Swiss court sets 30 percent threshold for shared custody

Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court has defined when a child is legally considered to live with both separated parents, setting a threshold of more than 30 percent of care for each parent, SRF reported.

The court counts care in three daily periods: morning, afternoon and night. In a two-week period, that makes 42 units, with each period counting equally. Alternating custody applies when each parent takes responsibility for at least 13 units.

The ruling followed a father’s appeal after the mother moved to Austria with their son. The father cared for the child every other weekend and for nine weeks of holiday each year. He argued that this amounted to alternating custody and should reduce the child support he owed.

The court rejected his appeal, finding that his weekend care amounted to just six of the 42 units. It ruled that the mother had sole custody, with the father holding visitation rights, and that he must pay the full cash maintenance for their son.

The court generally excludes holiday periods from its calculation, reasoning that custody concerns the household where a child spends everyday life and that the associated mental load falls on the parent with whom the child lives. The ruling also clarifies the financial stakes: when care is legally shared, both parents contribute to cash maintenance; some parents seek that classification even when they provide only a small share of care.

The decision is expected to have practical consequences for many families. Between 20,000 and 30,000 children in Switzerland experience their parents’ separation each year, and several related cases are pending before the court. The ruling is also likely to fuel debate over counting nights as care while excluding holiday periods from the calculation.