Child CustodyUnder UAE Personal Status Law

Custody in the UAE is the day-to-day care, upbringing and management of a child's affairs, kept legally distinct from guardianship — which generally stays with the father as the party responsible for the child's education and financial matters. Custody rules changed significantly when Federal Decree-Law No. (41) of 2024 on the Personal Status Law took effect on 15 April 2025, replacing decades-old provisions with a framework built more explicitly around the child's best interests.

Under Article 112 of the new law, custody is defined as preserving, raising and caring for the child, and managing the child's affairs in a way that does not conflict with the guardian's own rights. In practice, that means the custodial parent handles residence, upbringing, schooling logistics and healthcare, while the legal guardian — usually the father — retains authority over decisions tied to education and the child's finances.

Previously, a mother's custody ended once a son turned 11 or a daughter turned 13, after which custody typically transferred to the father. The new law removes that gender distinction entirely and extends custody — for both sons and daughters — until the child turns 18, giving children a longer period of consistent parental care through adolescence.

Once a child reaches 15, the law gives them the right to express a preference for which parent they wish to live with. The court considers this preference but is not automatically bound by it — the final decision still turns on what the court determines serves the child's best interests.

Custody arrangements already settled by a final court judgment before the law changed are not automatically reopened. If, for example, custody had already passed to the father under the old age thresholds, it does not revert to the mother by default. A parent seeking to benefit from the new provisions generally needs to file a new case, particularly where circumstances have changed since the original judgment.

Under the previous framework, a non-Muslim mother's custody automatically ended once her child turned five. That fixed cut-off has been replaced with judicial discretion — the court now decides whether continuing the mother's custody serves the child's best interests, rather than applying an automatic age-based rule.

These amendments push UAE custody law further toward a best-interests-of-the-child standard and give children a genuine, if not decisive, voice in decisions that affect their lives from age 15 onward. For separated or separating parents, the practical implications — how long custody lasts, when it can be revisited, and how a child's own preference is weighed — can materially change the shape of a settlement or court case.

Because the law is relatively new and courts are still building a body of applied precedent under it, getting current, case-specific advice matters more than ever in custody disputes.