Child custody in Ukraine

Parents have equal rights and duties towards their children, and keep them after divorce.

A father whose paternity is established, by joint application or by a court, has the same rights as a married father.

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

Parents can agree where the child lives. If they cannot, the court decides in the child's interests, and the parent who lives apart keeps the right to contact and to take part in the upbringing.

From the age of ten the child's opinion must be taken into account, and a child of 14 can decide for themselves with which parent to live.

Moving a child abroad needs both parents' consent, or a court's permission.

Ukraine 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.

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

• Verkhovna Rada: legislation of Ukraine