Domestic Partner in Texas: Registries, Benefits, and Informal Marriage

A domestic partner in Texas has no rights under state law. Texas does not maintain a statewide domestic partnership registry, does not recognize civil unions, and does not extend spousal protections such as community property, automatic inheritance, or medical decision-making authority to unmarried partners. A few counties and cities keep local registries or employee affidavit programs, and some private employers offer partner benefits, but none of that changes your status under state law. The practical protections come from private legal documents you sign yourself, or from qualifying as informally married.

What Texas Law Actually Says

The Texas Family Code defines a “civil union” as any status other than marriage that is intended as an alternative to marriage and grants spouse-like legal protections, benefits, or responsibilities. It declares such arrangements contrary to state public policy.¹ Parts of that provision were effectively invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges as applied to same-sex marriage, but its resistance to non-marital legal statuses remains on the books.

No state agency will process a domestic partnership filing. If your partner dies without a will, Texas intestate succession law passes property to a surviving spouse, children, parents, or siblings. A domestic partner is not in that line at all.² That single fact drives most of the planning work described below.

Local Registries and Employer Programs

A handful of Texas jurisdictions have created their own frameworks. Travis County has accepted domestic partnership filings since 1993. The Travis County Clerk maintains a registry and provides a sample Declaration of Domestic Partnership form you can adapt when drafting your own.³

Some cities offer affidavit processes for their own employees. Dallas provides an Affidavit of Domestic Partnership that city workers use to add a partner to employer-sponsored benefits.⁴ Plano runs a similar application for domestic partner benefit coverage.⁵ These are employer-specific programs, not general-purpose registries open to the public.

The legal reach of any local filing is narrow. A registration in Travis County creates no rights in a neighboring county that lacks a similar registry. Even within the filing jurisdiction, the record mainly serves as documentation you can present to an insurer or employer. It does not create the automatic legal protections a marriage license provides. Whether a private employer offers domestic partner benefits at all is voluntary; Texas imposes no statewide requirement.

How to Register Where It Is Available

In jurisdictions with a registry, both partners typically appear in person at the County Clerk’s office. Travis County requires proof of identity and age, which can be a driver’s license, passport, birth certificate, state-issued ID, visa, or military identification.³ Employer-specific affidavits ask for similar information plus eligibility criteria set by the employer.

Common requirements across local registries and employer affidavits include:

Both partners must be at least 18 years old.
A shared primary residence. Plano, for example, requires at least six continuous months of shared residence.⁵
Neither partner is currently married to someone else or enrolled in another domestic partnership.
The partners are not parent and child, siblings, or other close relatives.

Travis County filing fees are $25 for the first page and $4 for each additional page.³ If your declaration is notarized outside the clerk’s office, Texas caps notary fees at $10 for the first signature acknowledgment and $1 for each additional signature.⁶

Ending a Domestic Partnership

Ending a domestic partnership is simpler than divorce because no court is involved. In Travis County, you file a Dissolution of Domestic Partnership form with the County Clerk. Only one partner needs to appear in person, and the filing fee matches registration.⁷

That simplicity has a cost. No judge divides property, allocates debts, or enforces support. If you and your partner cannot agree on how to separate shared finances, your only path is a civil lawsuit, which is slower and more expensive than a divorce proceeding built to handle those disputes. A written cohabitation agreement is the way to avoid that outcome.

Tax Consequences of Partner Benefits

Under federal tax law, employer-provided health insurance for a legal spouse is excluded from the employee’s taxable income. Coverage for a domestic partner is not. If your employer adds your partner to your plan, the fair market value of the employer’s contribution toward your partner’s coverage counts as taxable income to you and is subject to income tax and payroll taxes.

There is one carve-out. If your partner qualifies as your tax dependent, the employer-paid coverage becomes tax-free. Your partner can qualify as a “qualifying relative” if they live with you for the entire year, you provide more than half of their financial support, and their gross income falls below the exemption threshold.⁸

Filing Status and Gifts Between Partners

Domestic partners who are not in a common-law marriage file federal taxes as single individuals. You cannot file jointly. A domestic partner alone does not count as a qualifying person for head-of-household status either, though you may qualify on the basis of another dependent.⁹

Married spouses can transfer unlimited assets to each other free of gift tax. Domestic partners cannot. In 2026, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient.¹⁰ Give your partner more than that in a single year, outside qualifying medical or educational expenses, and you must file a gift tax return. Most people will not owe actual gift tax because of the lifetime exemption, but the reporting is still required.

Estate Planning and Medical Decisions

Estate planning is not optional for domestic partners in Texas. It is the only way to approximate what married couples receive automatically.

Wills and Inheritance

If you die without a will, your separate property passes to your surviving spouse, children, parents, or siblings under the statute.² Community property follows a similar spouse-and-children framework.¹¹ A domestic partner is nowhere in that hierarchy. Without a valid will naming your partner as a beneficiary, they could lose the home you shared, even if they helped pay for it.

Medical Power of Attorney

Texas law lets you designate any competent adult as your medical agent through a Medical Power of Attorney. The statutory form does not require the agent to be a spouse or relative.¹² It takes effect only when your physician certifies in writing that you cannot make your own health care decisions, and it stays valid until you set an expiration or revoke it.

Financial Power of Attorney

A Statutory Durable Power of Attorney lets your partner handle banking, bill paying, and investment decisions on your behalf. It must be signed by the principal and acknowledged before a notary or other officer authorized to take acknowledgments. To remain effective if you become incapacitated, the document must include language stating that the authority survives your disability or incapacity. Without that durability clause, the power of attorney ends the moment you need it most.

Protecting Shared Property With a Written Agreement

Texas is a community property state for married couples, so most assets acquired during a marriage belong equally to both spouses by default. Domestic partners get no such presumption. If you buy a car together, contribute to a shared bank account, or help pay your partner’s mortgage, Texas law does not automatically recognize your financial interest in those assets.

A cohabitation agreement solves this. Texas law requires cohabitation agreements to be in writing and signed by the person to be bound. An oral promise to split property is not enforceable. A well-drafted agreement covers how jointly purchased assets would be divided if the relationship ends, who is responsible for shared debts, and what happens to the home if one partner dies or leaves.

Informal Marriage as the Full-Rights Alternative

Texas recognizes informal marriage, sometimes called common-law marriage, and it carries the full legal weight of a ceremonial marriage. Under Texas Family Code § 2.401, a couple is legally married if they agree to be married, live together in Texas as spouses, and represent to other people that they are married.¹³ All three elements must exist at the same time. Living together for years is not enough on its own.

Both partners must be at least 18, and neither can be currently married to someone else.¹³ Couples can put the marriage on record by filing a Declaration of Informal Marriage with the County Clerk. The declaration is prescribed by the bureau of vital statistics and includes each party’s full name, address, date of birth, place of birth, and a sworn oath that the couple agreed to be married, lived together as spouses, and represented themselves as married.¹⁴ The statutory filing fee is $25.¹⁵

Once recorded, an informal marriage carries the full package: community property, automatic inheritance, spousal privilege, joint tax filing, and Social Security recognition.¹⁶ It also means ending the relationship requires a formal divorce.

The Two-Year Presumption

If a couple never files the declaration and later disputes whether the informal marriage existed, a clock starts running when they separate. If no court proceeding to prove the marriage is filed within two years of the date the couple stopped living together, Texas law creates a rebuttable presumption that no marriage agreement ever existed.¹³ The burden shifts to the person claiming the marriage was real. Filing the declaration removes that risk.

Hospital Visitation

Texas law does not grant hospital visitation rights based on domestic partner status. During a declared disaster involving an infectious disease, hospitals must allow at least one visitor, but access is tied to whether the visitor is authorized by the patient to receive health information, holds authority under a medical power of attorney, or is recognized as the patient’s surrogate decision-maker under hospital policy.¹⁷ Outside a declared disaster, individual hospitals set their own visitation policies. A Medical Power of Attorney naming your partner as your agent gives them a recognized legal basis for access in almost any hospital setting.

1
State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 6.204 – Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage or Civil Union
2
State of Texas. Texas Estates Code EST 201.002 – Separate Estate of an Intestate
3
Travis County Clerk. Domestic Partnerships
4
City of Dallas. Affidavit of Domestic Partnership
5
City of Plano. Application for Domestic Partnership Benefit Coverage Form
6
Texas Secretary of State. Notary Public Educational Information
7
Travis County Clerk. Recording FAQ
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 152 – Dependent Defined
9
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 501, Dependents, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information
10
Internal Revenue Service. Gifts and Inheritances 1
11
State of Texas. Texas Estates Code EST 201.003 – Community Estate of an Intestate
12
State of Texas. Texas Health and Safety Code HSC 166.164 – Form of Medical Power of Attorney
13
State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 2.401 – Proof of Informal Marriage
14
State of Texas. Texas Family Code Chapter 2
15
State of Texas. Texas Local Government Code LGC 118.011 – Fee Schedule
16
Social Security Administration. SSR 61-09 – Validity of Common-Law Marriage
17
State of Texas. Texas Health and Safety Code HSC 241.012 – In-Person Hospital Visitation During Period of Disaster