Child custody in Argentina

Both parents share parental responsibility.

The rule is the same: both parents share parental responsibility once parentage is established, whether or not they are married.

The unmarried father, in one line: Both parents have it, married or not, once the father's paternity is established.

Parental responsibility stays shared. The parents can agree on a parenting plan, and where there is no agreement the judge ordinarily orders shared care (cuidado personal compartido), either alternating or with the child based at one home, rather than sole care.

The child has a right to be heard, and adolescents have a greater say from 13.

A move abroad with the child needs the other parent's consent or a court's authorisation.

Argentina is a party to the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention, which lets a parent ask for a child wrongly taken to another country to be returned. It works only with countries that have accepted its accession, so check the other country on the treaty status table.

Argentina belongs to the Civil law family. Family law grows out of the legal tradition, so it helps to know how the system works.

Read the Argentina legal-system profile in the Legal Families Atlas →
Who owns what in a marriage in Argentina? →

• SAIJ: Civil and Commercial Code of Argentina