If you are a service member facing orders, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act gives you three concrete tools to protect a child custody case during deployment: it blocks a court from entering a default judgment against you without specific safeguards, it lets you pause the proceeding while you are unavailable, and it forbids a judge from treating your deployment as the sole reason to permanently change custody. None of these protections run on their own. Each one depends on paperwork you or someone acting for you must put in front of the court.
Stopping a Default Judgment While You Are Away
The first protection applies before you even know a problem exists. Under 50 U.S.C. § 3931, a court cannot enter a default judgment against a service member who has not appeared until the other parent files a sworn statement saying whether you are in military service, or stating that they could not determine your status.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3931 – Protection of Servicemembers Against Default Judgments A judgment entered without that step can be challenged and set aside.
If the court finds you are on active duty, it must appoint an attorney to represent you before entering any judgment. That attorney’s actions do not waive your defenses or bind you.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3931 – Protection of Servicemembers Against Default Judgments And if a default judgment does get entered against you during service or within 60 days after you leave active duty, you can petition the court to reopen it and present your defense.
Pausing the Case With a Stay
When you know a custody case is pending but military duties keep you from appearing, 50 U.S.C. § 3932 gives you a right to pause it. The court must grant a stay of at least 90 days if you submit two things: a letter from you explaining how your current duties prevent you from appearing and stating a date when you will be available, and a letter from your commanding officer confirming that your duty prevents attendance and that leave has not been authorized.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3932 – Stay of Proceedings When Servicemember Has Notice Both letters. A request missing either one gives the court grounds to deny the stay.
Deployment often runs longer than 90 days. You can request additional stays using the same kind of documentation, and the statute does not cap how many. Each request has to show that your duties still prevent you from appearing.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3932 – Stay of Proceedings When Servicemember Has Notice If the court denies an additional stay, it must appoint an attorney to represent you in the proceeding. That is mandatory, not discretionary.
The protection also covers you for a short period after service. Service members within 90 days of leaving or being released from active duty can still invoke it, so you have a buffer to get organized before a court can compel your appearance.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3932 – Stay of Proceedings When Servicemember Has Notice
Deployment Alone Cannot Cost You Custody
The fear that a judge will hand custody to the other parent simply because you are overseas is a real one, and federal law addresses it directly. Under 50 U.S.C. § 3938, no court may treat your absence due to deployment, or the possibility of future deployment, as the sole factor when deciding whether to permanently modify custody.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3938 – Child Custody Protection The operative word is sole. A judge can still weigh deployment alongside other best-interest factors; deployment by itself is not enough to justify a permanent change.
Most states have added their own protections on top of the federal floor, and some go further than § 3938. About ten have adopted the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act, a model law that builds a fuller framework around deployment-related custody issues. Because the rules vary, what you can rely on beyond the federal minimum depends on where your case is filed.
What the SCRA Does Not Do
Three gaps trip up service members who assume the SCRA covers more than it does.
A Family Care Plan is not a custody order. Every branch requires single parents and dual-military couples to keep a current Family Care Plan naming primary and alternate caregivers, arranging financial support, and providing medical and educational authorizations, with notarized acknowledgments from the caregivers. Failing to keep one current can lead to counseling on voluntary or involuntary separation from the service.4The United States Army. Family Care Plan Sustains Unit Readiness But the plan is a military administrative document with no bearing on custody in a court of law.5JAGCNet. Deployment and Child Custody A judge will not enforce it, and it cannot override an existing custody order. It has to line up with whatever the court has ordered, not the other way around.
You generally cannot place the child with a third party over the other fit parent. If you are the custodial parent and the other biological parent is fit and wants the child during your deployment, naming your mother or a new spouse as caregiver in your Family Care Plan does not defeat that parent’s rights.5JAGCNet. Deployment and Child Custody Courts almost always prefer the other parent over a non-parent when the other parent is willing and able.
Child support does not pause when you deploy. An existing court order or written support agreement stays in effect at the dollar amount ordered until a court modifies it. You cannot unilaterally reduce payments. For Army personnel without a court order or written agreement, Army Regulation 608-99 sets an interim minimum tied to the Basic Allowance for Housing at the with-dependents rate for your rank, and deployment-related pay like hazard pay is not included in that calculation.6JAGCNet. AR 608-99 Support of Dependents Other branches have parallel rules. If deployment genuinely changes your financial picture, file a modification petition immediately. Under federal regulations, support payments become enforceable judgments on the date they come due and cannot be reduced retroactively.7eCFR. 45 CFR 303.106 – Procedures to Prohibit Retroactive Modification of Child Support Arrearages A modification can reach back only to the date you gave notice of your petition, not to the date you received orders. Every month you wait is a month no court can erase.
Setting a Temporary Arrangement Before You Leave
The SCRA keeps a court from acting against you while you are gone, but it does not create a custody plan for the deployment itself. That is on you to arrange. Where both parents agree, many states let you formalize a temporary arrangement in a written agreement without a court hearing. Where you cannot agree, either parent can ask the court for a temporary order covering the deployment period, spelling out who makes daily decisions, how you will keep contact with your child through video calls or messaging, and when the arrangement ends.
In states that have adopted the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act, the court must hold an expedited hearing when a service member files a custody motion before deployment, so you can participate in person before you leave. On short-notice orders, that expedited track can be the difference between deploying with a clear legal arrangement and deploying into uncertainty.
Getting Your Original Order Back When You Return
A temporary deployment order is supposed to end when you come home, and your pre-deployment custody order should be reinstated within a set period after you return unless returning to it would harm the child.8Military OneSource. Child Custody Considerations for Military Families Under the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act, a temporary order terminates by operation of law 60 days after the returning parent notifies the other parent of the return, unless the parties agreed to a different date or the original order set one.
If the other parent or a temporary guardian refuses to hand the child back, you can file a motion to enforce the reversion. Courts treat these motions seriously, because the whole idea of a temporary order depends on it actually being temporary. A parent who was given temporary custody during deployment and then refuses to return the child is violating a court order and can face contempt.
Reversion is not always instant. Some courts have authority to order a short transition period if the child’s circumstances changed significantly during a long deployment. The bar for blocking reversion outright is high: the other parent typically has to show by clear and convincing evidence that returning to the original arrangement would harm the child. Preference for the current arrangement is not enough. Absent that showing, the original order controls.
Where To Get Help Before You Deploy
Every military installation has a Legal Assistance Office staffed with attorneys who can advise on custody, child support, divorce, and related family law issues at no cost.9Military OneSource. Legal Assistance for Service Members and Families They can help you draft documents, prepare the letters a § 3932 stay request needs, and explain how your state’s rules layer on top of the SCRA. Their courtroom representation is limited, but they can point you to civilian attorneys who handle military custody cases. If you have orders and any custody arrangement in place, contacting the Legal Assistance Office before you leave is the single most useful step you can take.