Child Time-Sharing & Custody

Florida stopped using the word "custody" years ago: parents share parental responsibility (decision-making) and divide time-sharing (where the children actually are) under a court-approved parenting plan. Since July 2023, that framework starts from a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing is in the children's best interests — one of the most consequential changes in modern Florida family law, and one that rewards the parent who arrives with evidence and a workable plan rather than adjectives.

The 2023 presumption — what it actually does

Section 61.13, Florida Statutes now presumes that a 50/50 schedule serves the child's best interests. A parent who wants a different schedule carries the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence under the statutory best-interests factors, that equal time-sharing does not fit this child. What genuinely rebuts it: safety issues (violence, substance abuse, neglect), geographic distance that makes school-week alternation impossible, a parent's real unavailability, a child's particular needs, or a caregiving history in which one parent has simply never done the work. What does not rebut it: tradition, the other parent's gender, or generalized worry. There is no age at which a child "chooses" — a mature child's reasonable preference is one factor among twenty, not a veto.

Parental responsibility is a separate question

Whatever the schedule, Florida strongly favors shared parental responsibility — both parents participating in major decisions about education, healthcare, and religion. Courts order sole decision-making only when sharing would be detrimental to the child, and can allocate "ultimate decision-making" over specific spheres (say, education) to one parent when joint decisions have proven unworkable. A domestic-violence conviction changes these defaults sharply.

The parenting plan: where cases are really won

Every case with minor children ends in a written parenting plan, and the difference between a plan that works and one that breeds litigation is specificity:

• The schedule itself — week-on/week-off, 2-2-3, or 2-2-5-5 for equal time; structured alternatives where 50/50 is rebutted — chosen around school, work realities, and the children's ages.
• Holidays, breaks, and travel — an explicit rotation that overrides the regular schedule, plus passports, out-of-state travel notice, and make-up time mechanics.
• Exchanges and communication — where, when, who drives, and how parents communicate (increasingly through court-recognized apps that keep a record).
• Right of first refusal — when a parent needs childcare for more than a set period, the other parent gets the first call. For physicians and professionals with call schedules, clauses like this make an equal plan actually function — see our physician divorce page.
• School designation — which address controls enrollment; quietly one of the most fought-over lines in any plan.

Divorcing and paternity parents also complete a short court-approved parenting course (§ 61.21) before judgment — inexpensive and mandatory.

The best-interests factors, briefly

Section 61.13(3) lists twenty factors: each parent's demonstrated capacity to honor the schedule and co-parent, the division of parental responsibilities before the case, moral fitness and mental and physical health, the home/school/community record, each parent's willingness to keep the child out of the litigation, domestic violence history, substance abuse, and the child's own developmental needs among them. In practice, judges reward the parent with the documented caregiving record and punish the parent caught disparaging the other to the children or obstructing contact. Keep the texts. Keep the calendar. They decide these cases.

Relocation: the 50-mile rule

A parent who wants to move a child's principal residence more than 50 miles for 60 days or more needs either the other parent's written agreement or a court order under § 61.13001 — a separate petition with its own factors and strict procedure. Moving first and litigating later is the classic self-inflicted wound: courts can (and do) order the child returned. If a move is on your horizon — new job, new marriage, family support — build it into the case rather than springing it on the court afterward.

Paternity cases: same framework, one extra step

For unmarried parents, time-sharing and parental responsibility are decided under the same § 61.13 standards — after paternity is established under Chapter 742. Since a 2023 statutory change, an unmarried biological father who meets the statute's requirements stands on equal footing once parentage is established: the presumption of equal time-sharing applies to him too. The practical advice for unmarried fathers is unchanged for decades: establish paternity formally, early; rights you haven't established can't be enforced.

Modification and enforcement after judgment

Parenting plans can be modified on a substantial, material, and unanticipated change in circumstances when modification serves the child's best interests — a real bar, deliberately. Enforcement is its own toolbox: make-up time-sharing, contempt, fee awards, and in serious cases modification itself when one parent systematically obstructs the schedule. Denied time-sharing is not self-remedying: withholding child support in response is illegal (the obligations are independent), but documented obstruction is powerful modification evidence. See modification & enforcement.

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This page describes Florida law in general terms as of its last update and is not legal advice about any specific situation. Statutes cited include §§ 61.13, 61.13001, 61.21, and ch. 742, Florida Statutes, including the 2023 amendments. Outcomes always depend on specific facts.