Child custody in Switzerland

Both parents hold joint parental authority.

The mother has sole authority until the parents make a joint declaration, which can be made when the father recognises the child or later. If one parent refuses to sign, the other can ask the child protection authority, which must order joint authority unless the child's interests require otherwise.

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 authority is the rule after divorce or separation, unless the child's welfare requires sole authority. Where there is joint authority and one parent or the child asks for alternating residence, the court or authority must consider it, but it is not presumed. Decisions about residence and contact must respect the child's right to regular personal relations with both parents.

Children are heard in person, in principle from about the age of six.

Where parents share authority, a move abroad, or a move within Switzerland that significantly affects the other parent's authority, needs the other parent's consent or the authority's approval.

Switzerland 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.

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

• Fedlex: the Swiss Civil Code (articles 296 to 298)