Establishing Paternity in Texas

A biological father in Texas has no enforceable rights and no enforceable duties until the law recognizes him as the legal father. Generally, no court can order him to pay child support or award him a possession schedule, because there is no legal parent for either order to attach to. Paternity is the gate, and the Uniform Parentage Act, chapter 160 of the Texas Family Code, controls how it opens.

Section 160.201(b) lists five ways the father-child relationship comes into existence. Adoption and a husband's consent to assisted reproduction are subjects of their own. The rest are this guide's three routes: an unrebutted presumption of paternity, an effective acknowledgment, and an adjudication by a court.

What changes once the law recognizes a father

Everything downstream of parenthood. A legal father can be ordered to pay child support under the guideline formula covered in how child support is calculated. He can be named a conservator and given court-ordered time. The paternity case itself does not wait for a final order: section 160.624 provides for temporary child support, and a temporary order may include possession or access.

The consequences reach beyond the Family Code as well. Inheritance from the father, and dependent or survivor benefits that flow through him, generally turn on the legal relationship, not on biology alone. What happens after recognition, from conservatorship to enforcement, is the territory of the rest of the Texas family law guides.

Route one: the presumption of paternity

For married parents, the law usually answers the question before anyone asks it. Under section 160.204(a), a man is presumed to be the father if he is married to the mother and the child is born during the marriage, or if the child is born before the 301st day after the marriage ends by death, annulment, declaration of invalidity, or divorce. An invalid marriage counts too if entered in apparent compliance with law. A man who marries the mother after the birth, in apparent compliance with law, can be presumed the father too, if he voluntarily asserted his paternity in a record filed with the vital statistics unit, by being voluntarily named as father on the birth certificate, or by promising in a record to support the child as his own.

One presumption has nothing to do with marriage. Under section 160.204(a)(5), a man is presumed to be the father if, during the first two years of the child's life, he continuously resided in the household in which the child resided and represented to others that the child was his own. Texas lawyers call this holding out. A man who never married the mother and never signed anything can thus be a presumed father by conduct.

A presumption is a legal status, not a guess. Section 160.204(b) allows it to be rebutted in only two ways: an adjudication under subchapter G, or the filing of a valid denial of paternity by the presumed father together with another person's valid acknowledgment of paternity.

Route two: the acknowledgment of paternity

For unmarried parents who agree, the state provides a form instead of a lawsuit. Under section 160.301, the mother and a man claiming to be the biological father may sign an acknowledgment of paternity, usually called an AOP, with the intent to establish the man's paternity. Section 160.304 allows it to be signed before the child is born, and an acknowledgment signed by a minor parent is valid if it otherwise complies with the chapter.

The document's effect is the point to take seriously. Under section 160.305(a), a valid acknowledgment filed with the vital statistics unit is the equivalent of an adjudication of paternity and confers on the acknowledged father all rights and duties of a parent. The form must say so on its face: section 160.302 requires it to state that the signatories understand it is the equivalent of a judicial adjudication and that a challenge is permitted only under limited circumstances.

1. Both parents sign the prescribed form

   The vital statistics unit prescribes the form under section 160.312. Both sign under penalty of perjury, stating whether the child has a presumed father, whether another man is an acknowledged or adjudicated father, and whether genetic testing was performed.

2. If another man is the presumed father, he signs a denial

   Section 160.303 lets a presumed father sign a denial of his paternity. When both documents are necessary, section 160.304(a) makes neither valid until both are filed. An acknowledgment that falsely denies the existence of a presumed father is void under section 160.302(b).

3. File with the vital statistics unit, free of charge

   Section 160.306 bars the state from charging a fee to file an acknowledgment, a denial, or a rescission of either.

4. The acknowledgment takes effect

   Under section 160.304(c), it takes effect on the date of the child's birth or the date of filing, whichever occurs later. From that moment the man is the legal father.

Undoing an acknowledgment

The window to change your mind is short. Under section 160.307(a), a signatory may rescind an acknowledgment or denial only before the earlier of two dates: the 60th day after the document's effective date, or the date a court proceeding relating to the child, including a child support proceeding, is initiated with the signatory as a party. Rescission is a filing, not a lawsuit: the signatory files a completed rescission form with the vital statistics unit, declaring under penalty of perjury that no proceeding affecting the child has been held, that copies went by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, to the other signatories, and that a copy went by certified or registered mail to the Title IV-D agency if a signatory receives its services.

After the rescission period passes, the ground narrows to almost nothing. Section 160.308 permits a signatory to challenge the acknowledgment only for fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact, and puts the burden of proof on the challenger. Under section 160.308(d), genetic test results that do not rebuttably identify the signatory as the father count as a material mistake of fact. Even that door closes eventually: once a court issues an order affecting the child, including a support order, section 160.308(c) bars any collateral attack on the acknowledgment. A challenge does not pause fatherhood either: except for good cause, section 160.309(c) keeps the signatory's responsibilities in force while the case is pending, child support included.

Route three: adjudication in court

When the parents do not agree, or someone else needs the question answered, paternity is decided in a civil suit under subchapter G of chapter 160. Section 160.602 gives standing to the child, the mother, a man whose paternity is to be adjudicated, the support enforcement agency or another authorized government agency, an authorized adoption or child-placing agency, an intended parent, and certain representatives and relatives. Section 160.603 makes the mother and the man whose paternity is at issue necessary parties to the suit. And section 160.632 strips out one familiar courtroom feature: paternity is decided by the judge, without a jury.

Timing turns on whether the child already has a legal or presumed father. If the child has no presumed, acknowledged, or adjudicated father, section 160.606 sets no deadline at all: the suit may be brought at any time, even after the child becomes an adult, though then only the adult child may bring it. If the child has a presumed father, section 160.607 requires a proceeding brought by the presumed father, the mother, or another individual to be commenced not later than the fourth anniversary of the child's birth. Two exceptions keep the door open past that: the court may hear the case at any time if the presumed father and the mother neither lived together nor had sexual intercourse during the probable time of conception, or if the presumed father was misled into believing he was the biological father.

Inside the suit, genetic testing does the deciding. Under section 160.631, the paternity of a child with a presumed, acknowledged, or adjudicated father may be disproved only by admissible genetic test results, and a man rebuttably identified as the father by testing shall be adjudicated the father unless other test results rebut the finding. The court holds one power to refuse the science: under section 160.608 it may deny a motion for testing of a presumed father where a party's conduct estops the denial of parentage and disproving the relationship would be inequitable, weighing the child's best interest and resting the denial on clear and convincing evidence. Denial settles the outcome: the court then adjudicates the presumed father as the father.

The judgment that ends the case, described in section 160.636, names the child, adjudicates whether the man is the parent, and can carry the practical relief that made the suit worth filing: retroactive child support under the chapter 154 guidelines, an equitable share of the mother's and the child's prenatal and postnatal health care expenses, and an amended birth record. Chapter 160 rewards reading in the original, so every section named here links to the official text, the sourcing rule that holds across our guides to Texas law.