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Parental responsibility, primary residence and contact

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Draft, translated: translated from the Norwegian original with the help of a language model, and may contain errors. The Norwegian version is the authoritative one. See the Norwegian original →

Three terms that are often mixed up, but mean different things. What they actually involve, and who decides what.

Norwegian original last checked against official sources: 21 September 2026. Rules and figures change, so always check the official site before you act.

Parental responsibility, primary residence and contact are three different things, and it is easy to confuse them. Here is the difference, whether you are the mother or the father.

Parental responsibility

Parental responsibility gives the right and duty to make decisions about important personal matters in a child's life, such as name, membership of a religious community and medical treatment. It is parental responsibility that underlies a parent being able to have primary residence.

According to the government, all children born from 1 January 2020 automatically have parents with joint parental responsibility, regardless of whether the parents are married, cohabiting or not living together. If the parents are registered at the same address, they automatically share responsibility. If they do not live at the same address, they can submit a cohabitation declaration. If one parent wants to have the responsibility alone, this must be reported to the National Population Register within one year of paternity being established.

Primary residence

Primary residence is not about how much time the child spends with each parent, but about who can make decisions in everyday life, such as moving, kindergarten, after-school care and leisure activities. The child may have primary residence with one parent, or shared primary residence with both. With shared primary residence, the parents must make such decisions together.

Contact

Contact is about the time the child spends with the parent they do not primarily live with. According to Bufdir, the child has the right to be with both parents, and the division of time should be what is best for that individual child.

When the parents agree

You agree primary residence and the division of time yourselves, preferably through a parental cooperation agreement.

When the parents disagree

You must first go to mediation at the family counselling office. If you do not agree there, the case can be brought before the court, which decides parental responsibility, primary residence and contact. See Mediation after separation and When parents disagree: the case in court.

Tip: The child's view should count, adapted to age and maturity, in all agreements and decisions about primary residence and contact.

See also Parental responsibility when a parent dies.

Sources

• Bufdir. Primary residence, contact and division of time (Norwegian)
• Government.no. Parental responsibility
• The Children Act, chapter 5, Lovdata (Norwegian)

Kontaktpunkt24 gives general information, not legal advice. If you need help with your own case, contact a lawyer, a legal aid service, or the relevant authority.

This page is translated from Norwegian with the help of a language model, and may contain errors. The Norwegian version is always the authoritative one.