Child custody in Denmark

Both parents have custody of the child.

The mother has sole custody at birth. The parents can make a joint declaration, which gives both of them custody, and the father can also ask the authorities or a 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.

Joint custody normally continues after separation or divorce. If the parents cannot agree on where the child lives or on contact, the Family Agency and then the court decide.

The child's views are taken into account according to age and maturity. The older the child, the more weight they carry.

Where custody is joint, taking the child to live abroad generally needs the other parent's agreement or a court's permission.

Denmark 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.

• Denmark has not published its fact sheet in English on the e-Justice Portal, so this entry relies on the Danish Parental Responsibility Act. Check it against the statute.

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

• Retsinformation (Danish legislation): the Parental Responsibility Act