Back to School with Separated Parents in Spain: Who Decides, Who Pays What

Across the Canary Islands, the 2026–27 school year starts in careful steps: under the official calendar approved in March, Infantil and Primaria pupils return on 9 September, secondary students (ESO) on the 10th and Bachillerato on the 11th, with vocational programmes following the week after. For most families that means a fortnight of lists, labels and logistics. For separated parents it often means something extra: the yearly reappearance of two delicate questions — who decides the school matters, and who pays the September bill?

Spanish law answers both more clearly than many parents expect. The answers live in two different places — parental authority (patria potestad) for the decisions, and child maintenance (pensión de alimentos) for the money — and mixing them up is where most September arguments begin. Here is how the pieces fit, including what happens when one parent lives outside Spain.

Choosing the school is not a custody question

The first distinction to hold on to: custody and parental authority are not the same thing. Custody (guarda y custodia) organises day-to-day life — where the child sleeps, who takes them to training on Tuesdays. Parental authority, regulated in articles 154 and 156 of the Spanish Civil Code, is the bundle of duties and decision-making powers that both parents almost always keep after a separation, whatever the custody arrangement.

Day-to-day decisions ride with whoever has the child that week. But the major decisions — and Spanish courts consistently place the choice or change of school among them, together with religious education, significant medical treatment and moving the child's residence — belong to both holders of parental authority. It makes no difference that one parent has sole custody, or that the school is closer to one home, or that only one parent pays the fees.

In practice this means:

• Enrolling a child in a new school, moving them to a different one, or switching between public, private and international education needs the agreement of both parents.
• A parent who enrols the child unilaterally is acting outside the rules, and the other parent can challenge the move in court — quickly, which matters, because judges weigh the child's stability once a school year has started.
• If the parents genuinely cannot agree, article 156 provides the exit: either parent may ask the court to decide. The judge hears both parents, hears the child if they are mature enough — always from age twelve — and attributes the decision to one of them for that specific question. Where disagreements become chronic, the court can go further and redistribute how parental authority is exercised for a limited period.

One practical note for September: schools acting in good faith may process paperwork signed by one parent, because the Civil Code presumes each parent acts with the other's consent in ordinary matters. A school choice, however, is not an ordinary matter — so if you learn that a change is being processed without you, object in writing to the school and take advice at once.

The September bill: most of it is already inside the maintenance payment

Now the money. Every September, maintenance-paying parents across Spain receive a list — books, backpack, uniforms, enrolment, materials — with a request to pay half. And every September, the same misunderstanding: treating those costs as "extraordinary expenses" to be split on top of the monthly payment.

The Supreme Court settled this years ago, and it has repeated the doctrine several times: back-to-school costs are ordinary expenses, already covered by the monthly child maintenance payment. The leading judgment, STS 579/2014 of 15 October 2014, put it plainly: the expenses generated at the start of each school year are ordinary because they are necessary, foreseeable and periodic — you know every year that they are coming, roughly when and roughly how much. The Court confirmed the rule in STS 557/2016 of 21 September 2016 and again in STS 500/2017 of 13 September 2017.

Why? Because under article 142 of the Civil Code, maintenance legally includes the child's education and instruction. Enrolment fees, textbooks, school materials and uniforms are education costs in their most basic form. They do not need the other parent's prior consent — and, as a rule, they cannot be claimed from the other parent separately either.

Two important qualifications:

• Your own court order or agreement comes first. Many convenios reguladores expressly deal with school-start costs — some share them 50/50 on top of maintenance, some fold them in. If yours says something specific, that governs. Read it before September, not after the argument.
• The doctrine covers the recurring start-of-year basket. It does not automatically stretch to everything a school ever invoices.

Extraordinary expenses: the second list

Genuinely extraordinary expenses are the opposite of the September basket: unforeseeable, non-periodic and necessary — think orthodontics, glasses, a sudden medical need not covered publicly. These are typically shared between the parents (half each, unless the court set another proportion), and Spanish courts distinguish two flavours:

• Necessary extraordinary expenses — medical needs, or school support classes recommended by the school because a child is struggling. Courts tend to allow these to proceed even without prior agreement, though informing the other parent first is always the safer path.
• Non-necessary extras — enrichment rather than need. These require the other parent's consent before the spending happens (more below).

When parents disagree about whether a specific cost is extraordinary at all, the Civil Procedure Act provides a dedicated tool: article 776.4ª LEC. Before an unlisted extraordinary expense can be enforced, the court first declares — in a short incident, with a five-day window for the other parent to object — whether the amount actually qualifies. Courts use it for genuinely doubtful items; costs the case-law has already settled, such as the September basket, do not need it.

Extracurricular activities: the third category

Football, ballet, music school, private English academies: this is where most real-world friction lives, and it is worth knowing that Spanish appellate courts treat these as their own category — voluntary expenses. They are neither part of the ordinary maintenance basket nor "necessary" in the legal sense.

The practical rules the courts apply, again and again:

• Both parents should agree before the child is signed up. An activity chosen unilaterally is, as a general rule, paid by the parent who chose it.
• Knowing is not consenting. The Provincial Courts have said it expressly: the fact that the other parent knew the child attends swimming does not mean they agreed to pay half of it.
• School-recommended support classes are different. Where tutoring responds to an educational need flagged by the school, courts commonly treat it as a necessary extraordinary expense — shared, even if one parent grumbles.

If you want an activity to be a shared cost, get the agreement in writing first — a simple message exchange is usually enough. If you want to say no, say it early and in writing too.

When one parent lives in another country

For international families — the daily reality of our clients in Tenerife and Fuerteventura — three points matter:

1. Distance does not dilute parental authority. A parent living in Berlin, London or Milan keeps exactly the same right to participate in the school decision as one living in Costa Adeje. Schools' consent forms, enrolment changes and the September paperwork do not become one parent's private domain because the other is abroad.

2. Where would a dispute be decided? Within the EU, Regulation 2019/1111 (Brussels II-ter, applicable since August 2022) gives general jurisdiction over parental-responsibility disputes to the courts of the country where the child habitually lives (article 7). For a child settled and schooled in the Canaries, that means the Spanish courts — even if the other parent lives abroad, and even for disagreements about which school the child attends.

3. Maintenance crosses borders too. A parent abroad does not stop owing the monthly payment that covers the September basket; EU rules on maintenance make orders enforceable across Member States. If payments have stopped at the worst possible moment of the year, that is a solvable problem, not a dead end — we will look at cross-border collection in detail in a coming article.

If a school move is being used to engineer a bigger change — relocating the child to another island or another country — that is no longer a school question but a residence question, with its own strict rules. We will cover relocation separately this month.

A September checklist for separated parents

• Re-read your convenio regulador or judgment — school costs may already be regulated there, and whatever it says prevails over the general rules.
• Treat enrolment, books, materials and uniforms as ordinary costs inside the maintenance payment, unless your documents say otherwise.
• For any new school or change of school, get the other parent's agreement in writing before signing anything.
• For activities and academies, agree first, in writing — or assume the cost stays with whoever signed the child up.
• Keep receipts and messages. If a genuine extraordinary expense is disputed, the article 776.4ª LEC incident exists precisely for that.
• If you live abroad: make sure the school has your contact details and that you appear in its communications; being far away is not a reason to be left out.

A calm September is usually built in July: clear agreements, in writing, before the lists arrive.

Our family team works with separated and international families across Tenerife and Fuerteventura in their own language — from school-decision disagreements to maintenance and cross-border questions. You can read more about how we work in family law, see our take on international divorce in Spain, or book a consultation at our Costa Adeje or Corralejo offices.

Common questions

Can my ex-partner change our child's school without my consent?

As a general rule, no. Choosing or changing a school is a decision of parental authority, which both parents normally share after separation regardless of custody. A unilateral change can be challenged before the Spanish courts, and it is wise to object promptly and in writing.

Are September books and uniforms an extraordinary expense I can claim half of?

Usually not. The Supreme Court has held repeatedly (STS 579/2014, 557/2016, 500/2017) that start-of-year school costs are ordinary, foreseeable expenses already included in the monthly maintenance payment — unless your own agreement or judgment regulates them differently.

Who pays for private tutoring?

It depends on why it exists. Support classes recommended by the school for a child who is struggling are commonly treated as a necessary extraordinary expense and shared. Purely voluntary academies or activities need both parents' prior agreement — otherwise the cost generally stays with the parent who arranged them.

I live outside Spain — do I still have a say in school decisions?

Yes. Parental authority does not fade with distance: major educational decisions still require you. Disputes about a child habitually resident in Spain are decided by the Spanish courts under EU Regulation 2019/1111.

What happens if we simply cannot agree on the school?

Either parent can ask the court to resolve the specific disagreement under article 156 of the Civil Code. The judge hears both parents — and the child, always from age twelve — and attributes that decision to one of them. It is a focused procedure about one question, not a re-litigation of the whole separation.

This article is general information about Spanish law as it stands at the date of publication, not legal advice for your specific situation. The terms of your own judgment or regulatory agreement take precedence over the general rules described here.