Alden House. Parent Center

Homeschooling in Montana

What the law requires, what you file and when, and what to keep — with the statute behind each rule.

notice only 16 sources Verified 12 October 2026

What Montana requires

Notify
County superintendent of schools in the county where the home school is located — Each school fiscal year (July 1 to June 30); statute sets no specific date. Notify when you start homeschooling. (annual)
Testing or evaluation
Not required.
Subjects set by the state
Yes — 7 required subjects, listed below
Teaching time
720 hours, 1,080 hours — in detail
Compulsory school age
7 to 16 — in detail
Records
Attendance records, available to the county superintendent on request.

Taking your child out of school in Montana

First move: File the home school notice with the county superintendent.

No approval is needed; telling the child's public school in writing that the child is withdrawing to a home school is recommended so the child is not marked truant.

The legal routes

2 routes exist in Montana. They carry different duties, and families often do not know the alternatives to the obvious one.

Home school
A parent instructs their own child, stepchild or ward in the parent's residence; notify the county superintendent each school year, keep attendance records, meet minimum hours and teach the basic instructional program subjects.
Nonpublic school (parochial, church, religious or private)
Enroll in a nonpublic school that keeps attendance and immunization records, meets hour and subject rules and health/safety building rules.

The notice, and who receives it

Goes to
County superintendent of schools in the county where the home school is located
Deadline
Each school fiscal year (July 1 to June 30); statute sets no specific date. Notify when you start homeschooling.
Renews
annual
Form
Notice of home school attendance (no statewide form; many county superintendents provide their own form)

No official state form was found online for this route; the body above supplies it, or a letter serves.

Subjects Montana requires

  • English language arts
  • Mathematics
  • Social studies
  • Science
  • Health
  • Arts
  • Career education

See which courses here cover these subjects →

Compulsory school age

7 to 16 (child who is 7 before the first day of school, until the later of the 16th birthday or completing 8th grade)

Teaching time

Same minimum aggregate hours as public schools (MCA 20-1-301/-302, cited by 20-5-109): 720 hours (grades 1-3), 1,080 hours (grades 4-12; 1,050 may suffice for graduating seniors); 360 half-time / 720 full-time kindergarten

Who may teach

Montana sets no qualification for the parent teaching at home: no teaching certificate, no college degree, and no requirement that you hold a high school diploma.

Testing and evaluation

No testing required. By law the parent is solely responsible for evaluating home school instruction.

Records to keep

Attendance records, available to the county superintendent on request. (Since the 2025 amendment, the immunization-record and building health/safety requirements apply to nonpublic schools, not home schools.)

High school, diplomas and transcripts

Parent issues the diploma and transcript; parent controls curriculum, materials and evaluation. No state graduation requirements for home schools.

Public school classes, sports and activities

Resident districts must admit home school students as part-time enrollees at the parent's request (MCA 20-5-101(8), in effect since July 1, 2024). Since 2021, districts and athletic associations may not bar home school students in their resident district from extracurricular activities because they are not enrolled or attend few hours (they may restrict based on U.S. citizenship or Montana residency).

Students follow the same participation standards and association rules; academic eligibility is attested in writing by the parent-educator and verified by the principal without any student assessment.

Funding: education savings accounts, vouchers and tax credits

Montana Special Needs Equal Opportunity ESA (2023): for students identified with a disability under IDEA who meet prior-year/new-resident/kindergarten criteria; reimburses curriculum, tutoring, therapies, online courses and more, and does not require private school enrollment. Student Scholarship Organization tax credit scholarships are for private schools.

No general homeschool funding.

What changed recently

2025 HB 778 (Ch. 724, Laws of 2025; passed unanimously): split MCA 20-5-109 into nonpublic and home school rules; home schools no longer must keep immunization records or meet building health/safety rules.

2025 (Ch. 603): extracurricular law amended (citizenship/residency limits allowed). July 1, 2024: districts must accept home school students as part-time enrollees on request. 2023: Special Needs Equal Opportunity ESA created.

What we could not confirm

Subject list comes from HSLDA's reading of the public school basic instructional program (Board of Public Education standards were not checked directly). No OPI page was checked; county superintendents may use their own notice forms.

Whether home-schooled students can use the special needs ESA in practice, and whether any court ruling affects the ESA, was not confirmed. HB 778's signing was inferred from its codification in the 2025 MCA.

  • Other archive.legmt.gov MCA links redirect and were not individually re-read. HB 778 signing confirmed only via codification (Ch. 724, L. 2025 in the 20-5-109 history note).

Listed because a legal summary that hides its gaps is harder to trust than one that names them. How these pages are checked.

Statutes and sources

Statute and regulation

  • MCA § 20-5-101
  • MCA § 20-5-102
  • MCA § 20-5-103
  • MCA § 20-5-109
  • MCA § 20-5-111
  • MCA § 20-5-112
  • MCA § 20-1-301
  • MCA § 20-7-111
  • MCA §§ 20-7-1701 to -1710 (special needs ESA)
  • MCA §§ 15-30-3101 to -3114 (SSO tax credit)

Statute text

Secondary sources