A Guide to Pet Custody Laws Australia

For plenty of Australian families, the dog or cat is family.

So when a relationship ends, the argument over who keeps the pet can extremely upsetting.

But the law has changed. Since 10 June 2025, the Family Law Act has included rules written specifically for family pets, and they’ve reshaped how pet custody works in Australia.

Courts now follow a set list of factors, with strict limits on the orders they can make.

Below, our family lawyers explain the current law and how to keep your pet without a courtroom battle.

The Legal Status of Pets in Australian Family Law

There’s no such thing as “custody” of a pet in Australian law.

Pets are property under the Family Law Act 1975, which sits oddly with how most of us feel about them, but that’s the legal starting point.

What changed on 10 June 2025 is how that property gets dealt with.

The Family Law Amendment Act 2024 wrote a dedicated set of rules into the Act for companion animals.

Before that date, the legislation said nothing about pets, so courts treated them like a car or a couch.

Now there are set orders the court can make about a family pet, and factors it must weigh first.

One rule hasn’t budged. A court still can’t order shared custody of a pet.

The 2025 changes didn’t create pet custody in the parenting sense.

The court’s job is to pick an owner, not to draw up a week-about roster for the dog.

Even a consent order can’t create joint ownership. If you want shared care, it has to come from agreement between the two of you.

Who Owns a Pet in a Breakup?

Most couples work out who owns a pet in a breakup without ever seeing a courtroom.

Your options:

1. One of you keeps the pet, or you run an informal shared arrangement like alternating weeks. Courts won’t order shared care, but nothing stops you agreeing to it.
2. A mediator can help you land on a plan you can both live with.
3. A binding financial agreement made before, during or after a relationship can spell out who keeps the pet and head off the argument entirely.
4. A deal on your property split can be made binding through consent orders, including who owns the pet. The court can still only approve one owner, a transfer, or a sale.

If nothing else works, a judge decides as part of your property settlement.

Many couples rely on handshake shared-care deals that work fine until someone re-partners or moves.

Suddenly, whoever has the pet holds all the cards.

People also assume council registration settles ownership. It doesn’t.

The person who paid every vet bill can beat the person named on the register.

What Orders Can the Court Make About Pets?

Since 10 June 2025, a court dealing with a family pet in a property settlement can make only three ownership orders:

1. Sole ownership. One of you keeps the pet outright.
2. Transfer. The pet goes to another person who consents to take it, such as a relative or friend.
3. Sale. Nobody wants this outcome, but it’s available where neither of the first two works.

These can be interim or final orders, and they can be made by consent.

Joint ownership and shared possession are off the table.

The line is deliberate: shared-pet orders would keep separated couples tied together, the opposite of what a settlement is for.

The rules cover married and de facto couples alike, and picked up matters already in court on 10 June 2025 unless the final hearing had started.

Existing property orders don’t change.

What Happens to Pets When You Split Up?

The legal factors are one thing. Day-to-day reality is another, and it deserves honest thought.

1. Your finances. Food, insurance and vet care add up fast on a single income, and the court will ask whether you can carry that alone.

2. Your living situation. A border collie in a one-bedroom flat suits nobody. Where each of you will live matters, practically and as evidence.

3. Your children. Kids and pets bond hard, and a child’s attachment is now a factor the court must consider. Many of our clients have the pet follow the children between households, by agreement.

4. The pet’s welfare. Routines, familiar spaces, other animals in the home. Pick the arrangement the animal can actually live with.

When the Family Law Rules Don’t Apply

The companion animal rules live inside property settlement law, so they only cover married and de facto couples.

Plenty of pet disputes fall outside them: housemates who bought a dog together, a short relationship that never became de facto, or someone minding your cat who won’t hand her back.

There, ordinary property law applies.

An action in detinue, the old remedy for someone wrongfully keeping property you’ve demanded back, can force a pet’s return through the state courts.

Proof of ownership does most of the work, so get advice early.

Companion Animal Laws Across Australian States

State laws govern registration, microchipping and transfer.

They don’t decide a family law dispute on their own, but they create the paper trail behind the “ownership or possession” factor.

If you keep the pet, update the registration and microchip details promptly.

A register still showing your former partner as owner is an argument waiting to happen.

Avoiding Pet Custody Issues

A bit of paperwork now saves a lot of grief later. Four things we recommend:

1. Put your agreement in writing. A written agreement covering care, costs and decision-making beats a vague understanding every time.

2. Deal with pets in your BFA. Include the pets in your binding financial agreement alongside the rest of your property.

3. Keep records. Receipts, vet invoices, insurance and registration papers show who cared and who paid, exactly what a court examines.

4. Get advice early. A short conversation with a lawyer before positions harden is cheaper than a court fight after they do.

What we commonly see :

Pet disputes settle fast once both people understand that a court can’t split the pet’s time.

The argument shifts to evidence of care and capacity, and the sensible deal usually becomes obvious.

That early reality check is what keeps beloved animals out of litigation.