Homeschool Requirements in Montana
Montana asks for very little. Start with the first section: what you file, if anything, and the date it is due. The rest is short. Every claim here is cited at the foot of the page, so you can check it against the code rather than take our word for it.
What you file, and by when
You file once a year. Notify the county superintendent of schools, not the local district and not OPI, of the child’s attendance at the home school in each school fiscal year. No state form is mandated; a letter suffices. Practice is to file before the first day of the public school year. If withdrawing from a public school, notify that school as well.
Days or hours
Hours, not days: 720 hours/year for grades 1-3 and 1,080 hours/year for grades 4-12 (mirrors the public-school pupil-instruction standard in 20-1-301 MCA). Kindergarten, where offered, is 360 hours.
Meeting those hours and turning them into credits are two different jobs. How to count a high school credit when you never used a textbook.
A free one-page worksheet for turning hours into credits, with the rules quoted and cited on the sheet itself: Counting a Credit.
Subjects you must cover
An “organized course of study that includes instruction in the subjects required of public schools as a basic instructional program” (cross-referencing 20-7-111 MCA). In practice: language arts/English, math, science, social studies, arts, health/PE, and (secondary) career/vocational and technology. Parent controls philosophy, curriculum, methods, and evaluation.
Records you keep
One record, and only one. A home school “shall maintain records on pupil attendance and make the records available to the county superintendent on request” (20-5-109(2)(b) MCA). That is the whole legal duty. The immunization records and the requirement to be housed in a building that meets local health and safety rules sit in 20-5-109(1), which applies to nonpublic schools, not to home schools under 20-5-109(2). A home school is not asked for either one. Section 20-5-111 is the parental-authority section, not a records section: it says the parent is solely responsible for the philosophy, the materials and curriculum, the time, place and method of instruction, and the evaluation. Keep your own course, grade and work records anyway, because nobody else is keeping them for you.
Testing or evaluation
None. No standardized testing, no portfolio review, no state or district evaluation of homeschooled students.
Diplomas and transcripts
Montana issues no state diploma to homeschoolers and does not accredit home schools. The parent, acting as administrator of a nonaccredited private school, awards the diploma and produces the transcript; there are no state credit requirements. Families targeting Montana University System admission commonly mirror the public-school ~20-credit pattern and the MUS college-prep course requirements, and should expect campuses to ask for test scores or a course-by-course transcript. Districts must have a policy for placing students transferring in from nonaccredited schools, including a hearing if the parent disputes placement, so grade/credit placement on re-entry to public school is district-discretionary, not guaranteed.
With no state credential standing behind it, the transcript has to hold up on its own. What a college actually does with a homeschool transcript.
Where this comes from
Statute: Mont. Code Ann. §§ 20-5-102, 20-5-109, 20-5-111; hours standard at § 20-1-301; subject baseline at § 20-7-111
Last reviewed: July 2026, on the 26th.
Homeschool law changes, and a page like this goes stale without saying so. Before a filing deadline, read the statute above for yourself. If we are behind, we would rather hear it from you than have you find out at the district office.
All fifty states and DC, each with its statute cited.
Filing is one half of it. Keeping the records is the other, and that is what our Records System is for: the editable transcript with the GPA already wired, 131 course descriptions, and this same statute-cited summary for all fifty states and DC. Thirty-nine dollars, one household, however many children you have.