Practice areas · Frankfurt am Main
Child custody in Germany, for international parents
After a separation, two questions decide everything about the children: who decides, and who has time with them. German law keeps the two apart on purpose — and treats both as the child’s right, not a parent’s bargaining chip.
Four things parents should know first
Custody and contact are two things
Custody (Sorgerecht) is the power to make decisions for the child; contact (Umgangsrecht) is the right to time together. One does not depend on the other.
Married parents keep joint custody
Divorce does not end joint custody by itself. Sole custody happens only on application, and only where it serves the child (§ 1671 BGB).
Contact is the child’s right
You cannot withhold contact because maintenance is unpaid, and you cannot stop paying because contact is refused. Neither is a lever over the other.
Moving abroad needs agreement
Relocating to another country with a child in joint custody needs the other parent’s consent or a court’s decision — not a unilateral choice.
Two different rights — not one
English blurs both under the single word “custody”, so parents from other systems expect them to move together. In Germany they are separate rights, and untangling them early takes a surprising amount of heat out of the conflict.
Custody · Sorgerecht
Who decides
- Where the child lives
- Which school
- Medical decisions
- The big turning points
§ 1626 BGB
Contact · Umgangsrecht
Who has time with the child
- Weekdays & weekends
- Holidays
- The everyday relationship
§ 1684 BGB
Independent of each other — a parent can hold one without the other.
The one measure beneath both
Both are the child’s right — and every decision rests on a single standard: the child’s welfare (Kindeswohl).
Do we still share custody after we split up?
The starting point depends on one thing — whether you were married. From there it takes an application, and the child’s interest, to change anything.
Married parents
Joint custody continues through separation and divorce — the divorce changes nothing on its own. Sole custody exists only where a parent applies for it, and only where it genuinely serves the child, not as a reward or a punishment between the adults.
§ 1671 BGB
Unmarried parents
The mother holds sole custody at first — until joint custody is established by a joint declaration, by marriage, or by a court. Once it is shared, everyday decisions rest with whichever parent the child is currently with; only the weightier, lasting ones are made together.
§ 1626a BGB
Contact belongs to the child
German law frames contact as the child’s right to both parents, and each parent’s right and duty to keep it up (§ 1684 BGB). A workable schedule — weekdays, weekends, holidays, handovers — is worth putting in writing early, calmly and in detail, while things are still reasonable. A clear arrangement prevents most of the disputes that otherwise flare up around every school break.
Contact and maintenance never cancel each other out
Unpaid maintenance is no reason to block visits.
Blocked visits are no reason to stop paying.
The courts treat any attempt to link the two as harming the child — whose interests both rights exist to serve.
Moving abroad with a child — the point to get right
For international families this is the question that matters most, and the one most often misjudged. If you share custody, where the child lives is a joint decision: moving to another country — even back to a home you came from — needs the other parent’s agreement, or a court’s permission. It is not a choice one parent can make alone.
Take advice before you move, not after
Taking a child across a border without that agreement can count as wrongful removal under the Hague Convention on international child abduction — which exists precisely to send a child promptly back to their country of habitual residence so the courts there can decide. The safest course, by a wide margin, is to settle the question first, not to move and hope it holds.
We handle these cross-border questions together with our international family law work.
How a court decides — one measure only
Every decision about custody or contact turns on a single standard: the welfare of the child (Kindeswohl) — not the parents’ sense of fairness, not who is more at fault. And the child is not a bystander in it.
01
The child is heard
In family proceedings the court speaks with the child directly.
02
An independent guardian
Where interests conflict, a guardian (Verfahrensbeistand) represents the child alone.
03
The youth welfare office
The Jugendamt is involved and advises the court on the child’s situation.
Our role is to prepare your case so the arrangement you propose is the one that clearly reads as best for the child — and, wherever possible, to reach it by agreement rather than a contested hearing.
Common questions
What is the difference between custody and contact?
Do we keep joint custody after separation or divorce?
Can I refuse contact if the other parent does not pay maintenance?
When does a court order shared (alternating) care?
Can I move back to my home country with our child?
Our child has two nationalities — which country decides on custody?
Custody questions rarely stand alone — they sit alongside maintenance, the divorce itself and often a cross-border element. If you are looking for an English-speaking divorce lawyer in Frankfurt, that is what this office does. You may also want our page on maintenance and child support.
Contact
Let’s put the children first, calmly
A confidential initial consultation, in English — where you stand on custody and contact, and the sensible next step. We reply personally, usually within one business day.
Sources
- Governing statutes (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB): § 1626 and § 1626a (parental custody), § 1671 (sole custody), § 1684 (contact), § 1687 (day-to-day vs major decisions) — gesetze-im-internet.de.
- Procedure: §§ 156, 158 and 159 FamFG (agreement, the child’s guardian, hearing the child) — gesetze-im-internet.de.
- Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction — hcch.net.