Affidamento Condiviso: How Shared Custody Works Under Italian Law

Affidamento condiviso, shared custody, is the outcome an Italian court starts from whenever it decides arrangements for a couple's children, whether the parents are going through a legal separation, a divorce, or were never married at all.

This page works through what affidamento condiviso actually means in practice, when a court departs from it, and why it is a different question from collocamento prevalente, where a child actually lives day to day, a distinction competitor pages routinely blur.

Information verified on 21 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice for an individual situation.

Shared custody is the starting point, not a special outcome

Art. 337-ter c.c. sets out how a court handles arrangements for children whenever a couple's relationship ends. Its first comma states the child's right to a balanced, continuous relationship with both parents, and to keep meaningful ties with grandparents and relatives on each side.

To realize that, the article directs the court to valuta prioritariamente, evaluate as a priority, the possibility that the children remain affidati to both parents. Affidamento condiviso means both parents keep responsabilità genitoriale, parental responsibility, and take the major decisions about a child's education, health and habitual residence by mutual agreement. Where the parents disagree on one of those major decisions, the question goes to the judge. For routine, day to day matters only, a court can allow each parent to exercise that authority separately.

Affidamento is not collocamento: two different questions

This is where general-interest sites most often blur two concepts that the law itself keeps apart. Affidamento is about who holds decision-making authority over a child, and by default that is both parents together, regardless of where the child sleeps on a given night.

Where a child actually lives, and how their time is split between two households, is a separate, practical determination. Art. 337-ter c.c. does not use the word collocamento at all; it refers instead to the tempi e modalità della presenza, the times and manner of the child's presence with each parent, which the court fixes on its own terms alongside the affidamento decision. Collocamento prevalente, primary placement, is the term practice and case law use for the arrangement that follows from those tempi e modalità, and it is worth knowing that the phrase is a working label, not itself statutory wording.

The practical consequence is that shared custody does not require an even split of time. A child can spend most weeknights with one parent and alternate weekends with the other, and affidamento condiviso still applies in full, since both parents retain equal say over the decisions the statute treats as major, regardless of how the time itself is divided.

When a court orders sole custody: affidamento esclusivo

Art. 337-quater c.c. lets a court depart from the default and order affidamento esclusivo, sole custody, to one parent. It can do so only where it finds, in a provvedimento motivato, a reasoned decision, that giving custody to the other parent would be contrary to the child's interest. The finding has to be explained, not assumed.

Either parent can ask for exclusive custody at any time, on the same basis. Where the court finds the request manifestamente infondata, manifestly unfounded, it can weigh the requesting parent's conduct when deciding what serves the children's interest, and art. 96 c.p.c., which addresses liability for bad-faith litigation, still applies alongside that. A parent who is granted sole custody generally exercises parental responsibility alone, unless the court orders otherwise, but decisions the statute treats as major still default to both parents unless the court says differently, and the parent without custody keeps the right and the duty to oversee the child's education and can go back to the judge over a decision that harms the child's interest.

Shared custody applies beyond married couples

Art. 337-bis c.c. states the ambito di applicazione, the scope, of this whole part of the code: it covers separation, dissolution or cessation of the civil effects of marriage, annulment, nullity of the marriage, and, explicitly, proceedings concerning children born outside marriage. Affidamento condiviso as the default rule is not limited to couples who were married; it applies the same way to parents who never married, since D.Lgs. 154/2013 gave children born outside marriage the same legal status as those born within it.

The financial side, and where it is covered in full

Custody and child maintenance are decided in the same proceeding, but they answer different questions. Art. 337-ter c.c. also sets the five factors for a child's assegno di mantenimento: the child's current needs, the standard of living the family had before separation, time spent with each parent, each parent's own economic resources, and the monetary value of the caregiving work each parent actually carries out. None of those factors depends on which custody arrangement the court has ordered. Our spousal and child maintenance page works through that calculation in depth.

The family home is a separate decision too

Art. 337-sexies c.c. governs who keeps using the casa familiare, the family home, during and after a separation or divorce. The court assigns it with the children's interest as the priority consideration, and factors the assignment into how it settles the couple's finances overall. The right to use the home ends if the parent it was assigned to stops living there, moves in with a new partner more uxorio, or remarries. Either parent who changes residence or domicile while there are minor children must notify the other within thirty days, or risk liability for any resulting harm.

Revising the arrangement later

Art. 337-quinquies c.c. gives either parent the right to request, in ogni tempo, at any time, a revision of the custody arrangement, the allocation of parental responsibility, or the maintenance contribution. Nothing about the original order is meant to be permanent as a child grows and circumstances change; the article sets no waiting period before a parent can ask a court to look at the arrangement again. A revision request is separate from the timing questions covered on our divorzio breve page, which concerns the wait before a divorce itself, not later changes to a custody order.

Three situations

Parents who were never married and are separating, with one minor child. Art. 337-bis c.c. extends the same chapter, and the same default, to them. Affidamento condiviso applies exactly as it would for a married couple, and a court departs from it only on the same contrary-to-the-child's-interest standard set by art. 337-quater c.c.

A parent seeking sole custody where the other parent has a documented pattern of conduct that puts the child at risk. A court can order affidamento esclusivo under art. 337-quater c.c. if it finds, in a reasoned decision, that shared custody with the other parent would be contrary to the child's interest. The finding has to be made and explained; it is not automatic from the allegation alone.

Parents who share custody but whose child lives with one of them on weekdays and alternates weekends with the other. This remains affidamento condiviso. Both parents keep equal authority over the major decisions art. 337-ter c.c. lists; only the tempi e modalità della presenza, the practical time split, is unequal, which the statute treats as a separate question.