Ontario family law · 2026
Ontario parenting time, written for fathers. No maternal preference, no default schedule.
What used to be called 'access' is now 'parenting time.' One test still decides every parenting question: what is best for the child. The 40% line — your share of time with the kids — matters more than most men know. Free guide, free calculator, no signup.
No default schedule
Ontario law has no presumption of equal time and no maternal preference. The court looks at the actual facts of your family.
The 40% line
Below 40% of the time with the kids, the paying parent owes the full table amount. At or above 40%, the math changes.
Plans vs. litigation
A written parenting plan in a signed separation agreement is binding and enforceable. Most Ontario parenting matters resolve with a written plan rather than a contested hearing.
Most fathers walk into a parenting conversation expecting to lose by default. Ontario law has not worked that way for forty years. There is no maternal preference. There is no presumption of equal time. There is one test — what is best for the child — applied to the specific facts of your family. The history of care, the relationships, the child's needs. Knowing the actual standard is useful general background.
The same standard applies whether you were married or not — the Divorce Act covers married couples and Ontario's Children's Law Reform Act covers everyone else, but they ask the same question the same way. The 2021 amendments swapped the old words ('access', 'custody', 'mobility') for plainer ones ('parenting time', 'decision-making responsibility', 'relocation') without changing the underlying rights.
Two general points come out of all of this. First, courts in Ontario weigh the actual history of care over the labels either parent uses. Second, the share of parenting time interacts with child support directly once it crosses 40% — and a court looks to evidence of that share, not either parent's say-so.
The best-interests factors that actually matter
When a court is asked to decide a parenting question, it works through the same list of factors. The child's needs at their age and stage. The nature and strength of the child's relationship with each parent. Who has done the day-to-day care. The child's own views, weighed against age and maturity. Family violence. How willing each parent is to support the child's relationship with the other parent.
What counts as 'history of care' depends on what the family actually did, not on titles. A father who handled school pick-up, homework, and weekend activities has history of care for those things, regardless of who worked outside the home.
What counts against a parent: documented family violence, a pattern of refusing to communicate or cooperate, deliberately damaging the child's relationship with the other parent, and unilateral decisions on matters that were supposed to be joint.
The 40% line and what it does to support
Below 40% of the time with the kids, the paying parent owes the full table amount from the Federal Child Support Guidelines. Above 40%, the math changes. You take what each parent would owe if they were the paying parent and subtract — the parent with the higher table amount pays the difference. A court can then adjust upward for the cost of running two homes the kids both live in, and to reflect the actual circumstances of both parents.
The result is rarely zero, even at exactly 50/50, because incomes differ. The Cairn calculator runs both sides of the line for you.
Practical implication: a parenting-time push from 35% to 40% is not just a parenting issue — it moves the child support calculation onto a different track. Courts know this and will not rubber-stamp claimed time that does not reflect actual care. Overnights are the primary unit; day-time-only parenting is considered where there are no overnights.
Writing a parenting plan that holds
A solid parenting plan covers the regular schedule (school year, summer), how holidays rotate (winter break, March break, statutory holidays), summer-block scheduling, who drives where for handovers, parental travel and passport rules, how the parents communicate (which app, how often), who decides on which categories of major decision (medical, education, religion, extracurriculars), how disagreements are resolved (typically mediation before court), and when the plan gets reviewed (usually when a child starts school or high school).
The plan lives inside the separation agreement. You can also file it with the court on consent, which makes it directly enforceable if the other parent stops following it.
What does not need to be in the plan: every birthday, every Pizza Friday, every weekend rotation contingency. Plans that try to script every detail break under real-life pressure. The structure plus a good-faith communication clause beats a forty-page schedule.
Before drafting a parenting plan
- A typical school-year week — who has the kids when
- A summer-break schedule (one-week or two-week blocks)
- Holiday rotation — winter break, March break, Thanksgiving, statutory holidays, birthdays
- Decision categories — joint or sole, by category (medical, education, religion, big extracurriculars)
- Communication rules — which app or channel, how often
- Handovers — who drives, where the exchange happens
- Travel — passports, advance notice, consent letters for international trips
- A review trigger — typically when the youngest child starts school or high school
- A dispute-resolution path — mediation before court
Run both sides of the 40% line so you can see the difference in dollars.
- Below 40% — the full Federal Guidelines table amount at your income
- At or above 40% — the difference between the two parents' table amounts, plus any adjustment a court would apply
- How the cost of childcare, post-secondary, and big extracurriculars is split between you
- What hits your account each pay period at the resulting support level
Free to run. No account, no credit card.
Reviewed May 12, 2026 · Plain-language information for Ontario.
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What men want to know.
Plain-language answers about how this works in Ontario — without the disclaimers that don't help anyone.
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