Child custody and parenting plans under Wyoming law.
Nothing in a divorce is harder than the schedule, and nothing lasts longer: in Teton County one judge writes where your children sleep for years. Wyoming decides custody on one standard, the best interests of the children, with eleven factors and wide discretion. No presumption of equal time, no age at which a child chooses, no preference for mothers. What wins is a record, and I start building it at the first meeting: who does the school runs, who hands over on time, what the parenting plan should say.
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Three things to know before the hearing.
Custody is decided by the children's best interests (W.S. § 20-2-201(a)). The statute lists eleven factors, quoted below, and forbids preferring a parent for gender or favoring any form of custody. There is no presumption; the judge starts from the evidence.
Legal custody is the large decisions. Physical custody is where the children live. Each can be joint or sole. Joint legal custody with one primary home is the most common order; shared physical custody follows when parents live close and can speak to each other.
Custody must be ordered "in well defined terms" (W.S. § 20-2-201(d)) and visitation "in enough detail," with transportation costs allocated and thirty days' notice before a parent moves (W.S. § 20-2-202(a)). The parenting plan supplies it: the week, holidays, exchanges, decisions.
What the judge is weighing.
Evidence, not opinion
Every factor is something a judge can see in a record: who took the child to the dentist, who handed the child over on time. Primary-caregiver status is "a weighty consideration" that "is not in all cases ultimately determinative": the parent at home has the advantage on the first, second and ninth factors and can lose it on the fourth and seventh by treating the other parent as a visitor. A year of school pickups and civil texts is evidence; a list of the other parent's faults is an opinion.
- 01The quality of the relationship each child has with each parent
- 02The ability of each parent to provide adequate care for each child throughout each period of responsibility, including arranging for each child's care by others as needed
- 03The relative competency and fitness of each parent
- 04Each parent's willingness to accept all responsibilities of parenting, including a willingness to accept care for each child at specified times and to relinquish care to the other parent at specified times
- 05How the parents and each child can best maintain and strengthen a relationship with each other
- 06How the parents and each child interact and communicate with each other and how such interaction and communication may be improved
- 07The ability and willingness of each parent to allow the other to provide care without intrusion, respect the other parent's rights and responsibilities, including the right to privacy
- 08Geographic distance between the parents' residences
- 09The current physical and mental ability of each parent to care for each child
- 10Whether either parent has a conviction for which the parent must register as a sex offender
- 11Any other factors the court deems necessary and relevant
Quoted from W.S. § 20-2-201(a)(i)–(xi) as in force in September 2026. Subsection (b) forbids preferring a parent "solely because of gender"; subsection (c) treats evidence of spousal or child abuse as contrary to the children's best interests; subsection (d) forbids favoring or disfavoring any form of custody.
Temporary orders, violence, relocation, and the rest.
First weeks, abuse, the child's preference, two states, moving, unmarried parents, evaluators
Temporary orders and the status quo
Most custody cases in Teton County are decided twice: once at a temporary hearing, weeks after filing, and once at trial or settlement many months later. The court may order "the care and custody of the minor children" during the case on either parent's application (W.S. § 20-2-112(b)), on affidavits and a short hearing, before anyone has taken a deposition. That order will have governed the children's lives for six months or a year by the time the final one is decided, and judges do not lightly rewrite an arrangement that has been working. Keep the children's routine intact, and keep yourself in it.
Family violence
The court "shall consider evidence of spousal abuse or child abuse as being contrary to the best interest of the children," and where it finds that family violence occurred it must arrange visitation that protects the children and the abused spouse from further harm (W.S. § 20-2-201(c)). A parent required to register as a sex offender faces a rebuttable presumption against unsupervised visitation. Protection orders and criminal charges run alongside the custody case and are read by the same judge. If there has been violence in your home, say so at the first meeting, whichever side of it you were on. Two smaller provisions: the court can require parenting classes, and the parent without custody keeps the same access to school and medical records unless the court orders otherwise.
The child's preference
There is no age at which a Wyoming child chooses. The preference of a child "of sufficient age and maturity" is a factor the court must consider seriously and may not treat as conclusive, and the Supreme Court has listed what goes into weighing it: the child's age, the reason for the preference, the relative fitness of the two parents, any hostility toward the parent not preferred, the preference of siblings, and whether one parent has influenced the answer. A preference with a stated basis, plainly expressed, gets more weight than one the child cannot explain. In Teton County the judge hears it in chambers, with the court reporter and the lawyers present and the parents outside, and each side may submit three questions. Children are not put on the stand.
Two states
Wyoming can decide custody only if it is the child's home state, which the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act defines as the state where the child has lived with a parent for the six consecutive months before the case was filed (W.S. § 20-5-202(a)(vii)); that home-state status is what gives a Wyoming court jurisdiction to make the first custody decision (W.S. § 20-5-301(a)(i)). A parent who arrives in Jackson in June and files in August has usually filed in the wrong state, and a parent who leaves with the children does not take the case along. My post on which state decides custody and support walks through the home-state rule.
One parent wants to move
Relocation is the hardest custody dispute there is, because no schedule splits a child between Jackson and Denver. The statute requires thirty days' written notice of a move, and the Supreme Court has held since 2012 that a custodial parent's relocation, and the distance it creates, can itself be the material change that reopens custody. The post on relocation cases covers what courts weigh and why you must not move first; the page on changing or enforcing an order covers the standard once an order exists.
Unmarried parents
The same eleven factors apply "upon the establishment of paternity," and a child born to unmarried parents "has the same rights under the law" as any other. What differs is the first step. A husband is presumed to be the father of a child born during the marriage; an unmarried father is established by a signed acknowledgment of paternity, which the statute makes the equivalent of a court judgment, or by a paternity action with genetic testing (W.S. § 14-2-501). Until one of those exists there is no custody order to enforce and no support order to collect. Grandparents may sue for reasonable visitation, but only where it serves the child and does not substantially impair the parents' rights (W.S. § 20-7-101).
Evaluators, guardians ad litem, and the court
In a contested Teton County custody case the court requires a guardian ad litem, a lawyer whose client is the child, who investigates the children's circumstances and argues a position at trial; the Supreme Court has held that a guardian ad litem may not testify as a witness and makes recommendations through closing argument. How each parent treats that lawyer is itself evidence on the seventh factor. The court may also appoint a neutral evaluator, usually a psychologist, to interview both parents and the children, visit both homes, talk to teachers and doctors, and write a report with recommendations. The report is not the decision, but it is the most-read document in the file; my post on preparing for a custody evaluation explains what evaluators do and the mistakes that show up in their reports. Trials are to the bench, the judge who signs the temporary order is the judge who tries the case a year later, and mediation comes first if either parent asks for it. The divorce page covers the residency rule and the timeline; child support is set in the same decree by a formula of its own.
What parents ask first.
Is Wyoming a 50/50 custody state?
At what age can a child choose which parent to live with in Wyoming?
Does the mother automatically get custody in Wyoming?
What should a Wyoming parenting plan include?
How long does a custody case take in Teton County?
Can I move with my children within Wyoming without the other parent's permission?
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