Parenting time and child support in Virginia
Virginia counts days rather than overnights, and applies its shared custody calculation where a parent has the child for more than ninety days of the year — an operative count of 91. A Virginia day is a twenty-four hour period, so a night count alone will misstate a Virginia schedule.
What is the parenting-time threshold in Virginia?
91
Virginia applies its shared custody calculation where a parent has the child for more than ninety days of the year, which makes 91 the operative count. Below that number of days the sole custody calculation applies instead, so the day count is what decides which of the two is used.
The Virginia unit is a day, not an overnight, and the two are not interchangeable. A Virginia day is a twenty-four hour period, and a short overnight held by the parent with less time is presumed to be half a day, so counting nights alone will misstate a Virginia arrangement in either direction.
- Virginia — Va. Code § 20-108.2(G)(3). Verified .The statute reads "more than 90 days of the year", so the operative number is 91 — the same read as Colorado's former "more than ninety-two". A Virginia "day" is a 24-hour period, not an overnight, and short overnights held by the lesser-time parent are presumed to be half a day, so this number is not interchangeable with an overnight count.
- Colorado — C.R.S. § 14-10-115(3)(h), (8)(b), (8)(h), as amended by HB25-1159 (2025), operative March 1, 2026. Verified .This supersedes the "more than ninety-two overnights" test — operative number 93 — which HB25-1159 struck effective March 1, 2026. An order or a plan written against that older test describes a rule that is no longer applied. Bill status and signature: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1159
What to know before you file in Virginia
Virginia publishes no single statewide fill-in parenting plan, so the schedule is normally set out in the custody and visitation petition and in the order that follows it. The Virginia self-help forms index below is where the district and juvenile court forms a parent actually files are published and kept current.
Because Virginia counts days rather than overnights, a Virginia schedule should record when the child is with each parent across the day, not only where the child sleeps. Two Virginia schedules with identical overnight counts can produce different day counts once daytime blocks and short overnights are taken into account.
Virginia parents filing in the juvenile and domestic relations district court are describing the arrangement to a court that will decide it, so the written schedule is worth being specific about: name the weekday and weekend pattern, the holiday rotation and the summer arrangement, and say who transports the child each way.
The Virginia form
The Virginia Judicial System self-help index of the district and juvenile court forms filed to establish custody and visitation, including the information form used in a custody proceeding.