Child custody in Croatia

Both parents have the right and duty to exercise parental care equally, jointly and by agreement. Parents who do not live together permanently must agree on arrangements in a shared parental care plan, which a court must approve.

The official fact sheet does not distinguish unmarried parents. It treats both parents alike once parentage is established.

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

Parents always have joint parental care unless a court decides otherwise. The court decides with which parent the child lives and what maintenance the other owes. Counselling is mandatory before a divorce petition or other parental care action, and family mediation is used where parents cannot agree, except where domestic violence is alleged.

Parents must discuss aspects of parental care with the child according to age and maturity. A child may propose a decision on which parent represents them in a disputed matter. No minimum age is stated.

The official fact sheet does not address moving. It covers which courts decide and the rules on recognition under the EU regulation and the 1996 Hague Convention.

Croatia 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.

Within the EU, Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 (called Brussels IIb) decides which country's courts handle parental responsibility: in principle the courts of the country where the child habitually lives, and it speeds up the return of a child wrongly taken to another member state. Denmark does not take part in it.

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

• European e-Justice Portal: parental responsibility, child custody and contact rights in Croatia