How many overnights is 50/50 custody?

In a 365-night year, 50/50 is 182 nights with one parent and 183 with the other, since the odd night has to go somewhere. Utah's equal parent-time statute spells this out: one parent gets 182 overnights and the other 183. In a leap year it is 183 each.

What percentage is every other weekend?

Every other weekend from Friday to Sunday evening is 2 nights out of 14, about 52 nights a year or 14.3%. If each weekend runs to Monday morning, it is 3 nights out of 14, about 78 nights or 21.4%. Holidays and summer time usually add to both figures.

Do daytime visits count toward custody percentage?

In an overnight count, no: a dinner visit or a Saturday afternoon adds contact but not nights. Some formulas count time differently, for example Virginia treats a short overnight as half a day and California asks for the percentage of time, so check how your jurisdiction counts before relying on any number.

Why does my count differ from the other parent's?

The usual causes are a different start date, a year with 53 Fridays, holidays counted twice, or swapped weekends that only one of you recorded. Agree a start date and a list of holiday blocks first, then count from the same calendar.

Parenting Time Calculator: Overnights and Custody %

This parenting time calculator counts where your child sleeps each night of the year. Pick a schedule, set the date it starts and, if you like, add holiday blocks; it shows overnights per year for each parent, each parent's percentage, and how many handovers the schedule needs. The numbers are a planning aid, not a legal calculation: courts and child support agencies count time in their own ways, explained below.

How overnights are counted

The calculator gives each night to one home: the home where the child sleeps. A night runs from the evening to the next morning, so a weekend from Friday after school to Sunday evening is two overnights (Friday and Saturday), and the same weekend running to Monday morning is three.

A few details change the result:

The year has 365 nights, or 366 in a leap year. Equal time is therefore 182 and 183 nights, not 182.5 each. Utah's equal parent-time statute says exactly that: 182 overnights for one parent and 183 for the other.
Two-week schedules do not divide evenly into a year. 365 nights is 26 two-week cycles plus one night. Depending on the start date, one extra night or one extra weekend lands with one parent.
The start date matters. 2027 begins on a Friday and has 53 Fridays. An every-other-weekend schedule gives the weekend parent 53 nights in 2027 if it starts with the first Friday of January, and 52 if it starts one week later.
Handovers are counted as changes of home. If the child sleeps at a different home than the night before, that is one handover, even when it happens at school and the parents never meet.

Agencies do not all use plain overnights. Two examples:

Virginia defines a "day" as 24 hours, but where the parent with fewer overnights has an overnight lasting less than 24 hours, the statute presumes each parent gets half a day for that period. A schedule with many short overnights can therefore count for less than its night total suggests.
California's guideline calculator asks for the percentage of time the child spends with a parent, offers preset timeshare options, and notes that courts may round the time up or down, sometimes under county local rules. Its user guide also tells parents to describe the time actually spent with the child, not just the time written in an older order.

Why some child support formulas use overnight counts

The idea behind it: the home where the child sleeps pays directly for much of the child's daily costs (food, housing, transport). Victoria Legal Aid describes the Australian care percentage as the share of child support responsibilities "met directly through looking after your children". Canada's Federal Child Support Guidelines, for shared parenting, tell courts to take into account "the increased costs of shared parenting time arrangements".

Real examples, each from the official source:

Jurisdiction	What is counted	Lines that matter
UK government Child Maintenance Service (GOV.UK)	Agreed overnight stays per year with the paying parent	Shared care reductions start at 52 nights. Bands: 52–103 nights, 104–155, 156–174, 175 or more
Australia (Services Australia, as explained by Victoria Legal Aid)	Nights per year	52–127 nights is "regular care"; 128–237 nights is "shared care"; 238–313 is "primary care"
Canada (Federal Child Support Guidelines, s. 9)	Parenting time over a year	A different calculation when each parent has at least 40%
Virginia (§ 20-108.2)	Days of custody or visitation, with the half-day rule for short overnights	Shared custody calculation when a parent has more than 90 days a year
Utah (81-9-303 and 81-9-305)	Overnights	The optional schedule counts as 145 overnights for child support; equal time is 182 and 183

Several common schedules sit right on these lines. Every other weekend is about 52 nights, exactly where the GOV.UK and Australian tables start. The 70/30 patterns give about 104 nights, the start of the second GOV.UK band. An exact 60/40 split (146 nights) sits on the Canadian 40% line, if time is counted in nights. That is why a single swapped weekend can matter, and why it helps to keep a dated record of the nights that actually happened, not only the plan.

The calculator does not compute support. For that, use your own jurisdiction's official calculator and, if the amount matters, get legal advice.

Every other weekend custody percentage, worked out

Start with the plain pattern: Friday and Saturday nights with parent B, every second week.

Per cycle: 2 nights out of 14.
Per year: 365 ÷ 14 × 2 = 52.1, so 52 nights in most years (53 when the year has 53 Fridays and the schedule catches the first one).
Percentage: 52 ÷ 365 = 14.3% for parent B, 85.7% for parent A.

Then the common additions:

Version	Nights per 14	Nights per year (before holidays)	Parent B share
Friday to Sunday evening	2	about 52	14.3%
Friday to Monday morning	3	about 78	21.4%
Friday to Sunday, plus a midweek overnight in the off week	3	about 78	21.4%
Friday to Sunday, plus a midweek overnight every week	4	about 104	28.6%
Any of the above, plus a weekday dinner visit	no change	no change	no change

So "every other weekend" alone is closer to 85/15 than to 80/20. The usual way it reaches 80/20 is by running each weekend to Monday morning, or by adding holiday time.

How holidays shift the percentage

Holiday and summer blocks replace the regular pattern for a few days or weeks. To count them, take out the nights the regular schedule would have given and put in the holiday nights.

Example: every other weekend (Friday to Sunday) plus two consecutive summer weeks with parent B.

Regular pattern: about 52 nights.
The two summer weeks would normally have contained 2 of parent B's nights.
In summer, parent B has all 14 nights: a gain of 12.
New total: about 64 nights, or 17.6%.

Utah's optional schedule shows the same effect at a larger scale. Its weekly rhythm (one weekday overnight plus alternating weekends from Friday to Monday morning) is 5 nights in 14, about 130 nights a year. With the statute's holiday schedule and up to four weeks of summer time included, Utah counts it as 145 overnights.

Three things to watch when you add holidays in the calculator:

Alternating holidays (one parent in even years, the other in odd years) shift a different number of nights each year. Run the calculator for both years.
Holidays that overlap a regular weekend do not add nights if that parent already had them.
Long summer blocks move the percentage most, because they replace a whole run of regular nights at once.

Common patterns and their percentages

Computed from each pattern's repeating cycle, over 365 nights, before holidays. "Handovers" counts changes of home per year.

Pattern	Cycle	Parent A nights	Parent B nights	Split	Handovers per year
Week on, week off	14 days	182.5	182.5	50/50	about 52
2-2-3 rotation	14 days	182.5	182.5	50/50	about 156
2-2-5-5 rotation	14 days	182.5	182.5	50/50	about 104
3-4-4-3 rotation	14 days	182.5	182.5	50/50	about 104
4-3 schedule	7 days	208.6	156.4	57/43	about 104
Every extended weekend (Friday to Monday)	7 days	208.6	156.4	57/43	about 104
Alternating extended weekends plus a weekly midweek overnight	14 days	234.6	130.4	64/36	about 156
Alternating long weekends (Thursday to Monday)	14 days	260.7	104.3	71/29	about 52
Every other weekend plus a weekly midweek overnight	14 days	260.7	104.3	71/29	about 156
Every third weekend plus a weekly midweek overnight	21 days	260.7	104.3	71/29	about 139
Every other extended weekend (Friday to Monday)	14 days	286.8	78.2	79/21	about 52
Every other weekend plus a midweek overnight in the off week	14 days	286.8	78.2	79/21	about 104
Every other weekend (Friday to Sunday)	14 days	312.9	52.1	86/14	about 52

Fractions such as 182.5 mean the extra night moves between parents depending on the start date; in a real calendar year each night goes to one home. For what these patterns look like night by night, and which ages and distances they tend to suit, see 60/40, 70/30 and 80/20 custody schedules.

Parenting time calculator