Child custody in Colombia

Both parents hold parental authority.

Both parents hold parental authority 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.

Parents can agree on custody and contact before a family commissioner (Comisaría de Familia) or a notary. Failing agreement, a family judge decides by the child's best interests.

The child has a right to be heard in any proceeding that affects them.

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.

Colombia 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.

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

• Ministry of Justice of Colombia