Child custody in Chile

Both parents have parental authority, and the parents decide by agreement who has the child's personal care.

By default the mother has personal care. The parents can agree that the father or both have it, and the father can ask the court.

The unmarried father, in one line: The mother has it; the father needs a step: a joint declaration, registration, agreement, or living with the mother at the birth.

The parents can agree on shared personal care (cuidado personal compartido). If they do not agree, the court decides by the child's best interests.

The child's opinion is heard according to age and maturity.

The official sources do not give a simple rule on this point; where parents share responsibility, taking a child to live abroad generally needs both parents' agreement or a court's permission.

Chile 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.

Chile 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 Chile legal-system profile in the Legal Families Atlas →
Who owns what in a marriage in Chile? →
Divorce rate and trend in Chile →

• Library of the National Congress of Chile: legislation