Shared custody law by country: presumptions, courts and recent changes

None of the countries covered in this guide has a statute that presumes equal parenting time. Seven US states do: Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida, Missouri, Mississippi and Louisiana carry a statutory presumption or command of equal or joint parenting time. Even those are rebuttable or carry an express exception, so not one of them guarantees a 50/50 schedule. Everywhere else a judge decides on the individual child, guided by a standard and a list of factors rather than by a default split.

Most of these systems do not answer the question how much time do I get in a statute at all. Family law is set nationally, and in the United States not even that — there is no federal custody statute, only separate state codes, which is why the United States has its own page and each of those seven states has one as well. The same word can also carry different legal weight on either side of a border: a defined status in one country's code, and in the next a word parents and lawyers use that the legislature never wrote down.

Where each country stands, in one line: no statute presumes equal or shared care in Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Poland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Israel, France or Denmark. Three of those carry a distinctive twist rather than a presumption — the French code names alternating residence and a single home as two equal options for the judge to choose between, Israel keeps a rebuttable proviso favouring the mother of a child under six, and Denmark's delt bopæl is a defined legal status parents can reach only by agreement. Brazil applies shared custody where the parents do not agree and both are fit, but divides contact time in a balanced way rather than equally. In the United States it is state law, and seven states presume or command equal or joint parenting time.

The index table on this page gives one row per country: the term parents there actually use, a one-line answer on whether any statute presumes equal or shared care, and the date that page was last checked. Every page names the article it relies on, links to the official text, labels a draft as a draft, and carries its own review date. What the terms literally mean is a separate question, covered in shared custody around the world.

Shared custody law, country by country

How to read the statuses on these pages

Three labels do most of the work in the dated change lists, and the difference between them decides whether something affects you now, later, or possibly never.

• In force — the rule applies today. Germany's provisions on parental responsibility and contact sit in the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and apply as written; they name no care model and prescribe no division of the child's time, and that is the law a German court works from this morning.
• Draft or pending — a text exists, and that is all it is. Germany's Kindschaftsrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz (KiMoG) is a ministerial draft: published in May 2026, consultation closed in July 2026, and at the last review still a draft with no cabinet decision behind it. A draft has no effective date, so these pages never give it one.
• Not in force yet — adopted, signed, and still not the law anyone is living under. Norway adopted an entirely new barnelova on 20 June 2025 (lov nr. 40), whose § 7-1 would drop the “special grounds” condition on shared residence. Commencement is left to the King and none has been set, so a Norwegian court still applies the 1981 Act: where the parents disagree it must place the child with one of them, and may order delt bustad only if special grounds exist.

For a parent, a draft and an adopted-but-uncommenced act look identical — nothing has changed — but the reasons differ, and so does the chance that it ever will. Each page keeps the label the official record uses, dates every entry and links its source, so you can see at a glance whether you are reading law or a proposal.

Frequently asked questions

Sources