If you are looking for information about child custody in Florida, you are in the right place. Custody is still the word almost everyone uses, and there is nothing wrong with using it. Florida law stopped using it in 2008. The statutes now speak of parenting plans and time-sharing, and a case filed in Tampa today will use those words from the first pleading to the final judgment.
The change carried a real idea with it. Rather than one parent winning custody and the other receiving visitation, Florida asks the two of you to produce a written plan: who handles which decisions, when the child is with each of you, and how you reach the child during the other parent's time. If you agree on that plan, the court approves it. If you do not, a judge writes one.
What a parenting plan is, and what it has to contain
A parenting plan is the part of your judgment that governs the children, and in a Florida case involving a minor child one exists at the end, whether by agreement or because the court established it. Our parenting plans and time-sharing page covers how we work through this with clients.
Section 61.13(2)(b) of the Florida Statutes sets the floor. At a minimum, a court-approved parenting plan must:
- Describe in adequate detail how the parents will share the daily tasks of raising the child
- Include the time-sharing schedule, specifying the time the child spends with each parent
- Designate who is responsible for health care, for school-related matters including the address used for school boundary and registration, and for other activities
- Describe in adequate detail the methods and technologies the parents will use to communicate with the child
- Designate authorized locations for exchanging the child, unless both parents agree otherwise in writing
Vagueness that feels generous during the case becomes the argument two years later.
Parental responsibility and time-sharing are two different questions
These are decided separately, under different standards.
Parental responsibility is decision-making authority: which pediatrician, which school, whether the child starts therapy. Florida law directs the court to order that parental responsibility be shared by both parents unless it finds that shared responsibility would be detrimental to the child. A court can also give one parent ultimate responsibility over specific areas, such as education or medical care, while the rest stays shared, or in some circumstances order sole parental responsibility. Time-sharing is the calendar: where the child sleeps on a given Tuesday.
The two do not have to match. A parent can have half the overnights and still not hold the final word on a disputed medical decision, and a parent with fewer overnights usually still shares decision-making authority.
Where there is evidence of domestic violence the analysis changes. Certain convictions create a rebuttable presumption that shared parental responsibility is detrimental to the child, and the court weighs evidence of violence, abuse, abandonment, and neglect in deciding detriment. If that is part of your situation, raise it early and document it.
How time-sharing schedules work in practice
A schedule is really three schedules layered together. The regular schedule is the ordinary week: week on and week off, a 2-2-3 rotation, a 2-2-5-5, or alternating weekends with a midweek overnight. The right one depends on the child's age, the distance between the homes, and the two work schedules. What suits a fourth grader can be hard on a toddler.
The holiday schedule overrides the regular one, usually alternating by year, and the summer schedule often replaces the school-year pattern entirely.
Overnights also carry a financial consequence. Under Florida's child support guidelines, when each parent exercises time-sharing at least 20 percent of the overnights in a year, which works out to 73 overnights, the guidelines use a different calculation. That is not a reason to bargain for nights you do not want, but it is a reason to work out your child support numbers and your schedule together.
The 2023 equal time-sharing presumption, stated precisely
Effective July 1, 2023, Florida added a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing is in the best interests of the minor child. To rebut it, a party must prove by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not, that equal time-sharing is not in the child's best interests. It is also the most misunderstood provision in Florida family law right now.
What it does. It changes the starting point. Before the amendment, the statute said there was no presumption for or against any specific time-sharing schedule. Now equal time-sharing is where the analysis begins, and the parent who wants something different carries the burden of showing why.
What it does not do. It does not guarantee an equal schedule, and it is rebutted by ordinary evidence, not an extraordinary showing. It does not dictate the shape of an equal schedule, since week on and week off and a 2-2-5-5 are both equal and feel nothing alike to a child. It does not apply where the parents agree on something else, because the presumption governs unless the parties agree otherwise. It does not replace the best interests analysis: unless the parents agree on a schedule and the court approves it, the court must still evaluate all of the statutory factors and make specific written findings of fact when creating or modifying a time-sharing schedule. And it does not displace the domestic violence provisions described above.
Whether the presumption applies when a parent asks to modify a plan entered before July 1, 2023 has been argued in Florida courts, and the answer can turn on the posture of the case. If your plan predates the change, put that question to your attorney rather than assume the answer.
How a judge weighs best interests
Section 61.13(3) tells the court to weigh all factors affecting the welfare and interests of the particular child and that family's circumstances. The statute lists roughly twenty and says the list is not exhaustive. Among them:
- Each parent's demonstrated capacity to encourage a close relationship between the child and the other parent, and to honor the schedule
- The capacity to put the child's needs ahead of the parent's own
- How long the child has lived in a stable environment, and the value of continuity
- The child's reasonable preference, if the court finds the child has sufficient intelligence, understanding, and experience to express one
- Each parent's knowledge of the child's daily life, from friends and teachers to medications
- Evidence of domestic violence, abuse, abandonment, or neglect
- The parenting tasks each parent customarily performed before the case began
A pattern shows through. Most of the factors reward the parent who behaves well toward the other parent and keeps the child out of the middle.
Changing a plan after it is entered
A parenting plan is not permanent, but it is not casually revisited either. Modification requires a substantial and material change in circumstances, together with a determination that the change is in the child's best interests.
The 2023 legislation added one specific route. If the parents lived more than 50 miles apart when the last order establishing time-sharing was entered, and one parent then moves within 50 miles of the other, that move may be considered a substantial and material change in circumstances for purposes of modifying the schedule.
Two practical notes for Hillsborough County
Florida requires parties in a dissolution with minor children, and in paternity cases involving parental responsibility, to complete a four-hour Parent Education and Family Stabilization Course before final judgment. Unless the court excuses it, the petitioner completes it within 45 days of filing and the other party within 45 days of service.
And most cases resolve before a judge decides anything. Family cases here are heard in the Hillsborough County Circuit Court, Family Law Division, at the George Edgecomb Courthouse, 800 E. Twiggs Street, but comparatively few parenting plans are written after a trial. Most are negotiated, frequently at mediation, so the terms are largely yours to shape if you arrive prepared.
Where to start
Write down your real week and your child's real week: work hours, school, practices, who does the pickups now, who takes the sick days. A plan built on that is more durable than one built on a template. Our divorce page covers how the children's issues sit inside the larger case.
To talk through your situation with Rechel & Associates, P.A., serving Tampa Bay families since 1992, call (813) 931-8111.