Court rule · Colorado · Family procedure · Child welfare
Colorado directs qualifying child-custody proceedings to ICWA rules
Colorado Rule Change 2026(11) amends Rules 1(a) and 16.2(a) to direct actions involving the defined child-custody proceeding to Chapter 28.3 procedures.
Published November 3, 2026 · Reviewed by David Martino
The Colorado Supreme Court, sitting en banc, amended Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure 1(a) and 16.2(a) on April 23, 2026, effective immediately. Rule Change 2026(11) directs any action involving a “child custody proceeding,” as defined by the cited federal and Colorado statutes, to proceed under the Colorado Rules of ICWA Procedure in Chapter 28.3 of the Colorado Court Rules.
Rule 16.2 governs case management in district-court actions under Title 14, Articles 10, 11, and 13, including post-decree matters. It also permits a court, on a party’s motion or its own motion, to apply Rule 16.2 to specified juvenile, paternity, or probate cases involving allocation of parental responsibilities, child support, and related matters. The new sentence in Rule 16.2(a) therefore makes the Chapter 28.3 direction explicit within the scope of those domestic-relations procedures when the action meets the cited definition. Rule 1(a) carries the same direction in the general civil rules.
The rule text does not make every custody dispute an ICWA proceeding; its trigger is the defined statutory term. Chapter 28.3 contains the separate procedural rules. This report describes the amendment and does not resolve whether any individual case meets the federal or state definition.