Regimen de Visitas in Spain: The Rules Behind Visitation Rights (2026)

Regimen de visitas is the arrangement that lets the parent who does not have day-to-day custody spend time with the children. Spanish law leaves the details, time, manner and place, to the judge's discretion, but it draws a hard line around violence: a parent under criminal process for offenses against the other spouse or the children can lose visitation rights entirely, not just have them reduced. This page covers both sides of that rule.

Information last verified on 23 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Spanish law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Setting the regime

Art. 94 CC's opening line hands the framework to the judge: the authority determines the time, manner and place in which the parent who does not have the children can exercise the right to visit them, communicate with them and have them in their company. There is no statutory default schedule; every regime is set to the specific family, and it can be agreed by the parents in the convenio regulador or fixed by the judge when they cannot agree.

A visitation regime is not limited to physical visits. Art. 94 CC's own wording covers three separate rights together, visiting the children, communicating with them, and having them in the parent's company for periods of stay, and a convenio or judicial resolution typically has to spell out how each of the three works in practice, not just a calendar of dates.

The Ley 8/2021 bar: suspension, not just discretion

Since Ley 8/2021 took effect on 3 September 2021, art. 94 CC does not treat violence as one factor among many when setting visitation, it treats it as a bar. A visitation or stay regime cannot be established, and an existing one is suspended, for a parent under a criminal process opened for attempting against the life, physical integrity, liberty, moral integrity or sexual freedom of the other spouse or their children. The same consequence follows when the judge, from the parties' allegations and the evidence, finds indicios fundados of domestic or gender violence, even with no criminal process formally underway.

The article does leave a narrow door open: the judge can still establish a visitation, communication or stay regime, but only in a reasoned resolution grounded in the child's best interest and only after evaluating the parent-child relationship first. This is not a routine exception, it requires the judge to affirmatively justify departing from the bar.

When it is barred outright

One situation leaves no room for that judicial exception at all: a parent who is in prison, whether provisionally or under a final sentence, for one of the offenses named above cannot get a visitation regime «en ningun caso», under any circumstances (art. 94 CC). Imprisonment for those specific offenses closes the door completely, unlike the criminal-process and violence-indicios situations above, which allow the judge a reasoned way through.

Visitation is not only about parents

A regimen de visitas is most often discussed as a question between a child and the non-custodial parent, but the convenio regulador can extend the same logic to grandparents when it is considered necessary: it can set a regimen de visitas y comunicacion between grandchildren and grandparents, always with the grandchildren's interest as the guiding standard (art. 90.b CC). This is not automatic in every case, it is included in the convenio when the circumstances call for it.

How it connects to a protection order

When a criminal case for one of these offenses produces a protection order, visitation can already be suspended as one of the civil measures inside that order, see the restraining order page, and a conviction carrying alejamiento as a pena suspends any existing civil-court visitation arrangement for as long as the sentence runs (art. 48.2 CP). Family and criminal proceedings on visitation are not separate universes; each can override what the other has set.

What it means in practice

The practical effect of the 2021 reform is that visitation in Spain is no longer purely a scheduling question once a criminal process for violence enters the picture, it becomes a threshold question the judge has to clear first. The shared custody page covers the parallel bar on custody itself, and the child support page covers how support obligations continue regardless of the visitation arrangement in place.

This page is general legal information about Spanish law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case. The controlling texts are the current versions in the BOE.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a parent lose visitation rights because of a pending criminal case in Spain?

Yes. A visitation regime cannot be established, and an existing one is suspended, when that parent faces a criminal process opened for attempting against the life, physical integrity, liberty, moral integrity or sexual freedom of the other spouse or the children (art. 94 CC).

Is the visitation bar absolute once a criminal process starts?

Not entirely. The judge can still set a visitation, communication or stay regime in a reasoned resolution grounded in the child's best interest, after evaluating the parent-child relationship. It is a narrow exception, not a routine one, and it does not apply to the separate imprisonment bar.

What happens to visitation rights if a parent is imprisoned?

Visitation is barred outright, with no judicial exception, when the parent is imprisoned, whether provisionally or under a final sentence, for one of the offenses covered by art. 94 CC.

Does a domestic violence finding block visitation even without a criminal conviction?

Yes. The bar also applies when the judge finds indicios fundados of domestic or gender violence from the parties' allegations and the evidence presented, independent of whether a criminal process has formally started.

Can visitation and a protection order overlap in the same case?

Yes. An orden de proteccion's civil measures can suspend visitation directly, and where a conviction imposes alejamiento as a pena, that prohibition suspends any existing civil-court visitation arrangement for as long as the sentence lasts (art. 48.2 CP).