A walkthrough of Washington’s mandatory parenting-plan form, FL All Family 140 (revised July 2025): what the form asks, what the three required parts look like on the page, and how the form treats limits, later changes, and relocation.
This article is a walkthrough of the official statewide form, not a second “what a parenting plan is” explainer. View Ridge Law’s parenting plans and child custody pages already cover that ground. Here we look at what FL All Family 140 actually includes, what the statute requires those sections to say, and when a plan can be limited, changed, or affected by a move. It is general information about Washington law, not legal advice for a particular family.
How FL All Family 140 is used
On FL All Family 140, the same document can be filed as a proposal, a temporary order, or a final court order. Those three uses set parenting time, decision-making, and dispute resolution for named children. Washington courts generally talk about the residential schedule and decision-making authority, not “custody” and “visitation.” Only a legal parent can obtain a parenting plan.
Washington’s mandatory form is FL All Family 140, last revised in July 2025. The first page of that form asks whether the document is:
- a proposal (a request by a parent, not yet a signed order);
- a temporary order signed by a judge or commissioner while a case is pending; or
- a final order, including a final plan that changes an earlier final plan.
A judge can enter a parenting plan in a divorce, a petition for a parenting plan after parentage is decided, or a petition to change an existing plan. Washington Law Help notes that someone who is not a legal parent cannot get a parenting plan; a non-parent seeking care of a child may instead look at a residential schedule in a minor guardianship case.
If the dispute is less about drafting the document and more about a contested fight over where the children will live, that work is described on View Ridge Law’s child custody page. The result of that fight is still written into a parenting plan.
What the statute requires the plan to contain
Washington law says a permanent parenting plan must contain three things: a process for resolving future disputes, an allocation of decision-making authority, and residential provisions for the child. The statute’s objectives include providing for the child’s physical care, maintaining emotional stability, and reducing the child’s exposure to harmful parental conflict.
Those requirements are in RCW 26.09.184. The same statute says the court may consider a child’s cultural heritage and religious beliefs when it establishes the plan. Either parent may make emergency decisions affecting the child’s health or safety, regardless of how major decision-making is allocated. Each parent may make day-to-day decisions while the child is residing with that parent.
The policy behind these rules is stated in RCW 26.09.002: in a proceeding between parents, the best interests of the child is the standard for allocating parental responsibilities. The statute also says the parent-child relationship with each parent should be fostered unless that is inconsistent with the child’s best interests.
The residential schedule, or where the child actually spends time
The residential schedule is the calendar in the plan: school nights, weekends, summer, holidays, and other special days. Washington law requires a schedule that designates in which parent’s home each minor child will reside on given days of the year, including holidays, birthdays of family members, vacations, and other special occasions.
On the official form, that calendar usually lives in Attachment R. The form warns that the court should not sign a parenting plan without at least one of Attachments R, A, or B, because the schedule for where the children spend time is in the attachments.
Attachment R, as published by Washington Courts in July 2025, typically covers:
- a school-year schedule, with a separate option for children who are not yet school-age;
- a summer schedule, which can match the school schedule or set aside uninterrupted vacation weeks;
- a holiday and school-break schedule, including days a particular family actually observes; and
- a rule for what happens when two parts of the calendar collide.
RCW 26.09.187 tells the court how to set those residential provisions when the parents do not agree and when safety limitations are not already dispositive. The first factor the court must consider, and the one given the greatest weight, is the relative strength, nature, and stability of the child’s relationship with each parent. Other factors include each parent’s past and potential performance of parenting functions, the child’s emotional needs and developmental level, sibling and school ties, the wishes of a sufficiently mature child, and each parent’s employment schedule.
The same statute allows the court, when limitations do not control the outcome, to order a schedule that frequently alternates the child’s residence for brief and substantially equal intervals if that arrangement is in the child’s best interests. Geographic proximity can matter to whether that kind of schedule is workable.
The official form also names a “custodian” solely for state and federal statutes that still require a custody designation. The form itself says that label does not change the parenting rights and responsibilities described in the plan. Washington law generally refers to parenting time and decision-making rather than custody.
Decision-making for school, health care, and other major issues
Major decisions (school, non-emergency health care, and other issues the family lists) are allocated as joint or limited to one parent. Day-to-day decisions stay with the parent who has the child at the time. If mutual decision-making fails, the parents must try the plan’s dispute-resolution process in good faith.
RCW 26.09.184(5) requires the plan to allocate decision-making for education, health care, and religious upbringing. The official form also invites parents to list other decisions that matter in their household. Examples printed on the form include extracurricular activities, international travel, cell phones, driver’s licenses, tattoos, and haircuts.
RCW 26.09.187 tells the court when to approve an agreed allocation, when to order sole decision-making, and what to consider for mutual decision-making. Sole decision-making is required if a limitation under RCW 26.09.191 or 26.09.192 mandates it, if both parents oppose mutual decision-making, or if one parent’s opposition is reasonable under the statutory criteria. Those criteria include each parent’s history of participation, their ability and desire to cooperate, and whether the distance between homes makes timely joint decisions hard.
How parents are supposed to handle later disagreements
A permanent parenting plan must name a dispute-resolution process other than court action unless a safety limitation or cost problem precludes it. That process can be counseling, mediation, arbitration, or going straight to court. It applies to disagreements about implementing the plan, not to money or child support.
RCW 26.09.184(4) sets the ground rules. Preference is given to carrying out the parenting plan. A written record of any agreement reached in counseling or mediation, and of each arbitration award, must be provided to each party. If the court finds that a parent used or frustrated the process without good reason, it shall award attorneys’ fees and financial sanctions to the prevailing parent. The parties still have the right of review in superior court.
The official form repeats those rules in plain language. It also asks how one parent will notify the other, and how the parents will pay for the provider. RCW 26.09.187 says the court shall not order a non-court process when a limiting factor under RCW 26.09.191 or 26.09.192 applies, or when a parent cannot afford the proposed process.
When the court must limit a parent’s time or authority
If a parent has engaged in willful abandonment, child abuse, a history of domestic violence, or certain assaults, Washington law requires limits on that parent’s residential time. Those same findings generally require sole decision-making and court-only dispute resolution. Other harmful conduct may also support limits.
Neglect, long-term impairment, substance abuse, or abusive use of conflict can support limits if they harm the child’s best interests.
Those rules are in RCW 26.09.191, which the 2025 Legislature amended. The official form splits the screening into three questions and points parents to Attachment A (limitations) and, for sex-offense or child-sexual-abuse issues, Attachment B. Sexual-abuse limitations are addressed in RCW 26.09.192, which this article does not summarize beyond what appears on the form and in the cross-references in RCW 26.09.191.
A few definitions from the statute, which also appear on Attachment A, are easy to get wrong:
- Willful abandonment means a parent expressed, by statement or conduct, an intent to forgo parental rights or responsibilities for an extended period despite the ability to exercise them. It does not include a parent who could not see the child because of incarceration, deportation, inpatient treatment, a medical emergency, fleeing to a shelter, or the other parent withholding the child.
- Abusive use of conflict refers to ongoing, deliberate misuse of conflict. Protective actions taken in good faith (including reports to law enforcement, schools, or CPS, or petitions for protection orders) are not a basis for that finding.
Limitations must be reasonably calculated to protect the child, and the parent who may be at risk, from abuse or harm. Options include supervised contact, evaluation or treatment, or, if limitations would not adequately protect the child, no contact.
The official form also covers transportation: where exchanges happen, and which parent is responsible for pickup or drop-off.
Temporary plans, final plans, and later changes
A temporary parenting plan governs the family while the case is pending. A final plan is meant to last much longer, so Washington makes it harder to change. Modifying a final plan generally requires a substantial change in the child’s or the nonmoving parent’s circumstances, plus the child’s best interests.
Washington Law Help draws that temporary-versus-final distinction clearly. The modification statute is RCW 26.09.260. Even after a substantial change is shown, the court is to retain the existing residential schedule unless one of the listed grounds is met: the parents agree; the child has been integrated into the petitioner’s family with the other parent’s consent in substantial deviation from the plan; the child’s present environment is detrimental and the advantage of a change outweighs the harm; or the nonmoving parent has been found in contempt at least twice in three years for failing to comply with residential time, or has been convicted of custodial interference.
A smaller residential adjustment that does not change the child’s majority home can be available on a showing of substantial change, without those extra residential-retention factors, if it stays within the statute’s limits (for example, not more than 24 full days in a calendar year, or a change driven by a move or an involuntary work-schedule change that makes the current calendar impractical). Nonresidential terms (decision-making or dispute resolution) can be adjusted on a substantial change if the adjustment is in the child’s best interests.
Washington Courts publish a separate set of modification forms, including FL Modify 601 (Petition to Change a Parenting Plan, Residential Schedule or Custody Order), revised July 2025.
One other rule from RCW 26.09.184 matters in daily life: if one parent fails to comply with the parenting plan or a child-support order, the other parent’s obligations are not suspended. Failure to comply can lead to contempt under RCW 26.09.160. The official form repeats that warning on the signature page.
Moving with the children
A person with majority or substantially equal residential time (the official form says at least 45 percent) must notify every other person with court-ordered time before relocating with the children. A different-school-district move generally needs 60 days’ formal notice. The other parent then has 30 days to object.
The complete relocation statutes are RCW 26.09.430 through 26.09.480. RCW 26.09.440 sets the 60-day notice, the required contents, and the 30-day objection window. The July 2025 parenting-plan form reprints a summary of those rules and points parents to FL Relocate 701 (Notice of Intent to Move with Children) and FL Relocate 721 (the objection).
A few details from the form and the statute, stated without adding anything beyond them:
- Notice of a different-school-district move must be given by personal service or mail requiring a return receipt.
- If the person could not reasonably have known the information in time, notice is due no more than five days after they know it.
- A move within the same school district still requires notice, but not the same formal service, and the other parent does not have the same right to object to the move itself.
- During the 30 days after notice of a different-school-district move, the relocating person may not move with the children unless a court order allows it.
How this fits a Washington family-law case
A parenting plan is usually one piece of a larger case, not a standalone piece of paper. It can be proposed at the start of a case, entered as a temporary order in the middle, and signed as a final order at the end. Child support is calculated separately under the Washington State Child Support Schedule.
View Ridge Law is a Seattle firm serving families in King, Snohomish, and Pierce Counties. The firm’s family-law work includes parenting plans, child custody disputes, and divorce. Those pages explain how the firm handles the related case work. This article is only an explanation of the document and the statutes behind it.
If you want a lawyer to review your situation, request a case evaluation. Sending information through that form does not create an attorney-client relationship.
FAQ
Is a parenting plan the same thing as a custody order in Washington?
No. Washington generally does not issue a separate custody order. What people mean by custody (where the child lives and who decides major issues) is written into the parenting plan. The official form may still name a “custodian” for other state or federal statutes that require that label.
Can unmarried parents get a parenting plan?
Yes, after legal parentage is established. Washington Courts publish a parentage-case path that uses the same FL All Family 140 parenting-plan form, along with parentage petitions such as FL Parentage 331. A person who is not a legal parent cannot obtain a parenting plan.
Do we have to use mediation if we disagree later?
Not always. The plan must provide a non-court process unless a limitation statute applies or a parent cannot afford it. The court can order the parents to use court only. If mediation, arbitration, or counseling is required, the parents must use it in good faith before going back to court, except in an emergency or for support issues.
How hard is it to change a final parenting plan?
Harder than changing a temporary plan. The court generally needs a substantial change in the circumstances of the child or the nonmoving parent, plus a finding that the change is in the child’s best interests. Changing the child’s majority home has additional statutory hurdles. A minor calendar adjustment that does not change the majority home can face a lower bar.
What official form should I look at?
The statewide mandatory form is FL All Family 140, revised July 2025, on the Washington Courts forms site. Relocation uses the FL Relocate series. Modification uses the FL Modify series. Forms are not a substitute for advice about your facts.
This is general information about Washington law as of August 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Re-check the current FL All Family 140 form and RCW 26.09 if you rely on a specific rule.
