# Pennsylvania child custody factors and the 2025 rewrite

> How Pennsylvania decides child custody: the factor list rewritten in 2025, the four safety factors that carry extra weight, and the deadlines the court keeps.

Pennsylvania rewrote its custody factors in 2025 and the change was not cosmetic. Five factors were deleted outright, several were added, and four safety factors now carry substantial weighted consideration. If you are reading a guide that lists sixteen numbered best-interest factors, you are reading the old law.

The vocabulary is also its own hurdle. Pennsylvania does not divide custody into "custody" and "visitation." It divides it into legal and physical, and then divides physical four ways.

## What are the types of custody in Pennsylvania?

Two dimensions. [Section 5322(a)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) defines legal custody as the right to make major decisions on behalf of the child, including medical, religious and educational decisions, and physical custody as actual physical possession and control of the child.

Each can be sole or shared, and physical custody has two further grades: primary physical custody is the right to have the child for the majority of the time, and partial physical custody is the right to have the child for less than a majority. Supervised physical custody means an agency or an adult monitors the time.

[Section 5323(a)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) lets the court award any of seven arrangements: shared physical, primary physical, partial physical, sole physical, supervised physical, shared legal, and sole legal custody. Those combine, so a common Pennsylvania order is shared legal custody with primary physical custody to one parent.

If a statute outside the custody chapter still uses the word "visitation," subsection (b) of section 5322 tells you to read it as partial, shared or supervised physical custody.

## Who gets custody in a Pennsylvania divorce?

Whoever the best-interest factors point to. [Section 5327(a)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) is explicit that in an action between the child's parents there is no presumption that custody should be awarded to a particular parent. Between a parent and a non-parent there is a presumption in favor of the parent, rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence.

[Section 5328(b)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) adds that no party may receive a preference based on gender.

### What are the custody factors in Pennsylvania?

[Section 5328(a)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53), as amended by Act 11 of 2025, has the court determine the child's best interest by considering all relevant factors, giving substantial weighted consideration to the ones affecting safety. The live factors are:

- **Which party is more likely to ensure the safety of the child**
- **Present and past abuse** committed by a party or a member of that party's household, which may include current or past protection from abuse or sexual violence protection orders where there was a finding of abuse
- **Child abuse and protective services information**, meaning what the statute's companion section requires the court to consider
- **Violent or assaultive behavior** committed by a party
- **The level of cooperation and conflict**, including which party is more likely to encourage frequent and continuing contact with the other where that is consistent with the child's safety, and attempts by a party to turn the child against the other
- **A willingness and ability to prioritize the child's needs**, considering the parental duties each party performed in the past and whether they are willing and able to perform them in future, and to attend to the child's daily physical, emotional, developmental, educational and special needs
- **The need for stability and continuity** in the child's education, family life and community life, except where a change is needed to protect the safety of the child or a party
- **The child's sibling and other familial relationships**
- **The well-reasoned preference of the child**, based on developmental stage, maturity and judgment
- **The proximity of the residences** of the parties
- **Each party's employment schedule** and availability to care for the child, or ability to make appropriate child-care arrangements
- **A history of drug or alcohol abuse** by a party or a member of a party's household
- **The mental and physical condition** of a party or a household member
- **Any other relevant factor**

The four that carry substantial weighted consideration are the safety ones: who is more likely to keep the child safe, past and present abuse, the child abuse and protective services information, and violent or assaultive behavior.

Five factors from the old list were deleted by amendment, which is why the numbering in the statute now skips.

### What did the 2025 custody amendment change?

Three things worth knowing.

- **The safety factors got weight.** The statute now tells the court to give substantial weighted consideration to four specific factors rather than treating all of them evenly.
- **The cooperation factor got a defensive clause.** Under the same subsection, a party's good faith and reasonable effort to protect the safety of a child or of themselves may not be treated as an unwillingness or inability to cooperate. Reasonable concerns for the child's safety and reasonable efforts to protect the child are not attempts to turn the child against the other party. And a child's deficient or negative relationship with a party is not presumed to have been caused by the other party.
- **You get the list.** [Section 5328(d)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53), added in 2025, requires the court to give every party named in a custody complaint, modification petition or petition to intervene a copy of the factors section within 30 days of receiving it.

There is also a protection that arrived a year earlier. [Section 5328(a.1)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) says a factor may not be weighed against a party where the circumstances behind it were a response to abuse or were necessary to protect the child or the abused party, and temporary housing instability caused by abuse may not be counted against the party alleging it.

### Does one factor decide a Pennsylvania custody case?

No. [Section 5328(a.2)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) says no single factor is by itself determinative, and the court examines the totality of the circumstances while giving weighted consideration to the safety factors.

Whatever the court decides, it has to say why. [Section 5323(d)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) requires the judge to delineate the reasons for the decision on the record in open court or in a written opinion or order.

## How long does a custody case take in Pennsylvania?

Faster than the divorce, because the custody rules carry deadlines the court enforces on itself. [Rule 1915.4](https://www.pacodeandbulletin.gov/Display/pacode?file=/secure/pacode/data/231/chapter1915/s1915.4.html) sets four:

- **45 days** from the filing of a complaint or petition to the parties' first in-person contact with the court, whether that is a conference with a conference officer, a conference with a judge, conciliation, mediation, or a class
- **180 days** from filing to either the court scheduling a trial or a party requesting one. Miss it and the court may dismiss the matter, on its own or on motion, unless a party got an extension for good cause or the court finds dismissal is not in the child's best interests. An extension may not exceed 60 days beyond the 180, though a further reasonable extension is possible by agreement or on a finding of compelling circumstances.
- **90 days** from the scheduling order to the start of trial, with the trial concluded no later than 45 days from commencement if it cannot be heard on consecutive days
- **15 days** from the end of trial to the judge's decision, extendable for good cause entered of record but never past 45 days

Nothing in that rule stops you asking for emergency or interim relief at any point after the case starts.

## Where do you file a custody case in Pennsylvania?

[Rule 1915.2(a)](https://www.pacodeandbulletin.gov/Display/pacode?file=/secure/pacode/data/231/chapter1915/s1915.2.html) builds venue on the child rather than on the parents. You file in the child's home county at the time the proceeding starts, or in a county that was the child's home county within the previous six months if a parent or person acting as a parent still lives there, or, failing both, in a county where the child and at least one parent have a significant connection beyond mere physical presence and where substantial evidence about the child is available.

That is a different rule from the divorce, where venue follows either spouse's residence. The [residency chapter](https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/pennsylvania/filing-requirements) covers the divorce side.

A custody action is commenced by a verified complaint under [Rule 1915.3(a)](https://www.pacodeandbulletin.gov/Display/pacode?file=/secure/pacode/data/231/chapter1915/s1915.3.html). If you are already divorcing, subdivision (c) lets you assert the custody claim in the divorce complaint or in a later petition, though it still gets heard under the custody rules, and the [filing chapter](https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/pennsylvania/filing-guide) notes that adding the count adds a fee.

## What is a parenting plan in Pennsylvania?

A proposal, not a requirement. Under [section 5331(a)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53), in a contested custody proceeding the court may require the parties to submit parenting plans to help it resolve the dispute. Pennsylvania does not impose a universal filing deadline for one the way some states do.

The statute protects the plan while you are negotiating. A parenting plan, and the position a party takes in it, is not admissible as evidence by another party.

A plan covers the schedule for personal care and control of the child, including parenting time, holidays and vacations; education and religious involvement; health care; child-care arrangements; transportation; a procedure for resolving proposed changes, disputes and alleged breaches through mediation, arbitration or other means; anything the court specifies; and anything else that serves the child's best interest.

## What happens if a parent violates a custody order in Pennsylvania?

Contempt, with real teeth. [Section 5323(g)](https://www.palegis.us/statutes/consolidated/view-statute?txtType=HTM&ttl=23&div=0&chapter=53) lets the court punish a party who willfully fails to comply with any custody order by imprisonment for up to six months, a fine of not more than $500, probation for up to six months, non-renewal, suspension or denial of a driver's license, and counsel fees and costs.

Moving is its own problem with its own procedure, and getting it wrong carries the same contempt exposure plus a set of consequences aimed specifically at relocation. The [relocation chapter](https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/pennsylvania/relocation) covers the 60 day notice and the ten factors.

Source: https://www.counselpro.ai/divorce-guide/pennsylvania/child-custody