Child custody in Czechia

Both parents hold parental responsibility unless one has been deprived of it. They act by mutual agreement, and a court decides if they disagree on important matters.

It is irrelevant whether the parents are married. Both hold parental responsibility under the same rule. If unmarried parents who do not live together cannot agree on the child's care, a court decides.

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

Both parents keep parental responsibility, and a court-approved arrangement on care and maintenance is needed before divorce. The official page says the old distinction between sole, joint and shared custody was abolished from 1 January 2026. If the parents agree, the child stays in the care of both without a set split; otherwise the court sets each parent's share of care in the child's interest. The child has a right to equal care by both parents, which means equal involvement, not a fixed 50-50 schedule. A court can give one parent custody only by also limiting or removing the other's responsibility.

Parents must inform the child before decisions that affect them and pay special attention to the child's opinion. No minimum age is stated.

Where the child lives is an important matter on which both parents decide. If they disagree, a court decides on a parent's petition.

Czechia 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.

• The Czech rules on custody changed on 1 January 2026, so older descriptions may be out of date.

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

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