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Parentage guide

Northwest Justice Project

If you’re not married to (or in a registered domestic partnership with) your child’s other parent, you may not have a legal relationship to the child (called legal parentage). Learn how and why to establish who is and isn’t a legal parent. There are ways to do this with or without going to court.

Contents

  1. Why establish parentage
  2. Childbirth
  3. Marriage
  4. Holding out
  5. Acknowledgment of Parentage
  6. Parentage by court order
  7. Genetic testing
  8. Parenting plan
  9. Child support
  10. De facto parentage
  11. Jurisdiction
  12. Other state decided
  13. Deny, cancel, or challenge
  14. Parentage Order wrong
  15. Sexual assault
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1. Why establish parentage

If you and your child’s other parent aren’t married and you haven’t otherwise taken steps to establish parentage of the child, and everything is fine between you, you might wonder why you’d need to “make it legal.” There are many reasons to establish parentage. This isn’t a complete list:

  • You want a parenting plan or custody order: a court order stating whom the child will live with, how much time they’ll spend with another parent, and who will make important decisions about the child. You must establish parentage for both parents to have equal rights to ask for time with and decision-making for the child.
  • You want to get child support or make sure the child has the right to inherit from both parents.
  • You want it to be clear that your child doesn’t have a legal relationship with someone. Example: You’ve been separated from your spouse or domestic partner for several years without divorcing. In the meantime, you’ve had a child with someone else. Your spouse or domestic partner isn’t the child’s biological parent, but they're legally a parent unless you establish parentage with someone else.
  • You're worried that the birth parent might take the child and deny you contact. You currently don’t have any legal rights to the child that would allow you to insist on contact.
  • You want to travel outside the U.S. with the child.
  • You want to change the child’s last name.

This guide discusses the different ways to establish parentage. If you’ve established parentage for a child in the distant past, you should know that the state Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) has changed over time. The legal rules you thought you knew might be different now.

2. Childbirth