If you live with a partner and want to keep your legal status single, here is how to avoid a common law marriage: never agree with your partner that the two of you are married, never present yourselves to others as spouses, keep your finances and paperwork in single status, and sign a written cohabitation agreement stating that neither of you intends to be married. These steps matter only in a small number of states, but when they apply, the consequences of getting it wrong are the same as any other marriage. A common law marriage can only be ended by a formal divorce.
Where This Is Actually a Risk
Most states do not allow new common law marriages at all. You can only form one today in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia.1National Conference of State Legislatures. Common Law Marriage by State Each has its own quirks. Colorado requires both partners to be at least 18. Utah requires a court or administrative body to validate the relationship. Oklahoma’s statutes call for a license, but its courts have upheld common law marriages anyway.
If you live outside these jurisdictions and have always lived outside them, you cannot accidentally form a new common law marriage. But do not assume a state line protects you once you’ve lived in a recognizing state. A common law marriage validly formed in Colorado remains a legal marriage after you move to California, under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution.2Constitution Annotated. Overview of Full Faith and Credit Clause The IRS takes the same position: under Revenue Ruling 2013-17, a couple validly married at common law in one state is treated as married for federal tax purposes even after relocating.3Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Ruling 2013-17 If you plan to spend any time living together in a recognizing state, the prevention steps below apply.
One myth to set aside: living together for seven years does not create a common law marriage. No state has ever had that rule. Time alone proves nothing. Conduct does.
What Courts Are Looking For
To avoid a common law marriage, you need to know what creates one. Courts in recognizing states generally look at three things, and your goal is to make sure none of them is true of your relationship.4Social Security Administration. GN 00305.075 State Laws on Validity of Common-Law Non-Ceremonial Marriages
The first is a present agreement to be married. Both partners must share a current, mutual understanding that they consider themselves married. It doesn’t have to be formal. Saying “we’re basically married” or “I consider you my spouse” can be enough. A vague plan to marry someday does not count.
The second is holding out as a married couple, meaning you present yourselves as spouses to the people around you. Introducing each other as “my husband” or “my wife,” filing joint tax returns, using the same last name, and listing each other as a spouse on insurance or loan forms all count.
The third is cohabitation that resembles a marriage, with shared finances and intertwined domestic life. Owning property jointly, maintaining joint bank accounts, and naming each other as beneficiaries on retirement or life insurance accounts all build the picture. No single item makes a marriage, but the accumulation can.
How to Keep Your Status Single Day to Day
Avoiding a common law marriage is a matter of systematically contradicting each of those three elements. The individual habits are small. Consistency is what carries them.
Paperwork and Finances
Mark your status as “single” on every form that asks, every time. File separate federal and state tax returns. Keep your own bank accounts and credit cards. If you share household expenses, fund a joint account with equal contributions rather than merging all your money. Keep retirement accounts in your own name, and name beneficiaries deliberately. Listing a partner as a beneficiary is not fatal on its own, but combined with other spousal behaviors it strengthens a claim that you were married.
How You Talk About the Relationship
Do not call your partner your husband, wife, or spouse. Use “partner,” “boyfriend,” “girlfriend,” or their name. This matters in casual conversation, on social media, and on paperwork. If friends or relatives introduce you as a married couple, correct them. It feels awkward. A community reputation as a married couple is exactly what “holding out” means, and courts take testimony from friends and neighbors seriously.
Property and Leases
When you sign a lease or buy property together, make sure the paperwork treats you as individuals. On a deed, “tenants in common” means each person owns a distinct share that does not automatically pass to the other at death. “Joint tenants with right of survivorship” is how married couples typically hold property and can be used as evidence of a marital relationship. On a lease, appear as separate co-tenants rather than as a household unit.
Medical and Financial Proxies
Unmarried partners often want to be able to make decisions for each other in an emergency. You can set that up without creating evidence of a marriage. Use a healthcare power of attorney to name your partner as your “health care agent,” and a durable financial power of attorney for money matters. The documents should identify your partner by name and role, not as a spouse. These give you the practical protections of marriage without the legal status.
Sign a Cohabitation Agreement
The single most effective step is a cohabitation agreement, a written contract between the two of you that documents your intent to remain unmarried. If a common law marriage claim is ever raised, this document is direct, dated evidence against the “agreement to be married” element every state requires.
The most important clause is a clear statement that neither partner considers the relationship a marriage and neither intends to be married to the other, regardless of how long you live together. From there, a solid cohabitation agreement typically covers:
- Property ownership, including who owns what at signing and how assets acquired during the relationship will be treated. The default should be that each person’s income and purchases remain separate.
- Shared expenses, including how rent, utilities, and groceries will be split, and whether contributions toward the other person’s property create any ownership interest.
- Separation terms, covering shared belongings, a joint lease, and co-owned pets if the relationship ends.
- Debt responsibility, with a statement that each partner is responsible for their own debts.
To hold up, the agreement needs to be in writing and signed voluntarily by both of you. Notarization adds proof that the signatures are genuine. The strongest version has each partner consult their own attorney before signing, which makes it much harder for either side to later claim they did not understand the terms or felt pressured. Courts generally enforce these contracts when both parties entered freely and the terms are lawful.
What’s at Stake If You Get It Wrong
A common law marriage is a real marriage. You cannot end it by moving apart or by changing your mind. Ending it requires the same divorce process as any ceremonial marriage, including property division and potentially spousal support.
If you are in an unresolved common law marriage and marry someone else, that second marriage can be void, and some jurisdictions treat it as bigamy. Anyone who suspects a past relationship might have qualified as a common law marriage should speak to a family law attorney before entering a new one.
Taxes change too. The IRS expects a validly common law married couple to file as “married filing jointly” or “married filing separately,” and filing single is filing a false return, even after a move to a non-recognizing state.3Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Ruling 2013-17
Benefits and inheritance follow the same logic. A surviving common law spouse can claim Social Security survivor benefits, with the agency applying the law of the state where the couple lived.4Social Security Administration. GN 00305.075 State Laws on Validity of Common-Law Non-Ceremonial Marriages If a partner dies without a will, the surviving common law spouse may have a statutory claim to part of the estate, and a court can override an informal plan to leave assets elsewhere based on spousal inheritance rights. These are the outcomes the prevention steps are designed to keep off the table.