Child custody in Japan

Married parents exercise parental authority jointly.

The mother has parental authority. A father who acknowledges the child does not share it automatically: the parents can agree that both, or the father alone, will have it, and the family court can decide.

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.

Since a reform that took effect on 1 April 2026, parents who divorce can agree on joint or sole parental authority. If they cannot agree, the family court decides in the child's interests. Before the reform, only one parent could have it after a divorce. Parents who divorced under the old law can ask the family court to change to joint authority.

The family court takes the child's views into account according to age and maturity.

Even with sole authority, a parent who moves the child must respect the other parent's contact. Japan is a party to the Hague Child Abduction Convention.

Japan 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.

• The reform is recent, and its practical working in the family courts is still developing.

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

• Japanese Law Translation: the Civil Code