Louisiana 50/50 custody law: the new equal physical custody rule explained (2026)

Louisiana has no statutory presumption of equal parenting time. What it has, since 1 August 2026, is a direction to the court — and a district judge still decides. La. R.S. 9:335(A)(2)(b) now reads: “Unless the court determines it is not feasible or in the best interest of the child, physical custody of the child shall be shared equally.” Neither the enacted text nor the official digest uses the word “presumption”, and no standard of proof is attached to the exception.

Joint custody as a legal status has been the Louisiana default for far longer. Where the parents do not agree, Civil Code art. 132 awards custody to “the parents jointly”, and sole custody is available only where it is “shown by clear and convincing evidence to serve the best interest of the child”. The 2026 change is about the time split inside joint custody, not about who holds custody.

What Louisiana law actually says

Louisiana splits custody between two books. The Civil Code holds the substance: art. 131 requires the court to “award custody of a child in accordance with the best interest of the child”, art. 132 decides who holds custody, art. 134 lists the factors. Title 9 of the Revised Statutes holds the machinery: R.S. 9:335 covers joint custody and its implementation order.

Art. 132 works in three steps. A parental agreement is followed unless R.S. 9:364 applies or the child’s best interest requires otherwise. “In the absence of agreement … the court shall award custody to the parents jointly.” Sole custody is the exception, available only where it is “shown by clear and convincing evidence to serve the best interest of the child”.

R.S. 9:335 turns joint custody into a schedule: the court “shall render a joint custody implementation order except for good cause shown”, and that order must “allocate the time periods during which each parent shall have physical custody of the child”.

Act 605 of 2026 — House Bill 1239, a substitute for House Bill 473 — rewrote one subparagraph of that section and nothing else: “To amend and reenact R.S. 9:335(A)(2)(b), relative to child custody”. The official digest sets old against new. Prior law provided that “to the extent it was feasible and in the best interest of the child, physical custody of the child should be shared equally”. The enacted sentence turns “to the extent it is … and” into “unless the court determines it is not … or”, and “should” into “shall”: equal sharing stops being a goal to reach where possible and becomes what the court orders unless it finds a reason not to.

Sources: [1], [2], [4], [6], [7], [8]

How a Louisiana court decides

Everything turns on the best interest of the child, measured by the fourteen factors in art. 134. The first is the primary one: “the potential for the child to be abused, as defined by Children’s Code Article 603, which shall be the primary consideration”. The other thirteen cover emotional ties; capacity to give love, guidance and education; capacity to provide material needs; time in a stable environment; permanence of the proposed home; moral fitness; any history of substance abuse, violence or criminal activity; health; home, school and community history; the child’s reasonable preference; willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other party; the distance between the homes; and prior responsibility for care and rearing. Where there is family violence or domestic abuse, art. 134(B) sends the decision to R.S. 9:341 and 9:364 instead.

Inside joint custody, the allocation of time now begins at equal. The wording matters: it is the court that determines whether equal sharing is not feasible or not in the child’s best interest, and the statute attaches no standard of proof to that determination.

One Louisiana feature surprises newcomers. The court must still designate a domiciliary parent — the parent “with whom the child shall primarily reside” — unless the implementation order provides otherwise or there is other good cause. The label is about residence for legal purposes and decision-making, not the size of the time share, so it coexists with equal time. And there can be only one: in Hodges v. Hodges (2015) the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that R.S. 9:335 does not allow naming both parents co-domiciliary, since “there can be only one domiciliary parent — the parent with whom the child primarily resides”. The equal, week-on/week-off custody the trial court had ordered there was not the problem; the label was.

Sources: [1], [3], [4], [7], [11]

Implementation orders, child support and what is not known

The statute names no rotation: the pattern that delivers equal physical custody is written into the joint custody implementation order, which is also where legal authority is allocated. Louisiana adds one clause parents elsewhere rarely see: the order must provide that where a party has to evacuate the state with the child because of a declared emergency or disaster, “the parties shall engage in continuous communication regarding the safe evacuation of the child, the location of the child … and an interim custody plan”. See 50/50 custody schedules, alternating weeks and what a parenting plan covers for the patterns themselves.

Equal time does not end child support, and Act 605 did not touch the guidelines. R.S. 9:315.9 defines “shared custody” — a support term, not a custody label — as each parent having physical custody for an approximately equal amount of time. Where it applies, “the basic child support obligation shall first be multiplied by one and one-half and then divided between the parents in proportion to their respective adjusted gross incomes”. Each share is cross-multiplied by the actual percentage of time the child spends with the other party, the parent owing more pays the difference, and the result is capped at what that parent would owe as domiciliary parent.

No official Louisiana figure for the share of judgments allocating equal physical custody appears in the sources checked here, for any year. The one primary-source example is anecdotal, not statistical: the trial court in Hodges ordered equal physical custody on a weekly alternation in 2014, under the older wording. For the wider picture, see the United States custody-law page.

Sources: [4], [5], [6], [11]

The words Louisiana uses

• Joint custody — the default where the parents do not agree; a legal status, not a time split.
• Joint custody implementation order (JCIO) — the order that sets the schedule and allocates decision-making. Required except for good cause shown.
• Physical custody — the periods during which each parent has the child; what parents elsewhere call parenting time. “Shared equally” is the statute’s phrase for 50/50.
• Domiciliary parent — “the parent with whom the child shall primarily reside”. A legal designation, not a measure of time.
• Co-domiciliary parents — a label some trial courts used before 2015. R.S. 9:335 does not authorise it, so do not treat it as an option.
• Shared custody — in Louisiana a child-support term from R.S. 9:315.9, meaning approximately equal time. No decree awards it as a custody label.

Sources: [2], [4], [5], [11]

Recent changes in Louisiana

• 1 August 2026 In force

  Equal physical custody becomes the allocation the court makes

  R.S. 9:335(A)(2)(b) now reads, verbatim: “Unless the court determines it is not feasible or in the best interest of the child, physical custody of the child shall be shared equally.” The old wording asked whether equal sharing was feasible and in the child’s best interest; the new wording makes it what the court orders unless it determines otherwise. Nothing else in the custody or child-support statutes changed — and apart from this, none of arts. 131, 132 or 134, nor R.S. 9:335 or 9:315.9, was amended in the three years before this page was written.

  Official source: Louisiana Legislature, R.S. 9:335

• 1 June 2026 Became Act 605 without the Governor's signature

  HB 1239 completes passage

  The House passed it 101–0 on 21 April 2026 and the Senate 36–0 on 18 May 2026, and it became Act No. 605 without the Governor’s signature, with an effective date of 1 August 2026.

  Official source: Louisiana Legislature, HB 1239 history

• 14 April 2026 Superseded by substitute

  The wider HB 473 package did not survive

  As introduced, HB 473 would have put into Civil Code art. 131 a rebuttable presumption that shared legal and physical custody is in the child’s best interest, rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence; would have had art. 132 award “shared legal and physical custody”; would have required equal allocation of legal authority and decision-making; and would have removed the under-five caregiving exception from income imputation. It was reported by substitute on 13 April and became HB 1239 the next day. The substitute kept only the R.S. 9:335(A)(2)(b) sentence, so none of the rest is law — which is why the enacted rule is not a presumption and carries no clear-and-convincing standard.

  Official source: Louisiana Legislature, HB 473 history

Frequently asked questions

Sources