2432), the court can order exchanges at a safe exchange location (§ 25-403.10), and each county sheriff must list the neutral safe exchange locations in the county on its website (§ 11-452).

Domestic violence: the 2026 law

Laws 2026, chapter 263 (H.B. 2995), an emergency act signed June 22, 2026, rewrote § 25-403.03. A domestic violence claim is established by a preponderance of the evidence, and corroboration isn't required. Then:

If the court determines that a parent has committed domestic violence, there is a mandatory rebuttable presumption that an award of legal decision-making or parenting time to that parent is contrary to the child's best interests.

The court can't require the victim to prove the violence was severe or frequent enough, and can't call it mutual unless both parents lacked justification to a similar degree and caused similar injury. A parent subject to the presumption needs clear and convincing evidence to get any legal decision-making or unsupervised parenting time, and a preponderance of the evidence to get supervised time. The court must adopt safety precautions, such as protected exchanges or limits on overnights, and the presumption carries into later modification cases if it isn't overcome.

Relocation

If both parents share legal decision-making or parenting time and both live in Arizona, a parent must give at least 45 days' advance written notice before moving the child out of state or more than 100 miles within Arizona (§ 25-408). Notice goes by certified mail, return receipt requested, or as the family law rules allow. The parent who wants to move bears the burden of proving the move is in the child's best interests. Separately, the preliminary injunction in every divorce bars taking a child out of Arizona during the case without written consent or the court's permission.

Parent education

In a divorce with minor children in common, the court orders both parents to complete a parent education program, unless it finds participation isn't in the best interests of the parties or the child, or a parent has done a comparable program (§ 25-352). Each county runs its own program and sets the fee.

Jurisdiction over the children

Arizona courts generally decide custody issues only if Arizona is the child's home state: the child lived here with a parent for at least six consecutive months before the case began, or did within the last six months and a parent still lives here (§ 25-1031).

Changing the orders

You can't ask to modify legal decision-making or parenting time within one year of the decree, unless affidavits show the child's present environment may seriously endanger the child. Evidence of domestic violence, spousal abuse or child abuse since a joint order allows a petition at any time, and the other parent's failure to comply allows one after six months (§ 25-411).

Where these sections live

• A.R.S. § 25-401 — Definitions
• A.R.S. § 25-403 — Best interests
• A.R.S. § 25-403.01 — Sole and joint legal decision-making
• A.R.S. § 25-403.03 — Domestic violence and child abuse
• A.R.S. § 25-408 — Relocation
• A.R.S. § 25-411 — Modification