How does custody work in Ohio if we were never married?

Answered by ProctorLaw

This is general legal information, not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created. Talk with a licensed attorney about your situation.

Short answer: in Ohio, when parents were never married, the mother is the child's sole residential parent and legal custodian by default until a court orders otherwise (R.C. 3109.042). That is true even if the father's name is on the birth certificate and even if you have been trading the child back and forth for months. Your informal arrangement is not enforceable by either of you, which is exactly why you want to make it official.

Step one: make sure paternity is legally established. Being the biological father is not enough on its own. Paternity gets established one of three ways: (1) both parents signed an Acknowledgment of Paternity affidavit, usually at the hospital or later through the county Child Support Enforcement Agency (CSEA), which becomes final once it is filed with the state and the 60-day window to rescind it has passed (R.C. 3111.23 to 3111.27); (2) the CSEA issues an administrative paternity order, typically after genetic testing (R.C. 3111.38); or (3) a court decides it in a parentage case (R.C. 3111.04). If you signed the affidavit at the hospital, you are probably already there. Important: a signed acknowledgment gives the father the legal status of a parent, the duty to pay support, and the right to ask the court for parenting time (R.C. 3111.26, 3109.12). It does not give him custody or any guaranteed schedule. For that, somebody has to file.

Step two: file in Juvenile Court. For never-married parents, the case belongs in the juvenile court of the county where the child lives, here the Franklin County Juvenile Court (R.C. 2151.23(A)(2)). Either parent can file a complaint asking the court to allocate parental rights and responsibilities. Two basic outcomes are possible: one parent is named residential parent with a parenting-time schedule for the other, or the parents enter a shared parenting plan that spells out where the child lives and when, who makes decisions, and how support works. Either or both parents can propose shared parenting, but a written plan has to be filed with the court (R.C. 3109.04(G)). Franklin County's current juvenile filing deposits run about $140 for a custody complaint and about $215 if parentage and custody are filed together, and a poverty affidavit can defer the fee if money is tight.

How the judge decides. The court is required to treat the mother and father as equals once a case is filed (R.C. 3109.042) and decides based on the child's best interest, using the factors in R.C. 3109.04(F): each parent's wishes, the child's relationships and adjustment to home and school, each parent's health, which parent is more likely to honor the other's time, any history of abuse or denied visitation, whether support is being paid, and whether either parent plans to move out of state. There is no presumption of a 50/50 split in current Ohio law. A bill to create one (House Bill 14) died in 2024, and a broader parenting-plan rewrite (Senate Bill 174) passed the Senate in November 2025 but has not become law as of this writing.

Practical advice. If the two of you mostly agree, the fastest route is to write up your schedule, decision-making, and support terms and submit them to the court as an agreed entry or shared parenting plan; the judge will usually approve a reasonable agreement. Start a simple log now of the days and overnights each of you actually has, since courts look hard at the existing routine. And do not stop exchanges or withhold the child to gain leverage; that tends to backfire under the best-interest factors.

This is general information, not legal advice for your situation. Custody facts matter a lot, so talk with a family law attorney before you file.

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