What Is the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children?

The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children is a binding agreement among all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands that governs how a child moves across state lines for foster care, adoption, or placement with relatives under agency or court jurisdiction.¹ Before a covered child can physically relocate, the state the child is moving to must evaluate the proposed home and give formal approval. The compact sets the paperwork, assigns ongoing legal and financial responsibility, and spells out what happens when the rules are skipped.

Who the Compact Covers

Two roles frame every case. The state where the child currently lives is the sending state, and it keeps legal and financial responsibility for the child throughout the placement. The state where the child is going is the receiving state, and it must evaluate the proposed home and approve the placement before the child arrives. Neither state can hand off responsibility on its own.

The compact reaches public and private foster care, agency-facilitated and independent adoptions, and placements with relatives when the child is under court or agency jurisdiction. Newborn adoptions across state lines are one of the most common triggers: when prospective adoptive parents live in a different state from where the baby is born, the family typically has to remain in the birth state with the child until both states issue their approvals. Leaving early turns a lawful adoption into a compact violation.

Placements That Are Exempt

Not every out-of-state move involving a child requires compact approval, and the exemptions matter because they’re where families most often misread the rules.

Hospitals, psychiatric treatment facilities, and primarily educational institutions like boarding schools are excluded. These settings provide specialized care or education and don’t involve a change in legal custody for foster or adoptive purposes. Residential treatment centers are a different story and do require approval under a separate compact regulation.²

The larger exemption is for family. When a parent, stepparent, grandparent, adult sibling, or adult aunt or uncle sends a child to live with another such relative in a different state, the compact does not apply. The critical condition is that the child cannot be under court jurisdiction or the authority of a child welfare agency at the time. A grandmother moving her grandchild to live with an aunt across state lines is a private family matter. If that same child is a ward of the state, the placement goes through the full compact process regardless of the relationship.

How the Approval Process Works

Every compact placement starts with the ICPC-100A, the formal written request from the sending state to the receiving state. The sending agency assembles a packet that includes the child’s identifying information and legal status, a social history, financial and medical care plans, a home study of the proposed residence, and the current court order establishing the sending agency’s authority. The 100A must be signed by the sending court judge or an authorized agent of the public agency.²

The compact routes everything through a centralized Compact Administrator in each state. The sending state’s administrator reviews the packet for completeness and transmits it to the receiving state’s administrator, who forwards it to a local agency in the county where the proposed home sits. Local social workers then conduct or review the home study. The compact requires that home study to be completed as quickly as possible, with a hard deadline of 60 calendar days after the receiving state gets the request.² That 60-day clock covers the report itself. Complex cases and incomplete paperwork from the sending state can push the overall timeline well beyond two months.

The sending court keeps jurisdiction over the child during the entire process. The process ends when the receiving state’s Compact Administrator signs the 100A to approve or deny. No child may lawfully move to the receiving state before that signature.

The Faster Track for Relative Placements

The standard timeline can be hard on young children stuck in temporary care while paperwork moves. Regulation 7 creates a fast-track process for certain relative placements, but only when specific conditions are met.²

The proposed caregiver must be a parent, stepparent, grandparent, adult aunt or uncle, adult sibling, or the child’s legal guardian. Licensed foster care and adoption placements don’t qualify. Beyond the relationship, the case must meet at least one of these conditions:

The child needs placement because of a parent or guardian’s recent death, incarceration, or incapacitation due to a medical, mental, or physical condition.
The child is four years old or younger.
The child is part of a sibling group being placed together, and at least one sibling is four or younger.
The child already has a substantial relationship with the proposed caregiver.
The child is already in an emergency placement.

When Regulation 7 applies, the sending court enters an order laying out the factual basis for the expedited request. The receiving state is expected to act faster than the standard 60-day window. The regulation accelerates the decision; it does not guarantee approval.

What Happens After the Child Moves

The sending state’s responsibilities don’t end at arrival. Under Article V of the compact, the sending state keeps legal jurisdiction and financial responsibility for the child until the case is formally closed. It keeps the same authority over custody and care decisions as if the child had never left.³ The receiving state acts as an agent, providing on-the-ground supervision.

That supervision runs on a schedule. A caseworker in the receiving state prepares a written report at least every 90 days covering face-to-face contact with the child, the child’s current circumstances, and any safety concerns.⁴ The reports go to the receiving state’s compact office and back to the sending state.

Status changes travel on the ICPC-100B form, which confirms the child’s arrival, reports a change in caregiver or address, withdraws a pending request, or closes the case. A case closes when an adoption is finalized, the child reaches the age of majority or is legally emancipated, legal custody is returned to a parent by court order, the child returns to the sending state, or both states agree supervision is no longer needed. The sending court keeps jurisdiction until one of those events happens.²

What a Violation Costs

Moving a child across state lines without compact approval is treated as a violation of the child placement laws of both the sending and receiving states.³ The receiving state can demand the child’s immediate removal and return. Even if the receiving state decides to evaluate the placement after the fact, it has no obligation to do so. During the entire period of the illegal placement, the sending state bears full liability for the child’s safety.²

A violation can also lead to the suspension or revocation of a child-placing agency’s license.³ Prospective caregivers, the sending agency, any private child-placing agency, and legal counsel all share responsibility for notifying compact authorities in both states and coordinating action to protect the child.² Individual states may impose additional penalties under their own child welfare statutes; the compact itself does not specify dollar amounts for fines.

Private interstate adoptions are where this most often goes wrong. A well-meaning adoptive family leaves the birth state with the baby before both approvals come through, and what started as a lawful adoption becomes a compact violation that can unravel the placement.

Medicaid Across State Lines

Families worry about whether a child will have health coverage after the move. Because Medicaid is a federal program, states cannot withhold Medicaid benefits from a child who is otherwise eligible, regardless of state-level compact considerations. Medicaid moves with the child to the new state of residence.⁵

For children adopted with an adoption assistance agreement, a separate compact called the Interstate Compact on Adoption and Medical Assistance coordinates benefits when the family moves. If the child is eligible under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, the child’s state of residence must provide Medicaid. Most states extend reciprocity for children receiving state-funded adoption assistance as well, so coverage gaps are uncommon.⁵

Why Timelines Are Changing

For decades, ICPC paperwork traveled by postal mail, and processing times of six months to a year were not unusual. The National Electronic Interstate Compact Enterprise, or NEICE, replaces that paper process with a secure electronic exchange. States using NEICE have cut document transmission from roughly six to twelve months down to one or two days.⁶ Under the Family First Prevention Services Act, every state must join a national electronic case-processing system by October 1, 2027.⁷ Not every state is connected yet, so a placement between two NEICE states will move much faster than one still relying on mail.

The rules themselves are also in motion. A revised version of the compact has been drafted and needs 35 states to enact it before it takes effect. As of mid-2025, 20 states had passed the revised version.⁸ Until the revised compact reaches the 35-state threshold, the original compact and its existing regulations remain the governing law in all member jurisdictions.

1
Interstate Commission for Juveniles. ICJ and ICPC Fact Sheet
2
American Public Human Services Association. ICPC Regulations
3
EveryCRSReport.com. Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children – Congressional Research Service
4
American Public Human Services Association. Best Practice Guidelines for a Receiving State’s Supervision of Children Placed via the ICPC
5
American Public Human Services Association. Medicaid and the Intersection of Federal and State Law – ICPC and ICAMA
6
Data.gov. Profiles in Data Sharing – National Electronic Interstate Compact Enterprise
7
Child Welfare Information Gateway. Family First Prevention Services Act – P.L. 115-123
8
American Public Human Services Association. Revised ICPC