Most of what’s online about living together and property describes other states’ law, and a lot of it assumes common law marriage exists everywhere. It doesn’t. This post is part of a series on what Washington does instead for unmarried couples. It answers one question: whether Washington recognizes common law marriage, and what it recognizes in its place.
No. Washington doesn’t recognize common law marriage, and it never has. You can live together for 30 years, share a name, raise children, and call each other husband and wife, and you’re still not married under Washington law. But Washington does recognize four other things that can matter to an unmarried couple: a common law marriage validly formed in a state that allows it, a state registered domestic partnership, the rights of a “putative spouse” whose marriage turned out to be invalid, and the committed intimate relationship, a court-made rule for dividing property when unmarried partners split up.
Common law marriage in Washington
There isn’t any. The Supreme Court has said it plainly: common law marriage “may not be established in Washington.” Peffley-Warner v. Bowen, 113 Wn.2d 243, 249 (1989). It repeated the point in In re Marriage of Pennington, 142 Wn.2d 592, 600 (2000). To be married in Washington you need a license and a ceremony under chapter 26.04 RCW. No amount of time or shared life substitutes for that.
The “seven years” rule you may have heard of doesn’t exist here or, as far as we know, anywhere. Even the states that allow common law marriage don’t use a fixed number of years. They ask whether the couple agreed to marry and held themselves out as married. Washington doesn’t ask that question at all.
The consequences are real. Without a marriage there’s no spousal maintenance, no right to inherit as a spouse, no Social Security on a partner’s record, and no automatic community property. Our main guide, What is a committed intimate relationship in Washington?, walks through what that means when a long relationship ends.
What Washington recognizes instead
A common law marriage from another state
If you formed a valid common law marriage in a state that allows it, Washington treats you as married. Peffley-Warner, 113 Wn.2d at 249. This matters more than people expect. A couple who lived together for years in a common law marriage state before moving to Washington may be legally married without ever having had a ceremony, and if they are, everything changes: a divorce instead of a CIR case, maintenance available, separate property reachable by the court, and inheritance rights as a spouse. Only a handful of states still allow common law marriage, and each has its own requirements. If you lived with your partner in another state, tell your lawyer which state and when. It’s one of the first things we check.
State registered domestic partnership
Washington created registered domestic partnerships in 2007. Under chapter 26.60 RCW, registered partners have the same rights and responsibilities as spouses under state law. Two things about it surprise people.
First, it’s now limited to couples where at least one partner is 62 or older. RCW 26.60.030(2). The Legislature kept it available for older couples because marrying can cost some of them Social Security or pension benefits. A younger couple can’t register.
Second, if you registered as same-sex domestic partners before marriage equality and never dissolved the partnership, you may already be married. When Washington adopted marriage equality, the Legislature provided that a same-sex registered domestic partnership in which neither partner was 62 or older, and which the partners hadn’t dissolved or converted by June 30, 2014, “is automatically merged into a marriage and is deemed a marriage as of June 30, 2014.” RCW 26.60.100(3). And the legal date of the marriage is the date of the original registration. RCW 26.60.100(4). Some couples don’t know this happened to them.
For a registered partnership, the years before registration can still count as a CIR. In In re Domestic Partnership of Walsh, 183 Wn. App. 830, 847 (2014), the Court of Appeals held that registering later “does not defeat application of the common law ‘equity relationship’ doctrine to their years together before the statutory registration option became available to them.”
Putative spouse
If you went through a marriage ceremony in good faith and later learned the marriage was invalid, for example because a prior divorce was never finalized, you’re what the law calls a putative spouse. A putative spouse keeps an equitable interest in the property acquired during the invalid marriage. In re Marriage of Himes, 136 Wn.2d 707, 733-35 (1998). This narrow doctrine protects people who believed they were married. It doesn’t help a couple who knew they weren’t.
The committed intimate relationship
This is what Washington offers most unmarried couples, and it’s the closest thing the state has to common law marriage. It isn’t a marriage. It’s a court-made rule, from In re Marriage of Lindsey, 101 Wn.2d 299 (1984), and Connell v. Francisco, 127 Wn.2d 339 (1995), that lets a court divide the property an unmarried couple acquired while living together in a stable, marriage-like relationship. A judge looks at how long you lived together, why, whether you pooled money and effort, and whether you both intended a committed relationship. If the answer is yes, the law presumes property acquired during the relationship belongs to both of you, whatever the title says, and the court divides it fairly.
What it doesn’t do is make you married. No maintenance, no inheritance as a spouse, and no reach into either partner’s separate property. And there’s a three-year deadline to file after the relationship ends. The rest of this series covers each of those.
Why the difference matters when you’re planning
If you’re in a long relationship and don’t plan to marry, the law’s answer to “what happens if we split up or one of us dies” is a lawsuit about whether a CIR existed. You can do better than that with paper. A written cohabitation or property agreement says who owns what. Wills say who inherits, because without one your partner gets nothing from your estate. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance pass outside probate and don’t depend on marital status. Deeds can put both names on the house. None of that requires a marriage, and all of it is cheaper than litigating the Connell factors later.
Two things you can do now
Figure out which category you’re in. Married in another state by common law? Registered domestic partners, and if so, before or after 2014? Went through a ceremony that might not have been valid? Or none of those, which means the CIR doctrine is what applies. Each one leads somewhere different.
If you’re staying unmarried, put the important things in writing. An agreement about property, a will, and current beneficiary designations. That’s the planning the law won’t do for you.
Common questions
Is there common law marriage in Washington State? No. Washington has never recognized common law marriage, and living together for any length of time doesn’t create one. Washington does recognize common law marriages validly formed in states that allow them.
What rights do unmarried couples have in Washington? Property rights under the committed intimate relationship doctrine, which lets a court divide property acquired during a stable, marriage-like relationship. Unmarried partners don’t get spousal maintenance, don’t inherit as spouses, and can’t reach each other’s separate property.
Can we still register as domestic partners in Washington? Only if at least one of you is 62 or older. Same-sex domestic partnerships registered before 2014 with no partner over 62 were automatically converted to marriages as of June 30, 2014.
This post is part of our series on committed intimate relationships in Washington. Start with the main guide, What is a committed intimate relationship in Washington, and what happens when it ends?, or read about the Connell factors and what happens when an unmarried partner dies.
Last updated September 2026.
Law Offices of Daniel Ehrlich, Everett. Family law in Snohomish, Island, King, and Skagit Counties. (425) 954-5578.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Every case is different. If you’re in a long relationship without a marriage and you’re not sure where you stand, talk to an attorney.
