Changing an order, or making the other parent follow it.

What has, and has not, counted as a material change

The change has to be one not contemplated when the order was entered, it has to affect the children's welfare, and it has to be significant in relation to what is being asked; in September 2025 the Supreme Court affirmed a judge who refused to reopen custody over an estrangement that already existed at the divorce. Relocation by the custodial parent, and the distance it creates, has counted since 2012. A deployment does not count on its own. On support, both parents file new financial affidavits, and a parent laid off in January who files in June has paid five months at the old figure and will not see them again; a substantial change can be raised at any time, and every third year either parent may demand a guideline review with no showing at all. The support page explains the guideline the review applies. On alimony, the court has refused to count a payor's own choices, such as new debt or a voluntary drop in income. Alimony fixed by a settlement agreement can still be revised, but the court weighs the fact that the payor accepted it; the alimony page covers how the amount, the term and the ending events are set in the first place.

Contempt, in practice

The statutes give the district court the same power over custody, support and medical-support orders: it may require the parent to appear and "show just cause why the parent should not be held in contempt," and on a finding of willful violation it may award attorney's fees, costs and any other relief the circumstances require (W.S. § 20-2-310(b)). For withheld parenting time the relief is ordinarily make-up time, a more specific schedule, fees, and a warning on the record. For unpaid support it is a judgment, a purge amount that opens the jail door, and a payment plan with a return date. The difference between a parent who cannot pay and one who chose not to is proved with bank records and a work history.

The tools that need no hearing

Most support enforcement never reaches a courtroom. Each missed payment is "a judgment by operation of law" on the day it is due. The withholding order entered with every support order can be expanded, without a hearing, to take current support plus an amount toward arrears out of each paycheck up to the federal limit, and the Child Support Program, part of the Department of Family Services and open to either parent regardless of income, runs the rest. It reports arrears above $1,000 to the credit bureaus, perfects a lien against the obligor's property once arrears reach three months of support, intercepts federal tax refunds at $500 of arrears, and blocks a passport above $2,500. When arrears exceed $2,500 and no full monthly payment has been made for ninety consecutive days, it may suspend a driver's license on sixty days' notice unless the parent pays in full or enters an approved payment plan, with a right to a district-court hearing that stays the suspension (W.S. § 20-6-111(f)). It can ask the court to suspend a professional, hunting or fishing license as well. Willful nonpayment of more than $5,000, or for more than a year, for a child living in another state is a federal offense (18 U.S.C. § 228).

Orders that crossed a state line

Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act the court that made a custody determination keeps exclusive, continuing jurisdiction while a parent or the child remains there, and a Wyoming court may not modify another state's order until that state has lost or declined jurisdiction (W.S. § 20-5-303). Support orders follow the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, which lets a Wyoming order be registered and collected where the paying parent now works, and the reverse. My post on which state decides custody and support explains how a family can end up with custody in one court and support in another; the divorce page covers the decree these orders come from.