Child custody in Portugal

Parental responsibility for the child lies with the parents (Art. 1901 of the Civil Code). They exercise it by mutual agreement, and if they disagree on matters of particular importance either can ask the court, which first tries conciliation.

Parents, whether or not married, can ask a civil registry office to regulate how parental responsibility is exercised. The official fact sheet does not say how an unmarried father acquires it.

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

Matters of particular importance are decided jointly, except in manifest urgency, when either parent can act alone and must tell the other as soon as possible. Everyday matters belong to the parent the child habitually lives with. The court decides residence and contact based on the child's interests. Joint custody means shared decisions, and the child may live in turn with each parent.

The court hears the child, where possible, before it decides a disagreement between the parents, unless serious circumstances advise against it. A child of 12 or over can start civil guardianship proceedings, and a child with enough maturity can ask for a lawyer.

The official fact sheet does not cover moving.

Portugal 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.

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

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