Introduction
Effective from 1 January 2026, the rules governing decisions on alimony for minor children underwent the most significant change since the recodification of private law in 2014. The relevant amendment, particularly of the Civil Code, was implemented by Act No. 268/2025 Coll. and will be referred to herein as the “Amendment“.
In this article, we do not aim to comprehensively present all the changes that the Amendment brings in the family law, but rather to focus on court decision-making regarding alimony for minor children after the Amendment and to highlight its practical implications, particularly about the abandonment of the distinction between shared care and sole care with the access rights to the other parent.
New concept of childcare
The Amendment significantly changes the concept of childcare, which is crucial for alimony decisions. While the previous legislation was based on a formal distinction between sole, shared, and joint care of minor children, the new legislation abandons these concepts and replaces them with a model based on the actual extent of care provided by each parent, as in practice it is relatively rare for one parent not to be involved in the care of a minor child at all.
The benefit of the Amendment is generally seen in the fact that the formal distinction between sole, shared, and shared care of children was often given much greater importance in practice than it actually was, especially by parents in conflict. The Amendment is thus often presented in this regard as the abolition of “labels” for types of care to eliminate disputes that often arise not over the childcare regime itself, but rather over its formal title. From the perspective of alimony court decisions, however, the impact of this specific change is less noticeable but more significant, as will be explained below. In fact, before the Amendment, the issue of alimony was quite closely linked to the formal designation of the type of care.
Before the Amendment, courts traditionally used to impose alimony obligation to the “non-resident” parent, i.e. the parent who was only entitled to personal contact with the child, while the “resident” parent had the sole care of the child. The obligation of both parents to contribute to the maintenance and support of the child was reserved for the shared care. However, the Amendment changes this, and imposing alimony obligations on both parents should now be the de facto standard procedure (see below for more details), a fact that, paradoxically, does not appear much in the media coverage of the Amendment.
The Amendment essentially assumes that both parents always participate in the care of the child in some way. Therefore, when the court regulates the situation of minor children, it no longer uses any designation for the type of care but should limit itself to determining the extent (most often the period of time) to which each parent will take care for the child. The emphasis is thus shifting from formal categories to the actual extent of care, which is of fundamental importance in terms of deciding on alimony, even though this may not be apparent at first glance.
Rules for determining alimony after the Amendment
In general, it should be considered that, with the effect of the Amendment, the obligation to pay alimony should depend on the extent of care provided or not provided. If a parent participates (or not) in the care of a child to a certain extent, this must be considered when determining its alimony obligation. The Amendment thus reinforces the principle that a parent who cares for a child for a certain period, or to a certain otherwise specified extent, provides this part of the care directly, and alimony should only serve to compensate for the remaining part of the child’s needs, which is provided by the other parent.
When deciding on alimony, the court is obliged to ascertain and evaluate two basic indicators: the extent of care and the actual economic capabilities of both parents. The extent of care must be expressed in a measurable way – typically, but not necessarily, this will be the number of days per month that the parent provides care for the child. Determining economic capabilities involves not only verifying the income of both parents, but also relevant expenses related to childcare, such as housing costs, school and hobbies, health expenses, transportation costs, clothing and food costs.
The methodology for calculating alimony is unlikely to be stabilised in the first few years after the Amendment, and therefore, unifying case law can be expected, but the mechanism is based on the idea that both parents care for the child, albeit not always equally. The days when the child is cared for by the non-resident parent, to use the existing terminology, during its contact with the child are now understood as the period when the other (resident) parent is not caring for the child. It is therefore obvious that the alimony obligation should be correctly determined for both parents, in principle using the same logic as was used before the Amendment came into force to determine alimony in cases where a minor child was in shared care.
It is not entirely clear at this point whether the Amendment will lead to a practice of balancing alimony payments between the parents, i.e. that the obligation to pay alimony will be imposed on one parent only, based on the difference between the parents’ shares in covering the costs of care (which would logically be a much simpler solution in everyday practice, but not always entirely satisfactory or effective in terms of securing the child’s needs, since alimony is known to belong to the child, not the parent, even if it is paid to the parent), or whether the practice of mutual payments of alimony will prevail, set for each parent as a proportionate part of their hypothetical total alimony if they did not provide any care at all (simplified as parents sending money to each other, which is a practice known from previous decisions on alimony in cases where the child is in the shared care).
For a better understanding, in the first case, if both parents care for the child to the same extent, earn roughly the same and pay for the child’s expenses equally, there would be no obligation to pay alimony at all. In the second case, the parents would be obliged to pay the same alimony to the other parent.
In any case, the principle of the best interests of the child remains decisive when determining alimony. This means that the court has broad discretion to consider individual circumstances, such as the child’s health needs, special costs associated with upbringing or education, or situations where a purely mathematical calculation would lead to an unreasonable burden on one of the parents. The court may also consider the quality of care, the availability of support networks and institutions, and other factors that cannot be fully quantified.
The end of “tabular” alimony?
Previous decision-making practice regarding alimony often relied on the Ministry of Justice’s indicative table, which determines the percentage of the obligated parent’s income according to the child’s age (e.g., 14 % of income for a preschool-aged child, 16 % of income for a child in primary school, etc.). This simplistic approach had the undeniable advantage of providing a quick and clear starting point for calculation, but at the same time, it often led to decisions on alimony being limited to an assessment of the obligated parent’s ability to pay and the resulting extent of its obligation, without adequate examination and assessment of the actual extent of its personal care for the child. This was particularly the case in situations where the child was entrusted to the care of one parent, and the extent of the other parent’s contact with the child was determined (typically in the form of certain weekends or holidays). In practice, however, this often led to a decision whereby the parent who actually participated in the care of the child, sometimes to a considerable extent, either in terms of personal care or direct payment of care costs, was determined to be the “non-resident” parent and alimony was calculated simply according to the recommended table, without any consideration of the income of the other, “resident” parent.
However, it should also be noted that the Amendment itself does not prohibit the use of recommending tables, which are anyway only part of a much more comprehensive methodology that already largely incorporates and considers the above principles and rules, which are also largely enshrined in case law. Even after the Amendment, the Ministry of Justice’s tables can certainly still serve as a basic guide.
The biggest challenge for judicial practice, therefore, remains how to calculate “childcare costs” and subsequently compare them when calculating alimony payments. In practice, there is no universally applicable method considering not only different living costs depending on lifestyle, specific habits, etc., but also the form of contribution to the child’s basic needs, where a prime example is the fundamentally different perception of paying rent and paying a mortgage as expenses for securing housing. From the parents’ point of view, both are expenses without which the child’s housing would not be secured. Unfortunately, we must conclude that, in this respect, the Amendment does not simplify or streamline court proceedings concerning alimony.
Conclusion
The Amendment represents a fundamental shift in the decision-making process regarding alimony for minors in the sense that the existing, often relatively complex calculations typical for determining alimony obligations in cases of shared care of children become the new standard.
In our opinion, this is a step in the right direction in terms of fair arrangements, but the Amendment will almost certainly not benefit the smoothness and predictability of court proceedings concerning alimony.
PhDr. Mgr. Jan Ptáčník, senior attorney – ptacnik@plegal.cz
Mgr. Karel Janeba, junior lawyer – janeba@plegal.cz
www.peytonlegal.cz
- 1. 2026