How is a child's habitual residence determined for Hague Convention purposes?

A child's habitual residence for Hague Convention purposes is a factual question, not a legal label fixed by a parenting order or a parent's stated intention alone — courts look at where the child was actually living, integrated into family, school, and social life, immediately before the removal or retention in question. Factors considered typically include how long the child lived there, the reasons for being there, the child's connections to the place, and the family's shared intentions, but no single factor is automatically decisive, and very young children's habitual residence is often tied closely to a parent's own circumstances.

This is deliberately a flexible, real-world inquiry rather than a rigid test based purely on where a parent planned to live, since the Convention's purpose is to protect the child's actual, settled environment from being disrupted by wrongful removal. Because habitual residence is often the central, most contested issue in a Hague case — if it isn't established in the country the child was taken from, the return mechanism may not apply at all — this is an area where early, specific legal advice matters a great deal.