Shared custody law in Israel (mishmoret meshutefet): what the rules say in 2026

Israel has no statutory presumption of joint custody and none of equal parenting time. Where parents cannot agree, the Family Court — beit ha-mishpat le-inyanei mishpacha (בית המשפט לענייני משפחה) — decides as it sees fit for the child's welfare. The only statutory presumption about where a child lives points the other way: children up to the age of 6 are to be with their mother unless the court finds special reasons to order otherwise. That proviso is section 25 of the Capacity and Guardianship Law, 5722-1962, and it stands in the text current to 19 January 2026.

Parents who agree have their own route: section 24 lets them settle guardianship, which of them holds the child and the other parent's contact — but the agreement takes effect only once the court approves it. Above the age of 6 the statute gives the court no list of factors, only the child's welfare. Nothing in the past three years has changed either section.

What Israeli law actually says

Two sections of one 1962 statute do almost all the work. Section 14 of the Capacity and Guardianship Law, 5722-1962, says in a single sentence that both parents are the natural guardians — apotroposut tiv'it (אפוטרופסות טבעית) — of their minor children. Section 15 adds what guardianship contains: the duty and right to care for the child's needs and, attached to it, the authority to hold the child and to determine the child's place of residence. “To hold the minor” is the statutory root of the everyday word for custody, mishmoret (משמורת), which section 15 itself never uses.

From there the law splits in two.

• Section 24 — the parents agree. Parents living apart may agree which of them has guardianship, which of them will hold the child, and what the other parent's rights of contact will be. The agreement requires the court's approval.
• Section 25 — they do not agree, or agreed and did not carry it out. The court then determines the same matters as it sees fit for the child's welfare, provided that children up to the age of 6 shall be with their mother absent special reasons to order otherwise.

Those closing words are chazakat ha-gil ha-rach (חזקת הגיל הרך), the tender-years presumption — the only statutory presumption in Israeli law about where a child lives. The Law's most recent amendment, gazetted on 18 January 2026, leaves both sections alone.

Nothing runs the other way: no Israeli statute or regulation creates a presumption, preference or default of joint custody, shared parenting or equal parenting time. In 2017 the Supreme Court recorded that a move to change the tender-years presumption “has not ripened into legislation” and that the presumption “stands”. Section 18(a) requires both parents to act by agreement in every matter within their guardianship.

Sources: [1], [7]

How an Israeli court decides

The first-instance court is the Family Court, whose jurisdiction statute covers claims under the Capacity and Guardianship Law “including custody rights, education, visiting, securing the bond between a minor and their parent, or a minor's departure from the country”. What it has to work with is unusually thin.

• Welfare is the whole of the statutory standard. Section 25 says the court decides as it sees fit for the child's welfare, and stops there: no list of factors, no wishes clause.
• One list of criteria, and it is procedural. Under the Family Court (Civil Procedure) Regulations, 5781-2020, before any decision concerning a child the court must weigh the child's welfare, “including the whole of their rights, needs and interests, and their wishes having regard to their age and developing capacities”.
• A standard for the parents. Section 17 measures them against how “devoted parents would act in the circumstances”.
• The under-6 proviso yields. It applies unless the court finds sibot meyuchadot (סיבות מיוחדות), “special reasons”, which the statute nowhere defines.
• Agreements are reviewed, not rubber-stamped. A section 24 agreement takes effect on the court's approval, given once the court is satisfied it is for the child's welfare.

Which court hears the case is a separate question. Rabbinical courts have exclusive jurisdiction over the marriage and divorce of Jews who are citizens or residents, and where a divorce claim is filed there, over every matter bound up with that claim. In other personal-status matters a rabbinical court has jurisdiction only once all the parties concerned have consented.

Money runs on its own track. For Jews, child maintenance follows personal law rather than the Maintenance Law's own rule, which is why the Supreme Court in בע״מ 919/15 (2017) reinterpreted religious law: for children aged 6 to 15 both parents bear maintenance equally, divided by their relative economic capacities from all sources, subject to the actual division of physical custody.

Sources: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [7]

What this looks like in practice

A parent cannot simply file. A party must first apply to settle the dispute; the parties are then summoned to the court's assistance unit — the yechidat siyua (יחידת סיוע) — for up to four information, acquaintance and coordination meetings, the pgishot mahut (פגישות מהו״ת), all to be held within 45 days of the filing. Whatever they settle there goes back to the court for approval under section 24.

Since 2020 the court's own pleading rules classify a claim about a minor as one that may include an application for an arrangement whose subject is zmanei shehut (זמני שהות) — “times of staying”, i.e. parenting time — alongside education and a child's departure from the country. Unlike the older custody-and-visiting pair, it covers both parents symmetrically.

When Israeli lawyers say mishmoret meshutefet (משמורת משותפת), joint custody, the nearest thing to a definition comes from 919/15: joint physical custody there means an equal division of the times the child stays with each parent. The same judgment records the term also being used for an unequal division — so two parents can both say “joint custody” and picture different calendars. Its cost-sharing rule for the typical equal-time case is expressly a default that may be departed from, case by case.

So the practical work is in the dates.

• 50/50 custody schedules — the equal-time patterns and their handover cost.
• Alternating weeks — week on, week off, and the week-numbering trap at New Year.
• Custody schedule examples — patterns side by side, by age and distance.
• Parenting plan template — the sections a written arrangement covers.
• Shared custody terms around the world — the local phrase, country by country.

One figure this page does not give: there is no published official national figure for the share of Israeli cases that end in joint custody or in equal parenting time, and none for how often the under-6 proviso is set aside.

Sources: [1], [2], [6], [7]

The Hebrew terms you will meet

Term	What it means
mishmoret	“Custody”. The Capacity and Guardianship Law never uses the word; the Family Court Law's jurisdiction section does, and so does everyone else. mishmoret fizit is physical custody.
mishmoret meshutefet	“Joint custody”. No statute defines it. In בע״מ 919/15 joint physical custody means an equal division of the child's staying times; the Court notes it is also used for unequal divisions.
zmanei shehut	“Times of staying” — parenting time. The term the court's own 2020 procedure rules use for the arrangement a claim may ask for.
hesderei re'iya (הסדרי ראייה)	“Seeing arrangements”, the older phrase for the contact of the parent who does not hold the child; it tracks section 24's “to come into contact with them”. Not the court system's current term.
chazakat ha-gil ha-rach	“Presumption of the tender age” — the name given to the closing words of section 25. The statute never uses the phrase.

Sources: [1], [2], [3], [7]

Recent changes

• 27 September 2026 Pending — no reading passed

  Bill to repeal the tender-years presumption

  A private member's bill (P/2906/25, MK Tali Gotlieb) would delete the closing passage of section 25, beginning “provided that children up to the age of 6”. Checked on 27 September 2026, the Knesset record's last status change was 6 May 2025, “in the plenum for a preliminary reading”; it was never gazetted, and section 25 applies in full.

  Official source: Bill P/2906/25 as tabled (Knesset)

• 18 January 2026 In force

  Capacity and Guardianship Law, Amendment No. 24

  Adult guardianship, not children's arrangements: a guardian may open and operate a payment account for the person under guardianship, and payment-service providers may not refuse. It appears here because it reset the statute's “current text” date — a parent who opens the Law and sees a 2026 stamp is reading an unchanged section 25.

  Official source: Sefer HaChukim 3486, p. 230

• 18 November 2025 In force — temporary provision, two years

  Rabbinical Courts Jurisdiction Law, Amendment No. 6

  A temporary provision, running two years from commencement, re-worded the matters over which a rabbinical court has exclusive jurisdiction once a divorce claim is filed there: the list now expressly covers the couple's children's maintenance and the restitution to one parent of children's maintenance expenses borne by the other. Children's maintenance was already ancillary before the amendment; the restitution limb and the definition of it are what is new. Nothing about parenting time changes, but more turns on which court a parent files in.

  Official source: Sefer HaChukim 3459, p. 20

Frequently asked questions

Sources