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WashingtonHB 16202025-2026 Regular SessionHouse

Concerning limitations in parenting plans.

Sponsored By: Jamila Taylor (Democratic)

Signed by Governor

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

10 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 1 costs, 7 mixed.

Safer decisions but fewer shared-parenting options

Beginning July 27, 2025, courts generally must order sole decision-making after extended willful abandonment, child abuse, domestic violence, or qualifying assaults. Disputes generally must go through court; exceptions require express written findings supported by clear and convincing evidence. In domestic-violence cases, courts cannot require mediation, arbitration, or interventions that put parents in shared physical or virtual space. Adult child-sex-offense convictions and sexually violent predator findings bar required shared decisions and noncourt dispute resolution. Courts also cannot order noncourt dispute resolution when a statutory limitation applies or either parent cannot afford it. When a mandatory limit removes one parent’s decision-making authority, the other parent receives sole authority.

Strict contact limits after child sexual abuse

Beginning July 27, 2025, Washington courts cannot allow unsupervised contact with a child the parent sexually abused. Restrictions also cover qualifying child-sex-offense convictions, sexually violent predator findings, and risks from sexually abusive household members. For another child, unsupervised contact requires at least two years of supervised time without further specified sex-offense arrests or convictions. Courts also need safety findings and expert evidence; without ordered sex-offender treatment, a psychosexual evaluation must show the lowest likelihood of reoffending. Separate safeguards for resident juveniles with qualifying sex-offense findings include two years of supervision and required safety evidence. Rebutting the specified danger presumptions requires written findings supported by clear and convincing evidence. Contact in a sexually abusive household member’s presence requires findings that the parent accepts the harmful conduct and can protect the child. The law also bars contact in specified sexual-abuse cases, including cases involving sexual assault against the child’s parent within 320 days before birth. These safeguards also apply to temporary parenting plans and parental contact rights in minor guardianship orders.

Child advocates need relevant safety training

Court-appointed guardians ad litem help assess a child’s interests in parenting cases. When a case alleges conduct covered by statutory parenting limits, they must have additional relevant training when it is available.

Child moves must account for safety

When deciding whether a child may move, courts must consider existing statutory parenting-time limits. This includes limits on either parent or another person entitled to time with the child. The rule makes these safety limits part of the court’s relocation review.

Restricted parents face higher expansion threshold

Parents without most parenting time face a higher threshold to seek more time through the minor-change process. If their time is subject to statutory safety limits, they must show a substantial change in circumstances. That change must specifically relate to the reason for the limits.

Courts must explain parents’ safety limits

Beginning July 27, 2025, courts may decline parenting-time limits only with clear and convincing evidence that contact will not cause harm. Written findings must also show that repeat harmful conduct is so unlikely that limits do not serve the child’s interests. Courts must address current risk, the child’s well-being, compliance with orders, acknowledgment of harm, and compliance with past treatment orders. Joining treatment alone is not enough, and this exception does not cover the specified sexual-abuse findings. When both parents face limits, courts must compare their risks and explain restrictions, exceptions, and decision-making choices in writing. Mandatory limits presumptively take priority over discretionary limits; departures require detailed written reasons addressing the child’s interests and stability.

Courts restrict unsafe contact with children

Beginning July 27, 2025, courts may limit parenting plans when abusive conflict threatens serious harm to a child’s psychological development. They may also act when a parent withholds a child for a long time without good cause. Good-faith, lawful steps to protect a parent or child from harm do not count as withholding. Courts may reduce contact with the parent the child does not mainly live with when that protects the child’s best interests. Courts must bar all contact when evidence shows that limits on parenting time cannot adequately protect the child from harm or abuse.

Military parents face safer delegation rules

During qualifying temporary duty, deployment, activation, or mobilization, military parents may request that someone else exercise their parenting time. Courts cannot approve a person who falls under the law’s parenting-time limits. This narrows who can receive delegated parenting time or visitation rights.

Parenting rights can depend on treatment

Beginning July 27, 2025, courts may order evaluations of domestic-violence behavior, substance use, mental health, or anger management. Evaluations include input from the other parent; reports missing that input must explain why and document attempts to obtain it. Treatment orders require evidence that treatment is needed and the issue interferes with parenting. Courts may make parenting time or decision-making authority depend on completing an ordered evaluation or treatment.

Stronger safeguards for supervised parenting visits

Beginning July 27, 2025, professional supervision is the usual rule for court-ordered supervised visits. A nonprofessional supervisor is allowed only when professional supervision is inaccessible or unaffordable and the person can protect the child. Courts must issue written visit rules and obtain signed acknowledgments before visits begin. A parent may seek an emergency suspension for supervision violations, threats, domestic violence, or a supervisor’s inability or unwillingness to continue. After an emergency suspension without advance notice, the court must hold a review hearing within 14 days.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Sponsor

  • Jamila Taylor

    Democratic • House

Cosponsors

  • Julia Reed

    Democratic • House

  • Natasha Hill

    Democratic • House

  • Roger Goodman

    Democratic • House

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 178 • No: 61

House vote • 4/18/2025

Final Passage as Amended by the Senate

Yes: 60 • No: 37 • Other: 1

Senate vote • 4/2/2025

3rd Reading & Final Passage as Amended by the Senate

Yes: 32 • No: 17

House vote • 3/8/2025

3rd Reading & Final Passage

Yes: 86 • No: 7 • Other: 5

Actions Timeline

  1. Effective date 7/27/2025.

    4/25/2025House

  2. Chapter 166, 2025 Laws.

    4/25/2025House

  3. Governor signed.

    4/25/2025legislature

  4. Delivered to Governor.

    4/21/2025legislature

  5. President signed.

    4/19/2025legislature

  6. Speaker signed.

    4/18/2025legislature

  7. Passed final passage; yeas, 60; nays, 37; absent, 0; excused, 1.

    4/18/2025House

  8. House concurred in Senate amendments.

    4/18/2025House

  9. Third reading, passed; yeas, 32; nays, 17; absent, 0; excused, 0.

    4/2/2025House

  10. Rules suspended. Placed on Third Reading.

    4/2/2025House

  11. Committee amendment(s) adopted as amended.

    4/2/2025House

  12. Placed on second reading by Rules Committee.

    3/26/2025House

  13. Passed to Rules Committee for second reading.

    3/24/2025House

  14. Minority; without recommendation.

    3/20/2025House

  15. Minority; do not pass.

    3/20/2025House

  16. LAW - Majority; do pass with amendment(s).

    3/20/2025House

  17. First reading, referred to Law & Justice.

    3/11/2025House

  18. Third reading, passed; yeas, 86; nays, 7; absent, 0; excused, 5.

    3/8/2025House

  19. Rules suspended. Placed on Third Reading.

    3/8/2025House

  20. Floor amendment(s) adopted.

    3/8/2025House

  21. 1st substitute bill substituted.

    3/8/2025House

  22. Rules Committee relieved of further consideration. Placed on second reading.

    3/4/2025House

  23. Referred to Rules 2 Review.

    2/11/2025House

  24. Minority; without recommendation.

    2/7/2025House

  25. Minority; do not pass.

    2/7/2025House

Bill Text

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